Vegetable Ragout, Pork Chops, and Turkey Thighs

Last Friday Craig made this delicious vegetable ragout over cheesy polenta with a roasted red pepper cream sauce. It was really good--I particularly liked the nicoise olives in the ragout. I'm responsible for the sloppy basil chiffonade. Everything else was ready and I was hungry and could not be bothered.

On Saturday we had Erika, Jen, and Tom over for our annual Nouveau release dinner. Last year I hurt my back, so I lay on the floor and directed Craig--he's right, risotto really is better when someone else cooks it--so this year I was looking forward to being in top form for cooking. Then we planned a big birthday brunch for Craig's dad for Sunday, and I had to scale back. I made my favorite easy company meal, pork chops stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, and fontina, with oven potatoes (last of the CSA), acorn squash (CSA but still not the last--we got sooo much this year), and pan roasted brussels sprouts. Quick and easy but very delicious.





I'm still waiting for the food pictures from Sunday to be emailed to me, but one of the things I made was a crazy good balsamic cherry sauce (Emeril), and I wanted to use some of the leftover on Wednesday. I was seduced by boneless turkey thighs at WF, even though I had no idea how to cook them. I ended up searing them, then braising them in the cherry sauce while I sauteed broccoli rabe and cooked Italian (via Wegman's) egg noodles. The thighs were OK, way too much for one person to eat. Maybe they'd be better stewed for a really long time. The noodles were awesome though, just the right amount of bite, and I topped them with the last of the truffle butter we got in Italy and some truffle salt.
Stay tuned for news of the brunch!