And a bonus track...

I forgot that I hadn't posted the pork tenderloin with the Dijon thyme marinade over roasted vegetables that I had raved about earlier. I'm officially obsessed with roasted fennel. Or braised fennel. Or fennel mixed inside of a potato gratin. Mmmm... but that's another recipe for another day. Today I give you, for your holiday enjoyment:

Roast Loin of Pork with Fennel

From Barefoot Contessa Parties

Ingredients:

• 2 garlic cloves minced


• 1 Tbsp kosher salt


• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves


• 1/4 c. Dijon mustard


• 1 3 lb. boneless pork loin, trimmed and tied


• 3 small fennel bulbs, tops removed


• 10 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced diagonally


• 10 small potatoes, quartered


• 2 onions, thickly sliced


• 4 Tbsp. good olive oil


• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter (1/2 stick), melted


• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

With a mortar and pestle, or in the bowl of a food processor, grind together the garlic, salt, and thyme leaves. Add the mustard and combine. Spread the mixture over the loin of pork and allow it to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the fennel bulbs into thick wedges, slicing through the core. Toss the fennel, carrots, potatoes, and onions in a bowl with the olive oil, melted butter, salt, and pepper. Transfer the vegetables to a large roasting pan and cook for 30 minutes.

Add the pork to the pan and continue to cook for another 30 to 50 minutes, or until a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the pork reads exactly 138 degrees. Remove the meat from the pan and return the vegetables to the oven to keep cooking. Cover the meat with aluminum foil and allow it to rest for 15 minutes. Then remove the vegetables from the oven.

Remove the strings from the meat and slice it thickly. Arrange the meat and vegetables on a platter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and enjoy!

Serves 6

Holiday... Celebrate!

T-4 hours until I hop on a plane and head home for holidays, and I couldn't be more excited! My lucky duck of a husband has 6 weeks off from school for his winter break, and my company is closed the week between Christmas and New Year's, so I'll get a little winter break too. He finished his finals about a week ago, so he's already back home in Seattle visiting family and friends. I'll meet him there tonight, go out to catch up with some girlfriends, and then we're headed down to Portland tomorrow morning to celebrate Christmas with my family.

My mom (the world's best cook... no seriously, she is) has planned out 4 nights of special meals, including: fresh picked Dungeoness crab (my favorite!), Swiss fondue (we lived in Switzerland for a few years when I was very young, and making a big fondue dinner around Christmas has been a tradition ever since), and her delicious roasted beef tenderloin with all the fixings for Christmas dinner. Aside from amazing food, I have about 15 cousins to catch up with, a sister to go wedding dress shopping with (insert girly squeal here: eeeeeeee!!), and lots of time planned to spend catching up with my parents in front of the fire or while gazing at my mom's glittery confection of a Christmas tree.

And if that's not enough, we're off to New York right after that for New Year's! Kristin and Dan will most likely be moving out of the city next spring, so we figured we'd better cash in on our opportunity to jaunt around Manhattan with free lodging while we can! They've scored us reservations at Babbo (Mario Batali's restaurant... mmmmm...), and we plan to catch a show, do some post-Christmas shopping, and just generally enjoy the city. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to lift my overstuffed suitcase into the overhead bin on the plane... I refuse to pay those baggage check fees!

Here's hoping you all have a fabulous and safe holiday!

Best. Soup. Ever.

This is easily one of my top 3 favorite meals (that I prepare for myself anyway...) It's hearty and thick, tastes and feels like comfort food, but is actually really healthy... and easy to make. Plus the leftovers freeze beautifully and then you get to enjoy it all over again some other cold night. Dare I say it's my "signature dish?"

Leek and Chickpea Soup
Adapted from Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef

Ingredients:
5 medium sized leeks
1 14-oz. can of chickpeas
1 potato, peeled
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3-4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil (optional for drizzling)

Directions:
Cut off the root end of the leek, and then cut off the rough, green tops of the leek. You'll just want to use the portion of the leek that is white or light green. Slice the leeks in half vertically and rinse well under cold water. (Lots of dirt and grit tends to get caught inside the leek's many layers, so you'll want to kind of pull it apart to make sure you get in there really well.) Then slice up the leeks finely. Pushing them through the tube at the top of your food processor works great for this, but slicing manually is fine too.

Put the butter and olive oil into a large, heavy pot. Melt the butter over medium-high heat, then add the leeks, garlic, and a pinch of salt, and sautee until the leeks are soft, about 7-10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop up the peeled potato into large chunks, and drain and rinse the chickpeas. Add the potato and chickpeas to the pot and cook for about a minute. Then add 3 cups of the chicken broth and simmer for about 15 minutes. When the potato chunks are fully cooked and you can easily pierce them with a fork, turn off the heat.

The final step is to puree about half of the soup, so it has a velvety feel, but still has some nice texture. You can either ladle about half the soup into a blender to puree and then mix it back into the remainder of the soup, or use an immersion blender to puree the soup about halfway in the pot. If you use the blender, don't fill the blender the whole way since it is a hot liquid and will need some room for steam. It's also a good idea to hold the top of the blender down with a towel just for safety. I usually try to include most of the potato chunks in the portion that I puree since I don't like the big chunks in my soup, but either way is fine. Once you've pureed to your desired texture, decide if you need to add in any additional chicken broth. Sometimes I like to thin it out a little.

To finish, ladle the soup into bowls, add a some freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I like a lot!) and some freshly ground pepper. If you want to get a little decadent, drizzle a little bit of good quality extra virgin olive oil over the top and enjoy! Throw in a mixed green salad and a glass of white wine and you have weeknight dinner perfection.

Deck the Halls!

We did our holiday decorating last week, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Because we're going to be gone for almost two weeks over Christmas and New Year's, we opted not to get a full Christmas tree, but did want to infuse a little holiday cheer into our apartment. Plus, we decided to do stockings for each other this year, so I figured the mantle definitely needed a little love. Throw together some free fir branch scraps from a local garden store that was selling Christmas trees, about $8 worth of gold and red berry sprigs, plus gold painted pine cones, from the craft store, 45 minutes of Christmas tunes, and voila! Not too shabby...



It's kind of hard to see in the picture above, so here's a closer look:

With some of the extra berry sprigs, I created some quick candle decorations for the large pillar candles that I had on the mantle earlier in the fall:

And, finally, a little fresh fir wreath around a delicious holiday scented candle:

Now we can enjoy a little holiday cheer even without a fully decked Christmas tree!

Catching up...

A little behind with my weekend update... I can't believe it's already Wednesday (although I'm definitely not complaining!) A few highlights from last weekend:

• Group dinner at our friends' Alle and Dan's house with a few other friends. I love getting together and socializing with friends over a dinner party at someone's home. It's so comfortable and laid back, and yet feels so grown up! Plus it's fun to check out someone else's cooking/decorating/hostessing style. Alle pulled out all the stops with juicy grilled steaks, cheddar polenta, amazing brussel sprouts sauteed with onions, carrots, and feta, and an arugula salad with grilled pears. Mmmm.
• The 'Horns BARELY making it to the National Championships. They gave us all a little scare, but came through with a field goal with 1 second left in the game. So now I get to cheer on two of my favorite teams in Pasadena.
• The marquee in front of Docs, which read "Prime Longhorns vs. Canned Corn." Love that place.
• Christmas shopping! I'm by no means finished, but have made a good start and am well ahead of my typical December 23rd shopping habits.

Highlights for this week:

• Girls dinner at Cassie's. A group of 6 of us (all wives/girlfriends of b-school students) get together every few weeks for dinner at someone's house. It's always a fun night of good food, good company, and lots of vino.
• T-29 hours until Jason is done with finals for this semester! Can't wait to celebrate on Friday night!
• Christmas date next weekend. Instead of exchanging big gifts this year, we've decided to get creative (and budget-friendly) and do a stocking for each other. It's actually been really fun to plan out and purchase all of J's stocking stuffers. Thinking up several small gifts has definitely required more creativity and I think he's going to really enjoy opening it up! We're doing our stockings this weekend because he is heading back to Seattle next week (since he'll be done with school) a few days before me. So we're going to cook a Christmas feast, open up our stockings in front of the fire (and my lovely bedecked mantle... pictures coming tomorrow), and then head out on the town for dessert and drinks somewhere festive.

What do you have planned for the week? Any fun holiday celebrations?

Ducks Fly South...

... to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl! Oregon's mighty fighting Ducks defeated Oregon State last night to nab the Pac 10 title, and now we're heading south for a match up with Ohio State on New Year's Day. Any male who has ever known me would be shocked to see it, but turns out I really am a football fan. Last night as I was yelling at the TV during the first half when Oregon State had the lead (briefly), my husband was just staring at me in sheer amazement and fascination. I even called a couple plays in advance of them actually happening which really impressed him. I guess living in Texas will do that to you...

Next up: UT vs. Nebraska tomorrow night for the Big 12 Championship. Hopefully the 'Horns will be heading out to Pasadena as well.

Schadenfreude

There's a fancy ten dollar word for you. I have no idea how to pronounce it and had to Google the spelling. But I know what it means. And unfortunately so does Tiger Woods: taking pleasure from someone else's misfortune. Now don't get me wrong: in no way do I condone infidelity. He made some very poor (and let's be honest... skanky) choices, and he'll have to face the consequences. But the three ring media circus going on this past week would lead you to believe that he was, oh, I don't know... a president of the United States who got caught doing something funny with a cigar and his intern, and then lied under oath about it.

Let's be clear. He's a professional athlete, he cheated on his wife, and he follows in the footsteps of (unfortunately) numerous other athletes, politicians, and public figures who've done exactly the same thing. Yet, we seem to be making a MUCH bigger deal over Tiger's indiscretions than anyone else's. John Edwards, a state senator and candidate for office of the Presidency of the United States, was revealed to be cheating on his wife who has cancer, and then it was subsequently determined that he is likely the father of his mistress' illegitimate child. And he got less press than this. Jeez. And I can think of numerous professional basketball players and football players who have done much worse things... at least Tiger's affair(s) were consensual.

I'm not arguing that he doesn't owe his wife some serious groveling followed by intensive counseling, but I think the media needs to lay off. If he wasn't a Stanford-educated billionaire who happens to be one of the most famous athletes in the world, people would be a whole lot less gleeful about this mess. He doesn't owe us a public apology-- the only people he owes an apology to are his wife and kids.

OK, end rant. And because I do have a sense of humor in spite of my feelings above, I'll leave you with my favorite quote out of this whole scandal:

"He ain't a Tiger... he a Cheetah!"

Swimming & Snow

Two quick things...

I finally took the plunge (haha) and went swimming at the gym last night. I mentioned earlier how stoked I was to finally find a gym with a lap pool because I swam competitively in high school and wanted to get back into it (and gear up for a triathlon in the spring.) Well, it's been a few weeks, but yesterday I dug out my old Speedo from my life guarding days, found my swim cap, purchased a new set of goggles, and hit the pool. Turns out that Lycra doesn't hold up terribly well when stuffed at the bottom of a drawer for 12 years. (Why I held on to a Speedo for 12 years is another matter altogether...) But droopy, see-through suit be damned! I was ready for some pool action, and it felt great!

I swam for a solid 30 minutes and felt pretty good about lapping most of the old men in the pool repeatedly. (Of course, the guy in my lane kept stopping to talk to the guy in the next lane about social security, so maybe me lapping them wasn't all that big of an accomplishment...) I busted out some of my high school drills, did some laps with the kick board and pull buoys, and finished up with a 400m swim (just 100m shy of my high school race distance.) At the end I was beat, and it blows my mind that I swam for 2 hours straight, 5 days a week, during the swim season in high school! How times have changed. Once I get myself a new (properly fitting and non-see through) swimsuit, I'll be back to make this a regular part of my fitness regimen. And the best part? Last night was the first time my knees and/or hips and/or wrist and/or back haven't ached post-workout in ages. Gotta love that low impact exercise... maybe the old guys are on to something.

And, on a separate note, a new little nugget to file under "things I love about Texas." I lamented the insanely hot weather we get 'round these parts pretty consistently the first month or two after we moved here. Well, winter has officially arrived, and the highs this week have been consistently in the low 50s (which warrants heavy wool coats, scarves, hats, and mittens for many Texans.) On Friday, they're forecasting a high of 38 (gasp!) and the possibility of rain mixed with snow. The punchline? My office already has an inclement weather plan in place for Friday, which we discussed this morning at an all-staff meeting. I am not joking.

Now, I come from an area of the country that is not exactly known for handling winter weather particularly well. Last winter, Portland and Seattle got an unprecedented 18 inches of snow, and both cities (as well as the 180 miles of interstate freeway between the two) were entirely shut down for a full two weeks while the mayors of both cities frantically begged mid-western and east coast cities for sand and de-icing agent. It wasn't pretty. But here in Austin, winter weather paranoia hits a new high. We have a weather emergency hotline set up in our office (again, I am not kidding) that we can all call into on Friday morning to determine if the office is closed or if we should brave the elements and come in to work. Everyone is already preparing to take their laptops home on Thursday night. And I love it! No judgement here. I say bring on some 34 degree weather with mixed snow and rain, and I am going to enjoy me a snow day!

Turkey Day Round-Up

Thanksgiving in Boston was fantastic. We kicked off the holiday weekend by celebrating Kristin's birthday on Wednesday night at Legal Seafoods in Cambridge. The next day, we enjoyed a leisurely morning before dressing up in our finery and heading over to the Harvard Club for an early afternoon Thanksgiving feast. Kristin's father-in-law is an alum and, rather than sweat it out in the kitchen each year, they enjoy a big Thanksgiving meal at the club and were kind enough to invite us along. And let me tell you, the Ivy Leaguers know how to do it up right! Turkey not your thing? No worries, they've got ham and prime rib and sea bass. Don't like pumpkin pie? That's OK... have some pecan pie, pistachio creme brulee, strawberry rhubarb crisp, or molten chocolate cake instead! Don't forget the sweet potatoes, yams, and mashed potatoes. Or the brussel sprouts with tiny pearl onions and bacon (yum!) and stuffing. And if you like everything, all the better! And, of course, the club was decorated beautifully. It was a feast for all of the senses. Thank goodness for control top tights.

Later that night, the kids (that would be me, J, Kristin, and Dan) headed back into Cambridge and wound up at the legendary Hong Kong, where we gorged ourselves on Crab Rangoon and Chicken Lo Mein, and ended up racing the table next to us to see how fast we could down first a Scorpion Bowl and then a Mai Tai Bowl. (For those of you who are not familiar, the Hong Kong is an unremarkable Chinese restaurant-cum-disco that seems to be the destination for under-aged drinking if you are a student at any one of Boston's many centers for higher education. I've heard stories about this place from at least 4 different friends who attended college all across the Boston metro region. The food is mediocre at best, but you can't pass up the pumpkin-sized bowls of alcoholic fruit punch affectionately known as "Scorpion Bowls.")

On Friday, J toured us around his alma matter, Boston College, and then we headed into downtown Boston for some (window) shopping on Newbury Street and a tasty Italian dinner in the North End. On Saturday, we spent some downtime in Lexington, MA and filled up on Chinese food (yet again) at the local Asian buffet before heading home. (You'll be reading lots of future posts about me hitting the gym!)

All in all, a fabulous weekend, and a great start to the holiday season! Now I'm counting down my trip home to see my family in just 3 weeks!