Wednesday, November 18, 2009

dinners

The weather has been quite gloomy the past couple of days. Cold and rainy, sometimes kind of blustery.

Since it is getting colder, I've been trying to find ways to put veggies into our meals without having to have "cold" salads.

We had vegetable soup for a couple of days with crusty baguette.

On the day we were finishing up the soup, I also made this side dish with ham, fresh shiitake and spinach. The seasoning is a couple of squirts of tonkatsu sauce and a pat of butter. Super easy and really delicious.

The original recipe uses only shiitake, tonkatsu sauce and butter, but I had leftover ham and spinach that I wanted to use, so I threw that in. It came out just as delicious, though I would probably not use ham the next time, just veggies.

Dinner last night was sauteed pork wrapped pumpkin.

This was my first time trying this recipe, but it was easy and fast.

Sauteed Pork Wrapped Pumpkin Serves 2 adapted from Orange Page's "Aki ni Oishii Kondate"

6 slices thin pork shoulder
6 slices of pumpkin about 1/4-inch thick, cleaned, skins left on
1/2 onion thinly sliced
1 eringi, thinly sliced

Sauce:
1 tablespoon EVOO
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
2 tablespoons sake (rice wine)

Slice pumpkin 1/4-inch thick
Wrap slice of pork around pumpkin
Heat oil, medium heat
Cook pork 1 minute, turn and cook another minute
Add onion, eringi and sauce
Cover for 3 minutes
Turn pork and cook another 3 minutes
Take cover off and turn heat up to high
Cook until liquid evaporates.
Serve with lots of rice.

NOTES: The pumpkin slices I had were longer than the meat I had, so I cut the pumpkin slice in half and wrapped each piece with pork.

I liked this, though it may be a bit sweet for others with the combination of the pumpkin and the sauce, you may want to cut back the sugar in the sauce if you don't like things too sweet. Since the pan I used doesn't allow heat higher than medium (non-stick), I cooked it on medium until there was just a little liquid left.

How is the weather where you are? What have you been eating for dinner?

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is eringi? I know that EVOO is extra virgin olive oil but I can not figure out eringi.chrisq

Dennis K. said...

Hi K&S, it's getting much colder here too. I love Orange Page! Though I usually never buy it and just browse through it at the bookstore (tachiyomi style, he he)..

K and S said...

Hi Chris,
Eringi is a mushroom that looks like this.

Tachiyomi is fun to do too, Dennis :)

Take care you two.
Kat

Marie said...

Hey, I just bought some tonkatsu sauce yesterday! Will have to keep in mind it can be an easy solution to adding some flavor to an improvised meal. :)

K and S said...

Hope you like it with other foods besides tonkatsu Marie :)

Take care.
Kat

Anonymous said...

Thank you for that recipe. I might do something like that tonight, using chicken thigh fillets instead because I have them defrosting at the moment and we had pork last night.
It's perfect weather for it. Winter has returned to Perth today, which is nice because we're going to be in for a long, hot summer when it arrives!

K and S said...

Hope you like this Momiji :)

Take care.
Kat

KirkK said...

Hi Kat - Wow, I've never thought about using Tonkatsu Sauce in a recipe...thanks, I learned something new today!

K and S said...

hope you get a chance to use it in something Kirk :)

Take care.
Kat

jalna said...

The wind is just blowing through the house today! I like it!

K and S said...

love those tradewind days Jalna! blustery over here is kinda depressing...

Take care.
Kat

Deb in Hawaii said...

Windy here and alternating sunny and gray and drizzly, an improvement over the humidity.

You have been making some yummy dinners--it all looks great.

K and S said...

Oh that humidity was bad Debinhawaii, glad you have some winds :)

Take care.
Kat

Tamakikat said...

Hi Kat,

hope you're keeping warm over there.

I'm sitting here with a rug over my knees and a hat on my head...in my living room. (I'm going to get my kotatsu sorted this weekend.)

I had a lovely okonomiyaki for lunch so I kept today's dinner simple with a tomato soup and coleslaw with sliced pear through it. Last night I made curry udon-so good:)

Wonder what you made for dinner tonight. Whatever it was I'm sure it was good.



TK

Rowena said...

All sounds warm and delicious, especially for winter weather. I've been on a Bourdain craze...again...and I also made Nates stuffed bitter melon which was so, so good. I was surprised that even the MotH liked the bitterness -- he said next time we go to Milan, we gotta visit the filipino food store and buy more.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of trying to find ways to use veggies without having to eat cold salads. I like your side dish. It's been unseasonably warm here and nice and sunny. However, we're expecting rain the coming Thursday and Friday.

Paz

K and S said...

your curry sounded very warm and comforting TK, hope you get your kotatsu out soon :)

so glad MotH was on board with the goya Rowena, now you can shop up at those ethnic shops :)

Thanks Paz, hope you make something cozy for the end of the week :)

Take care everyone!
Kat