Garlic and Herb Roasted Pork Loin with Crackling (and Apple Chutney)

Garlic and Herb Roasted Pork Loin with Crackling

A hearty family roast, done right, is a cause for celebration – and a great reason to know your local butcher! This roasted pork loin is flavored with herbs and served with spiced apple chutney. And look at that crackling! 

As a Brit living in the US, there are times when I’m asked to explain a particularly confusing aspect of my native culture. One of these is the age-old conundrum of what, exactly, is the difference between lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, and how and when the terms can be used interchangeably. The full answer requires a lot of hand-waving about geography, generational differences, and social class, but inevitably will touch at some point upon the concept of a Sunday lunch which is often a large family gathering involving a roast of some kind, at which the most important element, by far, is crackling.

Note: This recipe is part of our series with Serious Eats. You can also find this, and other fantastic recipes on their site!

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Crispy Pan-Seared Salmon with Creamy Lemon Rice

Crispy Salmon and Creamy Lemon Rice

Crispy Pan-Seared Salmon with Creamy Lemon Rice

Flaky, moist salmon with perfectly crisp skin, sitting on a bed of creamy lemon rice. It might look fancy but it’s a cinch to make, even on a weeknight.

Hey, you! Our old buddy! You made it out of 2016! Us too – and look, Nerds with Knives is exactly where you left it, a little battered, a little bruised perhaps, but we made it to the other side of the timeline mostly intact. Now, don’t get alarmed, but we’ve moved a few things around. We’re on new hosting, which won’t affect your NWK experience too much (perhaps a little faster, do you think?), we have a new ad partner, and we are now Pinteresting like never before. You can visit and follow us here. Other than that, it’s still just the two of us wombling along making things to eat and hoping you like them.

I know that the food trends in the beginning of January are all about salads and smoothies (and salad smoothies and smoothie salad bowls, etc), but we decided to go in a different direction. It’s 19 degrees and snowing tonight and while I like a good smoothie as much as the next food blogger, I want something warm and comforting as well as healthy for dinner. 

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Hoisin-Glazed Cocktail Meatballs

Cocktail Meatballs - Hoisin Glazed

Cocktail Meatballs - Hoisin GlazedThese sticky, sweet and savory Hoisin-glazed Cocktail Meatballs are the ultimate party snack. 

There’s a reason why cocktail meatballs have been a perennial party favorite since the 1960s. They’re incredibly tasty and exactly the kind of snack you want to munch on while holding a martini glass in one hand.

Warm and savory, these little meatballs are pretty much always the first things we run out of at every holiday party we’ve ever hosted.

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Mini Thai Shrimp Cakes with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

 Mini Thai Shrimp Cakes with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

Make our mini Thai Shrimp Cakes and be a hit at your family or office party. A fantastic and healthy way to cook fresh shrimp.

Note: This recipe is part of our series for Serious Eats. You can also find the recipe and many others on their site.

‘Tis the season… for cocktail parties, family get-togethers, work shindigs, and any other number of opportunities for you to hone your party-food skills. You want options that can be easily passed around, grabbed with one hand, and finished in a few bites; you also want a recipe that’s so memorably tasty people will demand you make it again and again.

Shrimp cakes, made by chopping shrimp in the food processor, are great as a dinner option, but they’re one of our favorite dishes to make for parties, too. Not only are they a cinch to make, they’re incredibly tasty and, frankly, much less expensive than crab. (We love crab cakes! We do! But their price feels like you have to make them for An Occasion, with capital letters, and if you’re not wearing a tuxedo, you’re just wasting everybody’s time.) The best part about shrimp cakes is that you can flavor them any way you like.

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Creamy Chicken and Potato Chowder

Chicken And Potato Chowder

Chicken And Potato ChowderThis comforting chicken chowder is packed with vegetables including potatoes, chard and corn. It’s guaranteed to warm you up even on the coldest of days.

There are few terms more accurately descriptive than “Polar Vortex”. It does just what it says on the tin (i.e., freeze your goddamn buns off). We are in the middle of one right now and it’s freaking cold outside. And because we have an old house, it’s pretty cold inside too.

And since Matt and I mostly work from home, you can see why we’re desperate for a hot, nourishing, tasty lunch. Luckily this soup is exactly what the doctor (and freezing film editor) ordered. We were inspired by a version of this soup from Bob’s Mountain Deli around the corner from us in Beacon. We look forward to them making this soup for our lunch orders every winter, but some days you just don’t want to leave the house. So this is our version.

Chicken And Potato Chowder
Loads of vegetables make this creamy chicken chowder special.

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Roasted Miso-butter and Maple Sweet Potatoes

Roasted Miso-butter and Maple Sweet Potatoes
We’ve taken a classic fall sweet potato recipe and shaken it up a bit. Ginger and miso flavors add depth and spice to the baked dish, and even holiday traditionalists will be impressed.

Like many people, we have a Holiday cooking meal plan – I call it our WHAT WORKS list. The great thing about the WHAT WORKS list is that you don’t have to think about it too much – you’ve already got a dozen people to feed and a dining room to rearrange, and knowing ahead of time that Sunday is when you make stock, and Tuesday is when you make gravy, and this bowl will hold this much rutabaga, and the dog will need this many chew sticks to keep her occupied while you cook, is valuable currency in a stressful week. The trouble with the WHAT WORKS list is that, of course, you can get complacent. So it’s good to mix things up a little from time to time, and that’s where this sweet potato recipe comes in handy.

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