Katie Stew

I love the 4th of July.

It is the holiday of bbq and sunshine. Of pasta salads and baked beans, watermelon and beer. Brightly colored sodas in glass bottles and little boxes of snaps that pop when you throw them at the ground.

When I was thinking about food for our BBQ, I asked some friends if they had any favorite 4th of July food and was surprised that most of them said they didn’t really associate the 4th with food. It was always a different story in my household. I think that it is partly because we always take any holiday as an excuse to do fabulous food. I also think it is partly because the 4th of July is like the official summer grilling holiday. It is the day that you cook all of your favorite summer foods and then indulge in them while exploding things. That is what America is all about right?

Well, maybe not quite, but that is what I celebrate on the 4th of July. Summertime and food.

This year my beau and I created an extravagant feast for all our friends. We cooked all day and the night before preparing ribs, pasta salads, baked beans, grilled corn, green bean and tomato salads, dips and snacks. One of my favorite things we ate was from a new cookbook I have, “Peace, Love, and Barbeque” by Mike Mills and Amy Mills Tunnicliffe.

From this fun new cookbook, we decided to make some baked beans. Not only baked beans, but baked beans from scratch. Sure, they took a lot of time, but they were low on effort and high on taste. They were completely worth it and glorious. One of my friends, upon tasting them said, “I never really understood the point of baked beans before these.” They’re that good. So, make the perfect side this summer and enjoy some amazing baked beans. They’ll make you remember why people make them in the first place.

I didn’t deviate from the recipe, but with two small exceptions. I didn’t have any bacon in my freezer (which is shocking), but I did have some country ham. So, I chopped that up instead and it was awesome. I think it is safe to say that most pork products would serve your needs. Also, I didn’t take the time to make the “Magic Dust” seasoning. I just used some Emeril’s original seasoning and it was awesome. But, I’ve included the Magic Dust recipe as well in case you want to go all out.

Judy Mills’s From-Scratch Baked Beans

1 pound dried great northern beans
4 to 6 slices bacon
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups ketchup (I like Hunt’s)
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon yellow mustard (I like French’s)
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons Magic Dust (recipe below)

Place the beans in a large saucepan and cover with salted water by 2 to 3 inches. Soak the beans overnight.

The next day, drain and rinse the beans. Return the beans to the saucepan and cover with fresh water by about 4 inches. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until the beans are tender but not bursting open.

While the beans are cooking, mix the ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, chili powder, and Magic Dust together in a large bowl.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon. Drain the bacon on paper towels, crumble it, and set aside. Add the onion and garlic to the bacon drippings and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. The onion should still be a little crunchy.

Drain the beans, reserving 2 cups of the bean water. Pour the beans and bean water into the bowl with the sauce. Add the bacon and onion and stir to combine well. Pour into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish and bake for 1 hour or until bubbly. Will keep, refrigerated, for up to 1 week.

Magic Dust

Makes about 2 cups

Ingrediants:

• 1/4 cup kosher salt, finely ground
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons mustard powder
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/4 cup ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup granulated garlic
• 2 tablespoons cayenne

June has apparently been the month of old favorites. I don’t think I’ve tried a single new recipe since I posted about those yummy pork chops. That following week I made my favorite chili, Emeril’s Turkey and White Bean Chili, and it was so good! It had been far too long and it made me start thinking about other classics that I haven’t made in forever.

Over the past few weeks I’ve enjoyed my Awesome Pasta, Pork Spring rolls, and I even made a Strawberry and Rhubarb pie. When I first ate some of the Awesome Pasta, I immediately thought, why don’t I make this all the time!? And I remembered that I used to.

When going back in to add hyperlinks, I just realized I’ve never posted about Awesome Pasta. That’s crazy! It isn’t something that I have a real recipe for or that I really know what to call it. But, my boyfriend just refered to it as the “awesome pasta” and so that is what I always call it now. I’ll post about it next time I make it, which will probably be soon.

I think I’ve gotten too caught up with trying out new recipes lately. It was time to remember why I loved some of these so much in the first place. Go back and try out some old favorites. You might remember why you consider them favorites in the first place.

I subscribe to Bon Apetit magazine. Every month a new magazine full of beautiful pictures and recipes I almost never make arrives at my door. But this time there were two recipes that I decided I was going to follow through on and make.

They had a special this month they called “Father’s Day Pork Chops”. The recipe was accompanied by a charming story about how these pork chops reminded the writer of his parents and felt like home. So, I wanted to get down on that. Give them a go. And the results? Lovely.

I never cook with thyme. No particular reason other than I don’t really know what to do with it. It wasn’t a staple in the cooking I did with my parents growing up. We’re more basil/oregano/spicy kind of people. Thyme feels kind of old world and classic to me. So, I was excited to see this recipe and have an excuse to use the dried thyme that has been in my spice cabinet for an unknown amount of time. (I imagine I must have got it for a Thanksgiving turkey or something.)

This recipe also called for marinating the pork chops for an hour in red wine vinegar. I had never heard of such a thing, but it was supposed to help it tenderize. Not only did it do that, but it gave the pork a wonderful tang that just made sense.

Now, as always, I didn’t really follow all the directions in this recipe. I’m going to put the recipe here as it was originally written, but here are a few changes I made, and they were still awesome. Also, the recipe is written out as a fun thing to get kids cooking with parents and obviously, I made these and didn’t hand over any of the tasks to stray children running about.

So, my changes. First, I didn’t have fresh thyme and oregano. So, instead of a Tablespoon of each, I used a heaping half teaspoon of each dried. Also, I didn’t have enough red wine vinegar for the marinade, so I used half red and half white vinegar. I felt justified in this change because the article said that his mom used to use white vinegar, but his wife had stepped up the class by using the red instead. I also used 3 boneless pork chops instead of 2 large bone-in ones. Other than that, I was pretty spot on.

These form a great crisp surface. And, it turns out that I loved the flavor of thyme! I’ll have to start incorporating it more into dinner plans. I served these with some roasted rosemary potatoes and roasted carrots with sage. I was all herbed up and it was very tasty.

Father’s Day Pork Chops- by Bon Apetit

Ingredients

• 2 bone-in pork chops (about 2 pounds total), pounded to 1/2″ thickness
• 1 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
• Zest from half a lemon
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

• Arrange pork in a single layer in a large baking dish and cover with vinegar. Let sit 1 hour at room temperature.
• Set up your dredging stations: one small baking dish with flour; one with eggs; and one with panko, zest, thyme, and oregano.

• Heat a large cast-iron or heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat and add 3 tablespoons olive oil. Season each chop generously with salt and pepper. Have the kids use a fork to dredge each chop first in the flour, then in the egg, then in the panko mixture; make sure they coat the sides as well as the tops and bottoms, as every inch of crust is cru- cial. Then have the kids hand them over to Mom (or whoever is cooking) so she can put them into the hot oil. Working in 2 batches, cook pork chops—wiping out skillet with a paper towel after the first batch and adding the remaining 3 tablespoons oil—until crispy and cooked through, about 4 minutes per side.

A super easy weeknight dinner. Enjoy!