Pork Tenderloin with Herbed Mustard Potatoes or Idle Hands are the Devil's Something or Other....

Butterballs!
It is I (or we!) the triumphant!  Returning to you from an abnormally long hiatus.  Turns out this adulting thing can kind of take over your life and make you forget things like your hopes and dreams.

It has come to my attention that there is a lady (I assume a lady???) who has (I shit you not) adopted a cat, named it Butters (maybe, at least that's this facsimile's stage name), and purchased the domain name for Cooking with Butters.  It's not me.  I haven't the slightest how someone who apparently has so much web-based knowledge (her page is admittedly nice looking, though unattended for the last year or so...) could not be creative enough to come up with her own concept, but, alas- there are now two "Cooking with Butters" out in the universe.  To be fair, I myself have not been as attentive to this page as I could have been over the last two years or so, so I suppose I should be flattered that my concept was apparently so appealing as to be stolen by someone else.

I'm working hard to get back into things that have given me a lot of joy over the years, and learning to balance my work life (which in itself obviously gives me lots and lots of joy!) with my personal life and my numerous hobbies that have frankly become more and more neglected as I come home more and more exhausted.  I'm starting with my blog, and my endeavors into food in general!

As I take this time to re-explore my own interests, it has become abundantly clear that I am passionate about meat (*crickets chirp*).  Between my salmon smoking (stay tuned as we build a new smoker this summer- I've officially run two charcoal grills right smack into the ground.  On a related note, if anyone has access to a two drawer file cabinet in need of a home, hit me up!), and my somewhat time-consuming and abrasive habit of re-butchering anything that I purchase at the grocery store, I'm just truly interested in carnage in general.

Thankfully, grilling season is finally upon us!  We've had an unforgivably long and disgusting winter during which it was so horribly cold and wet, we hardly left the house at all, and the BBQ, at a whopping 50 feet from the back door, could've just as easily been in Siberia, so it's been a minute since we've really just toasted the crap out of anything.  The last week it's finally warmed up enough to venture one furry (yep) leg out from the comfort of my love seat, so I took the opportunity on Tuesday to make this delightful pork tenderloin.

Speaking of re-butchering, these $4 pork tenderloins from Walmart (yes, you get what you pay for) are often somewhat of a crapshoot.  This one was absolutely perfect!  Just the right amount of fat cap, two pounds of perfect tenderloin.  You'll need:

2 lb. pork tenderloin
Italian seasoning
Smoked paprika
Salt and cracked black pepper
Olive oil

For the herbed potatoes:
2 cans of whole new potatoes
2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning
Olive oil
Salt and cracked black pepper
1 and 1/2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
Grillin' skillet (or similar thingy)

Start by coating the tenderloin in the olive oil, then liberally rub with the Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and paprika (light on the paprika).  Heat your grill to 450 degrees, clean grates and rub with olive oil.  Sear each side of the tenderloin, then turn heat down to 325, and take off of direct heat, leave for 25 minutes, turning halfway through, or until meat has reached an internal temp of 145 degrees.

For the potatoes:  Drain liquid from cans, put potatoes in bowl, coat liberally with seasoning and olive oil (reserve mustard for later).  Toss until they are coated evenly.  Place in grill pan over high heat, stir occasionally until they develop a brown crust on both sides.  Remove from heat, place potatoes in bowl, add mustard to bowl, and toss until the potatoes are coated.

I don't have a finished product photo- we gobbled it up way too fast, but here is a prep pic, complete with a glass of rose, my grilling beverage of choice as of late.

In closing, it's good to be back, my lovelies!  Stay tuned for all sorts of delightful culinary hijinx as the cat takes back the internet!

XOXO

Aye Carumba! Protein explosion Mexi-Casserole!

Howdy y'all, Butterballs!

Holy page views, Batman!  Thanks for the love!  You inspire me to continue, and share the love that is the Raffety family kitchen!  I am also inspired by the fact that Matt is insisting on cooking this evening (twist my arm...), and that I stocked up on a WHOLE bunch of Oak Leaf Cabernet at Walmart the other day.  Fun fact: Did you know that the Two Buck (or closer to 3 bucks anymore...) Chuck people make Oak Leaf ($3.77, but still an acceptable level of cheap for the professionals among us...)?  This is mostly a "fun" fact because Charles Shaw is a completely legit, weeknight wine, so buying 8-10 bottles of Oak Leaf on payday is 100% socially acceptable, and maybe you can pass as a connoisseur having a cost-effective party instead of just tired and cheap and probably drinking this in the company of your cat.  At our local Walmart, they've also started wrapping each individual bottle of wine in a wine shaped paper bag.  For those of us that need to haul 10 bottles out to where we parked our car for carpool going on 12 hours ago, this is clearly a very considerate gesture. 

In Missoula at the moment, it is capital W Winter, with all caps SNOW.  Matt and I are the owners of the world's most useless snow shovel.  It is so useless, that if it snows, I am far more likely to choose to use our broom (formerly known as house broom), to SWEEP AWAY all 8 inches of snow than I am to use this shovel.  Matt recently informed me that "it works way better" if you flip it over, and shovel upside down.  Our neighbors already think that we are completely inept 12 year olds (in fact most 12 year olds are probably intelligent enough to abandon a shovel this useless...), so making a show of shoveling upside down would only further cement this perception into their minds.  Long story short, I moved all of our snow off of our hard outdoor surfaces today using an O'Cedar floor broom, then cursed and swore at our shovel, all while still in my dress from taking our 4th graders to the orchestra today (obviously this seems counter-intuitive... don't worry, I changed my shoes).

After you've already had your fill of shoulder toning shoveling, and your dog's belly is two inches below the surface of the snow, making a good walk somewhat of a moot point, what you really need is more protein than a professional body builder consumes in a week.  I have a history of intolerance for Mexican-themed pasta... I can't rationalize it per se, maybe it's my love of pasta combined with mozzarella, who knows?  I scan Pinterest and see a plethora of recipes for lasagna rolls smothered in enchilada sauce and think... well, no thanks.  You could use orzo, or another small pasta as a substitute for the quinoa, because... variety is the spice of life?  Sure.  I just always feel like quinoa is rice's exotic Spanish cousin, and casserole is pasta's cozy Italian bestie, so naturally the two should meet.  Lord knows I love me some CHEESY, CHEEESSSSYYYY casserole.

You will need:
1 and 3/4 to 2 cups uncooked quinoa (you can boil this in equal parts water til all the water absorbs)
2 chicken breasts, seasoned with taco seasoning (another weeknight shortcut, you can sub your own blend, cumin, garlic and salt are most important), cooked through and cubed
1 medium can tomatoes, chilies and onions mixed
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped and browned in olive oil
1 can black beans, drained
1 cup (or more, YOLO, right?  P.S. This is the correct use of YOLO, or "You Only Live Once", as opposed to, "Drank 12 Four Locos and lit my porch on fire today... made s'mores, YOLOOOO!!!) Mexican blend cheese
Parley
Taco Seasoning
Pepper
Chili Flakes (to taste, 'mo spicey, 'mo betta in my book...)
One swirl of Sriracha (because why not?) all around the pan (of course that's a measurement, who asked you?)

Once you've boiled the quinoa and cooked the chicken and onion, you can mix up all the ingredients, minus the cheese in a large pan.  Heat until most of the tomato juice has reduced.  Spoon into medium, round baking dish, cover with cheese, and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until cheese starts to bubble and brown slightly.  Serve with guacamole, see http://cookingwithbutters.blogspot.com/2011/10/hooray-for-fiber.html for my recipe!  Matt also likes a dollop of sour cream.

I forgot to take a picture, but the thing about pictures of casserole is that they just look like dishes with cheese on top, so here's a picture of Dexter wrapped in Matt's apron:

As always, love and best fishes!  Mwah!

Tis the Season for Peachy "Quin" Jambalaya!!!!!

Howdy Butterballs!
Long time no eat!  Turns out that teaching keeps you a little bit busy, but don't feel singled out!  Not only have I not cooked for you in months, I haven't cooked for the husband or myself either.  When you spend all your time at work or passed out in exhaustion on the couch, you cook things like spaghetti sauce, tacos, spaghetti sauce, or McDonald's.  The beauty of all of these things is that they all pair beautifully with cheap red wine.  This laziness also has a tendency to bleed over into weekend days.  I find that if I can't put it in the Crockpot with wine, garlic and an onion and expect reasonably tasty results, I will make Papa John's (which would not be so bad, except I would rather pay the $3 delivery fee than walk the block and a half from my house to their storefront to pick it up). 

With the holiday season upon us, music teachers find themselves faced with an additional seasonal task of preparing and executing the annual holiday program.  As this is the very first program I will be preparing entirely on my own, I find myself flying into a logistical obstacle course.  I am so lucky to have the amazing students that I do.  They are enthusiastic, adorable and eager to show off their seasoned woodblock skills, and I am already exhausted and we are still 10 days out.  The lack of cooking going on in my house has also resulted in a complete lack of left-overs for lunching purposes.  Luckily my room has a closet that I keep filled to the brim with goldfish crackers, fruit and bags of popcorn, or I would probably be SOL, and no, not a needle pulling thread (Ha!  10 points for a superfluous Sound of Music joke... anyone?).  I recently came to the conclusion that this will probably not improve anytime soon, so I made the addition of dried fruit, little baby hummus cups from Costco and these super fancy quinoa chips!  Hopefully this will prevent me from developing rickets. 

In the spirit of this busy holiday season, I bring you good tidings of all things spicy.  As we go deeper into the wrapping paper, plastic tree and cookie abyss, I find that one more hearty stew or pot roast will likely push me over the edge.  I love a good bourguignon as much as the next American, but I also find more and more everyday that cooking with wine is nice, but makes me wish there was more wine left for me when I am finished (greedy, greedy beef shank...).  This fact coupled with the feeling of deep and utter dread I felt upon coming home faced with the prospect of yet another dinner made out of some nondescript animal's "burger" sparked within me a rebellious revolution.  So naturally, I turned to burger's sassy porcine cousin, sausage!  I also was fortunate enough to have in my possession, one bag of frozen jumbo shrimp.  Pasta was out, so I settled on our Costco tub of quinoa.  Even I was surprised with how good this turned out, considering that I had no vegetables to speak of and was feeling selfish about my cooking "liquid".

To make my faux jambalaya you will need:
1 lb fresh or frozen shrimp, jumbo works best (if you choose frozen, allow extra reducing time for the extra water the ice will add to your sauce)
1 lb pork sausage
1 small onion
1 12 oz can diced tomatoes (I prefer no salt added)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine (yep, I thought the sausage looked thirsty too...)
2 12 oz cans of chicken stock
1 cup (dry) plain quinoa (DO NOT use the kind that is pre-seasoned, this is a mistake I have made and hope never to repeat...)
2 cups fresh spinach
Chili flakes to taste (about 1 teaspoon will give you a medium-spicy result)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon dried parsley
cracked black pepper and salt to taste

For the quinoa:
Heat 2 tablespoons-ish of olive oil in the bottom of a medium sauce pan.  Finely chop your smalll onion.  On medium-high heat brown onion, and add quinoa to toast it.  Once your quinoa is golden brown, add one can of chicken stock. Cover and let liquid absorb.  Repeat process with more stock until quinoa is tender.  Season lightly with salt, pepper, and cumin (to taste, not the 1/2 tsp. listed above).  Add in a handful of spinach at a time, allow the previous handful to wilt before adding another.  Cover and keep on warm until your shrimp and sausage mixture is done.

For the jambalaya:
In a separate pan, brown sausage, adding chili flake and powder to taste.  Add in tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, celery, coriander, and roughly a half a can of stock, and red wine.  Add in shrimp (if raw, allow them to cook in sauce until pink and sauce is reduced, if frozen allow to cook in sauce until it is nicely reduced, and dare I say it, roughly the thickness of spaghetti sauce).  Once reduced, salt and pepper to taste, and fold into quinoa.

Here's to variety most certainly being the spice of life!  This time of year, allow yourself to reflect on what really matters most.  Whether it's your fat cat, your loving family, a warm home, enthusiastic students, great co-workers, good friends or fine wine, find what makes you happiest and celebrate it!  True thankfulness for what we have is the best gift we can give ourselves.

As always, happy cooking, happier eating, love and best fishes, Butterballs!  May Santa find your bellies full, glasses empty, and pants delightfully too tight!  Mwah!