"Bluto: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Otter: Germans? 

Boon: Forget it, he's rolling." - Animal House

Anyway, I am rolling. A couple more good recipes to report on today as I sit with a cup of coffee listening to The Be Good Tanyas.

First up is a modification of an epicurious.com recipe for veal chops with white beans and spinach. First, rub your veal chops with a mashed up clove of garlic and then salt and pepper them and cook them in a skillet over moderately high heat for about 4 minutes per side. They should be about medium rare at that point. Nice and pink on the inside.

The next step is the beans and spinach. Add a little olive oil to the skillet and saute up some  garlic. Add your white beans and spinach along with 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar

 (apple cider vinegar would also be nice in this, I think). Then, add about 1/2 cup of chicken stock that has 1/2 teaspoon of corn starch whisked into it. Stir this around in the pan with the beans and spinach as a way of deglazing and picking up the goodness that is left over from searing the veal chops. The sauce should come together pretty nicely. A minute or so before you think it's ready, add a teaspoon or so of chopped, fresh rosemary. Salt and Pepper to taste and drizzle a little of the sauce over the veal chops. The vinegar and rosemary are what really make this dish. They add a brightness that is really unexpected.

The original recipe for veal chops with radicchio is here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Veal-Chop-with-Radicchio-White-Beans-and-Rosemary-109029

The next recipe is my take on pot au feau. I was poking around the freezer a

nd noticed that we had some scraps of italian sausage and turkey breast, so I decided to experiment and this is what I came up with. I sliced up some garlic and about 1/4 pound of turkey breast and sauteed them up in a cast iron dutch oven. To this, I added about 3/4 of a chopped up sweet potato and 1/4 cup of white wine to deglaze. Then, I added chicken broth to cover, the green end of a leek, a bay leaf, and some dried thyme and parsley and put the lid on the pot to let it simmer until the potatoes were cooked through and tender.

In the meantime, I fried up the italian sausage and sliced it up and then quickly sauteed some

 sliced up brussel sprouts in the fat rendered from the sausage. This, a 4 oz. salmon filet that I

 had sliced up, and half of a can of red kidney beans went into the pot about 10 minutes before serving. At that point, I also pulled out the leek tops and the bay leaf. Ladel the soup into serving bowls and top with a little grated parm.

I had a nice 2006 Las Locas Granache-Syrah from Spain along with this dish. This was a surprisingly versatile dish. The flavors were bold enough to hold up, but I think a dry white or a dry rose would have worked equally well.