Scott Loftesness

January 25, 2009

Comfort Food: Baked Penne with Meat, Mushrooms and Cheese

This Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle’s Wine section carried the latest “Pairings” column by Lynne Char Bennett titled “Dry Creek Zinfandel makes a penne-wise partner“. Zinfandel is among our favorite red wines (along with Syrah and Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa appellation) – so the article caught my eye.

Included in Bennett’s column was a recipe for “Baked Penne with Meat & Mushroom Sauce” which we made – with minor variations – tonight.

Her recipe minimizes some of the fat that might otherwise be present – we used 97% lean ground beef, for example, when we cooked it and the mushrooms help extend the flavor along with the herbs that simmer into such a flavorful sauce.

Turns out this recipe was a real family crowd pleaser – we all really liked it, helped ourselves to a couple of servings, etc. We served it along with a simple Caesar salad – yummy! We paired a Ridge 2006 Dusi Ranch Zinfandel with the penne – a great combination!

We’ll certainly be making the baked penne again – and are already looking forward to some left overs tomorrow night!

January 17, 2009December 5, 2019

Apple Cider Braised Chicken

A friend said he was making braised chicken for a family get together tonight – which naturally got me interested in exploring recipes for braised chicken!

I came across one – a modified Food & Wine recipe – at The Kitchen Sink. I’ve always loved apple cider – and this one looked interesting. So, we made our own version earlier this evening and really loved all of its flavors. We paired the chicken with some sauteed vegetables with a splash of balsamic vinegar and fresh lime juice – yum!

Here’s our version of Apple Cider Braised Chicken. Our version uses skinless chicken (lower fat, healthier!) along with simplified ingredients (a whole bottle of Martinelli’s cider, a full 32-oz package of free range chicken stock, etc.). It’s a great treat for a Saturday dinner at home or a Sunday afternoon with friends and family. Serves 4 as is – add a couple more chicken pieces to serve 6.

Ingredients

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4 half breasts)
2 skinless chicken thighs
1 large onion (sweet/Spanish), thinly sliced
4-6 sage leaves
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 bottle (25.4 oz) Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider or 2-3/4 cups apple cider
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
4 cups organic free-range chicken stock
1 Tbsp chopped Italian parsley

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Heat olive oil in large skillet. Season chicken with salt, pepper and smoked paprika, add to skillet and cook over medium heat about 7 minutes. Turn and cook another 4 minutes longer. Transfer chicken to a platter for now.
Add onions to the skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened – about 5 minutes.
Add sage, bay leaves, and crushed red pepper to the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are golden – about 5 minutes.
Add the apple cider and simmer over moderately high heat for about 25 minutes until cider is significantly reduced and syrupy.
Add the apple cider vinegar and simmer for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the chicken stock and chopped parsley to a French oven. Transfer the onion sauce to the French oven, arrange the chicken in the sauce – ensuring its covered by sauce.

Set the French oven, uncovered, in the oven and reduce the heat to 350 degrees. Roast the chicken for 50-60 minutes until cooked through.
Transfer the chicken to a platter, cover with foil.
Set the French oven over high heat on the stove and boil the sauce until the liquid is reduced – about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and pour into a serving dish to serve with the chicken.

Enjoy the flavors!

Note: about 25 minutes before the chicken was ready to come out of the oven, we sauteed a mix of fresh vegetables with chopped garlic in olive oil and added a couple of splashes of balsamic vinegar and fresh lime juice at the end.

January 2, 2009December 5, 2019

A Different Take on Hamersley’s Roast Chicken Recipe

Yesterday, for our New Year’s Day dinner, we tried a different take on Hamersley’s Roast Chicken recipe – one of our all time winter favorites. If you’re ever in Boston, you just have to go get the real thing at Hamersley’s Bistro!

For years, we’ve been making this dish based upon an older version of the recipe that we had found in Fine Cooking magazine almost 10 years ago. We came across this new recipe on the Relish web site and decided to try it instead.

The primary difference is in the marinade – with the new version including parsley and not including lemon juice. We made and applied the marinade ahead of time and let the chicken rest in the refrigerator for about 5 hours before starting cooking.

The result? Clearly a very moist, tasty chicken – with a different flavor in the skin crust from the parsley. The juices – including about ten roasted and crushed garlic cloves along with added lemon juice – added a final touch of flavor. We cooked the chicken with onions and roast potatoes along with roasting some tomatoes and green beans for sides.

All in all, it was a delightful winter meal on a cool and grey New Year’s Day afternoon.

December 26, 2008December 5, 2019

Aunt Maxine’s Strawberry-Blueberry Spinach Salad

We had this special – and delicious – Strawberry-Blueberry Spinach Salad with our ham and tri-tips on Christmas Eve this year. The combination of flavors is just amazing! This is a delicious and easy to make spinach salad that everyone will enjoy.

Salad Ingredients

1 (6-oz.) package of baby spinach
8 oz. (1-1/2 cups) fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced in half
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1 medium cucumber, thinly sliced
1/4 cup red onion, sliced in thin wedges
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Dressing Ingredients

2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. poppy seed

Directions

Mix dressing ingredients until well blended. If necessary, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
In large salad bowl, mix and toss the salad ingredients.
When ready to serve, pour dressing over salad to lightly coat.

Enjoy!

December 25, 2008September 24, 2026

Christmas Day Roast Pork Loin with Apples/Shallots

For years, we’ve enjoyed a roast pork loin recipe titled “Roast pork loin with roasted apple compote” that was originally published in Barbara Kafka‘s cookbook “Roasting-A Simple Art“.

Much of Kafka’s book involves roasting at high heat – typically 500 degrees – and her recipe of coating the pork loin in mustard, salt and pepper at the start and then roasting with apples at that high temperature has always worked out well for us. Sometimes (depending upon how clean your oven is), roasting at that high a temperature can result in some smoking – so it takes some care.

On this Christmas Day, though, we’re trying some variations – something a bit different.

First, I decided to try brining the pork loin. Not a full 24-hours worth – because, in this case, I decided to brine it at about noon today – so it’ll only have about 5 hours of brining.

Brining is easy – start with a mixture of something like 2/3 cup of salt combined with 2/3 cup of sugar in steaming hot water (we have one of those faucet water heaters – so that’s easy!) along with some pepper. Cool it down (adding ice and some cold water seems to do that nicely) before putting the brine and the pork loin into the plastic freezer bag and putting everything into the refrigerator for a few hours.

Next, I decided to brown the pork loin roast before putting it into the oven. I like the bits of extra flavor that browning meat seems to generate. By browning the roast in our Le Creuset 6-3/4 Quart French Oven, we can brown the meat and roast it in the same pot, minimizing cleanup. After browning and removing the roast, the apples, and shallots are placed into the pot with the roast then placed on top. Cover and into the oven it goes.

We just finished our Christmas dinner – and this dish was a hit! The pork, even with just a few hours of brining, was moist and not dry. The pork was ready earlier – only needing an additional 5 minutes after removing the top from the pot. We let it rest the full 15 minutes before carving – and it was just great. The apple/shallots/mustard/cream compote is the perfect semi-sweet complement to the pork!

Ingredients

Brine: 2/3 cup kosher salt, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp pepper
2-1/2 to 3 lb pork loin roast – tied with string
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 tart apples (Granny Smith, etc.), halved
4 shallots, peeled
1-2 sprigs rosemary
1 bay leaf
1/3 cup cream
1-1/2 Tbsp mustard

Directions

Prepare the brine by mixing sugar and salt with 1 cup of piping hot water. Add pepper. Add ice cubes and 2-3 cups additional water to cool down brine. Place pork loin roast in 1 gallon freezer bag, fill with brine mixture, and seal bag. Place bag in bowl and place into refrigerator until time to cook (no more than 24 hours).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Remove roast from brine and pat dry all around. Season with salt and pepper (or your favorite rub).
Place French Oven on high heat. Add olive oil, heat until shimmering. Sear the pork loin on all sides. Remove from heat and remove roast to plate.
Place the three halved apples cut side down into French Oven along with the shallots, rosemary and bay leaf. Place the roast on top of the apple mixture, cover the pot and place into the pre-heated oven.
Roast in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove the lid and continue roasting until the roast’s internal temperature reaches 140 degrees – perhaps 10-15 minutes more.
Remove French Oven from oven, remove roast to cutting board, cover roast with aluminum foil and let rest for 15 minutes.
Scoop out the apples and shallots into serving bowl. Deglaze the French Oven with a bit of white wine or brandy and add the apples back into the pot. Mix in the cream and the mustard and season to taste.
Carve the pork loin roast and serve with the apples/shallots compote.

Originally posted December 25, 2008.

December 21, 2008December 24, 2023

Christmas Eve Oven-Roasted Tri-Tip Dinner

Update (12/18/19): I’ve updated our tri-tip recipe to use a slow-roasting technique that I find delivers a more tender and flavorful roast. Here’s the updated recipe.

Merry Christmas 2024! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and that our recipes helps make it tasty and healthy!

We’ll be hosting Christmas Eve again at our house this year – and we’re handling the just main courses while the rest of the family is bringing salads, side dishes, and desserts!

Last year, we were about to head for Hawaii for another family reunion – and didn’t cook anything! But, this year, we’re back with our favorites again: a combination of honey-baked ham along with our easy Lazy-S easy oven-roasted tri-tips.

We first shared our approach to this Christmas Eve menu back in 2005 – and we’ll be following the same approach this year. The honey-baked ham is basically just a warm up exercise – nothing complicated about preparing it.

For the tri-tips, we’ll have one plain (unmarinated) tri-tip along with a couple of marinated tri-tips. Our favorite local meat market (Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley) highly recommends their Zinfandel-marinated tri-tips – so we’ll be giving them a try this year. But, the unmarinated version – with just lots of salt and pepper several hours ahead of roasting – is pretty special too!

See the directions here for how we like to prepare the tri-tips (in the morning) and then cook them (in the late afternoon)!

Yum! And, Merry Christmas!

November 30, 2008December 5, 2019

Scott’s Less Famous But Still Tasty Homemade Turkey Noodle Soup

It’s late on Thanksgiving weekend (back to work tomorrow – ugh!) and time to use up some of those turkey leftovers making homemade turkey noodle soup.

Unlike us, braver souls actually make turkey stock from the bird’s carcass on Thanksgiving evening (frankly, we were falling asleep after dinner and struggled to get just some of the dishes cleaned up that night!). But, if you’re looking for that real turkey noodle soup make from real homemade turkey stock, be sure to checkout Elise’s Mom’s Turkey Soup!

In our case, we took the easy way, just slightly modifying our Scott’s Famous Homemade Chicken Soup with Pasta recipe by replacing the chicken with turkey.

In our just made Sunday afternoon version, we also tossed in some left over green beans and sauteed some special cremini mushrooms that we also had left over from the Thanksgiving feast. They all went into the pot.

We also used rotini pasta again – rotini is turning into our favorite pasta in soup for its ability to fit easily into a soup spoon when eating! So much easier to eat than real noodles!

So, that’s it. Our “less famous”, easy homemade turkey noodle soup. Still delicious – and very helpful in cleaning out some of the refrigerated leftovers from Thanksgiving!

November 15, 2008December 5, 2019

Scott’s Famous Homemade Chicken Soup with Pasta

This year, as the cool fall weather has moved in and the daylight is fading faster, we’ve been experimenting with various chicken soup recipes to find one that really “hits the spot.” There is something special about chicken soup – for both health and attitude! After several tries and variations, we think this one is just about perfect – and now it’s famous!

It’s a great Saturday or Sunday late afternoon treat to make in the fall and winter months. Hope you enjoy it – let us know by posting a comment!

To make it easy, you can purchase the key ingredients from Trader Joe’s and make relatively quick work out of putting the soup together. Plan on 35-40 minutes or so to get this soup ready – with some additional time afterwards to let the soup’s temperature cool down enough for eating.

Ingredients

1 carton of Trader Joe’s Mirapoix (14.5 oz of diced carrots, onions, celery)
1/2 package of Trader Joe’s Diced Onions (5 oz of 10 oz package)
10 oz package of cremini mushrooms
48 oz of Trader Joe’s organic free range chicken broth (1 + 1/2 32 oz. cartons)
12 oz of diced chicken breast (either prepackaged or cooked chicken tenders)
8 oz cooked of your favorite small pasta (we cook a 1 lb. package of
pasta – put half into the soup and save the other half for pasta salad, etc.)
1 Tbsp Herbes de Provence
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 cup non-fat milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Mini-saltine crackers to accompany

Method

Bring a large pot filled with water and 1 Tbsp salt to a boil over high heat. Add pasta and cook for recommended duration – in parallel with the steps below. Strain and set aside.
In another large pot (this one ends up holding the soup!), melt 1-1/2 Tbsp butter and mix with 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat.
Add the Mirapoix and the diced onions. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until soft (10-15 minutes)
With the Mirapoix and diced onions are cooking, in a 10-inch fry pan, melt 1-1/2 Tbsp butter and mix with 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp minced garlic.
Add the mushrooms to the fry pan and sauté over medium heat for 8-10 minutes – then add mushrooms to large pot.
When the Mirapoix, onions and mushrooms are done, stir in the Herbes de Provence and the flour.
Add the chicken broth, diced chicken, garlic powder and onion powder. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
Cover and simmer for 10 minutes then reduce heat to low. Add the milk, lemon juice, and cooked pasta. Bring back up to a simmer for a final 5-10 mins.
Serve in soup bowls with mini-saltine crackers. Suggestion – save your tongue: wait at least 5 minutes after serving before tasting!

Added: November 15, 2008 – Menlo Park, California

December 29, 2007December 5, 2019

Hawaiian Style Cafe – Hawaii’s Kona Coast

If you’re visiting the Kona coast on the big island of Hawaii, you might enjoy having breakfast or lunch at the Hawaiian Style Cafe. Way too much food, way too cheap, but so much fun! Escape the resorts and eat with the locals! Bring a big appetite and plan to skip a meal! Just be sure to get there before closing – 1:30 PM – and bring cash (no plastic accepted!). While you’re driving up to Waimea, get in the Big Island mood with KAPA Radio on 99.1 FM.

December 16, 2007December 5, 2019

Winter All-Afternoon Onion Soup

istock_000001245149xsmall Out our way, the fall was warm and sunny this year – with the shortening days eventually delivering on cooler days and cold nights only over the last week or two.

We love to make onion soup on cool days like this – see my earlier “Scott’s Favorite French Onion Soup” recipe for one of our favorite recipes. The problem with that recipe is that it’s one of those “stand over the stove and stir” recipes – and, if you get a bit impatient and over eager with the heat, you’ll subtly char the onions and have a bitter result. It’s frustrating – you’re looking for a great soup but it just takes a bit longer than it should.

A recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated included a new “Best French Onion Soup” recipe that took a new and different approach – what I call an “all-afternoon” recipe. The workload is light at the beginning – after peeling/slicing the onions. It involves almost 3 hours of oven roasting of the onions – and then about 30 minutes of repeated deglazing at the end to finish it up. If you’re doing other things in or near the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, this recipe delivers a great result. You need to not be in a hurry, working on other things, and just enjoying the day! We’ve made this recipe a couple of times recently – here’s our adaptation.

Ingredients

4 lbs yellow onions, sliced
into 1/4 inch slices

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup dry Sherry

2+ cups water

4 cups chicken broth

2 cups beef broth

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp dried thyme

Kosher salt, fresh ground
pepper to taste

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Using a large Dutch oven, spray the inside with non-stick cooking spray. (We use a La Cruset 5 qt oval French oven and it’s worked fine – although Cook’s Illustrated recommends at least a 7 qt.)
Place the butter in the Dutch oven along with all of the sliced onions and 1 tsp salt. Cover and cook in the oven for 1 hour.
Remove from oven, stir, and return to oven for 1 hour.
Remove from oven, stir, and return to oven for 45 minutes.
Remove from oven and place on stove over medium-high heat. Scape the sides and bottom of the pot while the onions brown further for 15-20 minutes.
Add 1/4 cup water to deglaze, scrape the bottom and sides. When the water has boiled off, repeat two more times. This repeated deglazing takes 20-25 minutes total.
Add the 1/2 cup dry Sherry and stir while letting it evaporate (4-5 mins).
Add the 4 cups chicken broth, 2 cups beef broth, 2 cups of water, the bay leaf, and the dried thyme.
Bring the heat up to high, when simmering, reduce to low, cover and let simmer for at least 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf, season with salt and pepper to taste.

(Added: December 16, 2007 – Menlo Park, California)