Cooking in Columbus: Apple-Stuffed Pork Loin et al.

Hello, Food Fans! It's been a while for many things, as they relate to this blog, chief among them being a meal post. Last night, Brianne and I ventured to a local Meijer and amidst a growing sense of hunger bought a slew of ingredients which will eventually find a place here. For dinner, and in under an hour and a half, we pulled together a meal which stuffed ourselves with ingredients costing in total no more than $15. On the menu: apple-stuffed pork loin with toasted white rice, seasoned kale with bacon, and angel food cake with strawberry-rhubarb compote.

Coooki(e)ng!

Following the start of yesterday's Food and Culture Colloquium, my food ventures continued as I grocery shopped and began preparations for the first multi-course group dinner of the academic year coming from my house on Mulberry. An annual dinner meeting for our Paving the Way Ambassadors, this year's menu included: mixed greens with berries, toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese; baked vegetables; Italian herb chicken with long grain and wild rice; mint lemonade granita; and dark chocolate salted caramel bacon brownies.

If You Can't Handle the Heat [Outside], Get in the Kitchen

On Saturday evening, the night of my shadowing experience at The Short Story, I remember seeing what looked like sangria; regardless of what it actually was, the idea had been planted ("inception," anyone?). Sunday proved to be a beautiful day and with a shift in weather to the warmer side, sangria sounded like an extraordinary idea. And as such weather blossoms, I often think equate that heat with the freshness and vibrancy of fruit--particularly mango--and decided to pair that in some way with salmon. With a recent gift from Normandy (sel gris, a.k.a. grey sea salt) also needing to find a home in my blog, I ended up with a great Sunday dinner: Pan-seared salmon atop a bed of steamed green beans with sel gris, garnished with an orange balsamic reduction sauce (influenced by an episode of Dinner: Impossible I had recently seen), and served with jasmine rice and a spicy mango-cucumber salad. Oh yeah, along with a tall, cold glass of sangria. Of course with no actual blood in it, sangria comes from the Spanish word sangre and is based on the tradition of using red wine as the base. From what I have read, there is no one way of making an "authentic" sangria; as you continue reading, note the different layers to this wine punch of sorts and feel free to let your culinary creative juices (wait for the punch line...) flow.