Pork Loin for a Holiday meal

Planning special meals for Holiday times allowed me to expand our usual menus. Instead of planning the meal around whatever package of beef I pulled from the freezer, I actually stopped at the meat counter of the grocery store and bought meat! Beef is always a favorite at our house, and our loyalty will stay there, but having pork for holiday meals was a treat also.
Pork Loin Roast was one special meal. Pork is also a lucky food for New Year's Day, especially in the Midwest. The South can have their black-eyed peas, but here in the Midwest we're more likely to find pork and sauerkraut on our New Year's Day table.
The superstition that makes Pork a celebratory food is that because pigs root ahead as they feed, as opposed to chickens and turkeys, who move backwards as they scratch and eat. This is considered a symbol of progress and good luck for the new year. Also many of our ancestors came from Germany, where pork is a popular meat. Pork is often considered a winter food, dating from the times when farmers would slaughter the pigs they'd raised in the fall so they could do the time consuming butchering job during cold weather. Fresh cuts were used first, then the smoked and preserved hams and sausages followed.
Our dinner was Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin. The tenderloin I purchased was a roast cut from a very large tenderloin. If you find smaller tenderloins than can be cut into medallions, that makes a nice presentation.

Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:
1 (4-pound) boneless pork loin with fat left on
1 tablespoon salt (or less)
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried rosemary

Directions:
Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Place the pork loin on a rack in a roasting pan. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. With your fingers, massage the mixture into the pork loin, covering all of the meat and fat.
Roast the pork for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 degrees and roast for an additional hour. Test for doneness using an instant-read thermometer. When the internal temperature reaches 155 degrees, remove the roast from the oen. All it to sit for about 20 minutes before carving, it will continue to cook while it rests.

Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake Tart

Christmas Day is past and our memories are filled with festive gatherings, delicious foods, and generous gifts. As we sort and put away Christmas decor and supplies, its also a time to consider what foods were favorites and which recipes were 'keepers'.
I made a new recipe for dessert at our family gathering. Everyone likes cheesecake and cranberries, and I like to make tarts with the pan I sometimes forget I have. (blog of March 22, 2013 for a savory tart). I have also made a  strawberry tart with a chocolate crust, but haven't blogged it yet. So the Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake Tart recipe sounded like the perfect dessert for Christmas dinner, and it was. It will be a 'keeper' recipe.

Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake Tart

Ingredients:

1 (9-oz) box chocolate wafer cookies (I didn't find these at our store, but purchased a package of store-brand chocolate sandwich cookies and scraped out the filling. A 15 oz package yielded 9 oz of wafers)

6 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into 6 pieces

1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, thawed

3 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ cup sugar + 2 tablespoons

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened (I used 1 ½ packages of lite cream cheese)

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 (8-oz) container (1 cup) sour cream (again, I used lite sour cream)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon lemon zest

2 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 11-inch round tart pan with a removable bottom with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside. 

In the work bowl of a food processor, combine cookies and butter; pulse until finely ground, approximately 8 times. Using the bottom of a measuring cup (or hands), press cookie crumb mixture into bottom and up the sides of prepared tart pan. 

Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack. 

The crust is baked, ready to cool.

In a small saucepan, combine cranberries, 3 tablespoons water, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons sugar, and corn syrup; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until cranberries pop and mixture thickens, approximately 5 minutes. Remove from heat; let cool for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

This smells wonderful while cooking. 

Pour cranberry mixture into the container of a blender. Process until smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape sides of container. Pour cranberry mixture into a bowl. 

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, remaining ½ cup sugar, and flour. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape sides of bowl. Add sour cream, vanilla, and lemon zest, beating until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly into prepared crust. 

A rich creamy mixture

poured onto the crust

Drop cranberry mixture by teaspoonfuls over cream cheese mixture. (if it has thickened while cooling, stir in just enough water to thin the mixture). Lightly swirl cranberry mixture using a wooden pick. Gently place tart on a rimmed baking sheet. 

Bake until set, approximately 25-30 minutes. Remove from baking sheet. Let cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack. Lightly cover and refrigerate until chilled, approximately 3 hours. 

If desired garnish with sugared cranberries and sugared rosemary sprigs. 

Cookie Season

It's always cookie time at our house, cookies are just the right snack or dessert and easy to make. Once when I was working, a woman asked me "how do you keep cookies from going stale?". I had honestly never thought about that or had the opportunity for cookies to go stale! It would be rare at our house to have cookies around long enough for them to go stale.
So, at Christmas time, we bring out  old favorite recipes and try new one for lots of cookie baking. One favorite that I always make at Christmas is Peanut Blossoms. It is just the right combination of peanut butter and chocolate and chewy. Recently Red Velvet has been a popular flavor so I also tried  Red Velvet Kiss Cookies, not a favorite here because I used the peppermint striped Hugs candies. The cookie flavor is good however and if you like peppermint it is refreshing. It would be good with the milk chocolate stripped Hugs also.

Peanut Blossoms                        

1 cup shortening
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
¼ cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup white sugar for decorations
2 (9 oz) bags milk chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets or use parchment paper.
Iin a large bowl, cream together shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, and 1 cup white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, and stir in milk and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; stir in peanut butter mixture until well blended. Shape tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll  in remaining white sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 - 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from oven, and immediately press a chocolate kiss into each cookie. Allow to cool completely; the kiss will harden add it cools.
I add the chocolate kiss before baking and it seems to 'seal' the candy to the cookie better, and the kiss still holds it's shape.

When I make dough balls for rounded cookies,
I scoop all the dough into portions on wax paper
with a cookie scoop, roll each into round balls,
 then as it is placed on the cookie sheet, roll in sugar.

Red Velvet Kiss Cookies                                            

14 tablespoons butter (2 sticks minus 2 tablespoons)
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder (use regular, not the extra dark cocoa)
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, plus one egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon red liquid food coloring
1 cup mini-semi sweet chocolate chips
½ cup red sanding sugar (decorative sugar)
1 (12-oz) bag Hershey's Hugs (peppermint or white chocolate)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, melt 10 tablespoons of butter in the microwave. Cut the remaining 4 tablespoons butter into 6-8 pieces, add to the melted butter and stir (this helps cool the melted butter so it won't be too hot when the eggs are added). Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Add brown sugar, vanilla and red food coloring to the melted butter. Stir well to combine. Add egg and egg yolk and stir until smooth.
Add flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined.
Add chocolate chips and mix until incorporated.
Roll the dough into balls, about 1 ½ tablespoon for each cookie. (I didn't want to roll the dough with my hands and end up with red hands from the food coloring, so I used a cookie scoop that made uniform rounded shapes) Roll the balls in the decorative sugar (I sprinkled the sugar over the balls on the baking sheet).
Bake the cookies until they have puffed and have cracks running through the top, about 12-14 minutes. Be careful not to over bake or they will be dry. As soon as the cookies emerge from the oven place a Hershey's hug in the center of each cookie. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Instead of rolling balls of dough, I used a cookie scoop so
my hands wouldn't turn red from the food coloring!
Sprinkling with red sugar worked as well as rolling
in the sugar.

Putting the candy kiss in the center of the dough makes
it stick better than adding it after baking.