Scott's Kitchen

Restaurant Review: Red Lantern (Redwood City)

With some friends, we went to a late afternoon movie yesterday and followed that with dinner at the Red Lantern - our first time but a multiple repeat for our friends who recommended it calling the cuisine "Asian fusion". The room is striking - very high ceiling, red lanterns hanging, and tables with reasonable separation between them.

Aunt Maxine's Strawberry-Blueberry Spinach Salad

We had this special - and delicious - Strawberry-Blueberry Spinach Salad with our ham and tri-tips on Christmas Eve this year. The combination of flavors is just amazing! This is a delicious and easy to make spinach salad that everyone will enjoy.

Christmas Day Roast Pork Loin with Apples/Shallots

For years, we've enjoyed a roast pork loin recipe titled "Roast pork loin with roasted apple compote" that was originally published in Barbara Kafka's cookbook "Roasting-A Simple Art".

Much of Kafka's book involves roasting at high heat - typically 500 degrees - and her recipe of coating the pork loin in mustard, salt and pepper at the start and then roasting with apples at that high temperature has always worked out well for us. Sometimes (depending upon how clean your oven is), roasting at that high a temperature can result in some smoking - so it takes some care.

On this Christmas Day, though, we're trying some variations - something a bit different.

Christmas Eve 2008 Oven-Roasted Tri-Tip Dinner

We'll be hosting Christmas Eve again at our house this year - and we're handling the just main courses while the rest of the family is bringing salads, side dishes, and desserts!

Last year, we were about to head for Hawaii for another family reunion - and didn't cook anything! But, this year, we're back with our favorites again: a combination of honey-baked ham along with our easy Lazy-S easy oven-roasted tri-tips.