Pork Stew with Hard Cider, Pearl Onions, and Potatoes

The February 2010 issue of Bon Appétit offers a decidedly wintry concoction called Pork Stew with Hard Cider, Pearl Onions, and Potatoes. However, I loves me some stew any time of year, and given that my husband is a die hard meat-n-taters man, I figured this would be a good choice. It was, but I'd make some changes for next time.

We thought the finished product was a little too sweet, probably due to the inclusion of a chopped Granny Smith apple. I'll leave that out next time. I'll also leave out the thickener, a paste of butter and flour whisked into the finished stew. It wasn't necessary.

A delectable mix of root veggies was used. The purple onions came out of my vegetable garden. For some reason, they all came out really small, but since this recipe calls for pearl onions, they were the perfect size!

Chopped bacon is cooked and removed to be added back later. I love bacon!

Cubes of boneless pork shoulder, also called Boston butt, are seasoned with salt and pepper before being browned in the bacon fat.

The cider I used was a kind I drink regularly, Hornsby's Hard Cider Amber Draft. I'm not a beer drinker, but this stuff tastes deliciously apple-y. I halved the recipe, so part of the cider was for cooking and part of it was for drinking. My kinda dinnertime!

This was the first time I've ever cooked parsnips, which were sautéed with chopped shallots.

The photo of the finished stew keeps winding up funky on the post's layout, so I'll try to add it again later.

Day Twenty-Two: Three Cheese Beer Bread

Day 22 of Operation: Expand Horizons brings a recipe from the food blog Brown Eyed Baker. I'm not sure where she got the idea for Three Cheese Beer Bread, but it was inspired!

This tasty carb-load falls into the category of quick breads, which are risen without the use of regular yeast. This particular bread gets its bubbles from baking powder and 16 ounces of beer. I used a tall can of Coors Light, which was 16 ounces exactly, and just the kind of crisp lager taste that would match well with bread and cheese.

My careful planning left me with not the quite amounts of the required cheeses, so I took small liberties with the types and quantities- adding a little Swiss where I lacked some Gruyère, and a little Butterkäse (a mild, buttery, semi-soft cheese from Germany or Austria) and mozzarella where I lacked some white cheddar.

I took a loaf of this bread to a cookout and it was well received, despite a glaring omission during the mixing of the dough. I made the mistake of talking on the phone for an hour to my darling friend Allison from Eat Well Love Life while I was in the kitchen and accidentally left out the tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. D'oh!

Nevertheless, the bread was delicious, and next time, I'm sure it will be even better. Thanks to Brown Eyed Baker for her blog and this great recipe. I have a few more of her recipes to recreate over the rest of this Operation.