Pulled Pork Sandwiches

This recipe was in a recent issue of All You magazine.  It’s the easiest and perhaps one of the tastiest recipes I’ve come across since I started this cooking adventure.

Ingredients:

I was going to rave about how this recipe only required three ingredients, but I suppose I have to include buns and call it 4 ingredients.  Either way, it’s pretty simple.

• Pork Roast (about 2-3 pounds)
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• BBQ Sauce
• Sandwich buns

Directions:

1. Put the roast in the the crock pot
2. Add 3/4 cup of vinegar
3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours
4. Pull the meat apart with a fork
5. Add the BBQ sauce
6. Leave in the crock pot for about another half hour
7. Put the meat on the bun and enjoy!

Substitutions:

You can use boneless chicken instead of pork and it works just as well.  I just looked up this recipe online and found several similar recipes where you use a can of beer or even root beer instead of vinegar.  I might try one of those next time and see how it changes the flavor.

Final Product:

If I made this for company, I would try to have some potato salad and baked beans on hand, but when it’s just the two of us, sometimes we just stick with chips and call it a night.  This recipe is part of our regular rotation and it never fails to delight.

Use It or Lose It

Today has been a busy day!  This morning about 8:00 I stuck a pork roast into the crock pot to start it on it’s way to becoming pulled pork sandwiches (extremely easy recipe to be posted soon).  I’d already earmarked today as a grocery shopping day, so I went through what recipes I wanted to make this week and compiled a list of all the ingredients.  Once Emily was fed and happy, we headed off the the grocery store and stocked up.

Emily had fallen asleep at the grocery store, but she work up not too long after we got home.  After feeding her again, she didn’t want to hang out on her playmat for long, so I strapped her into the sling and decided I still had enough energy left to make some hummus.  I’d seen this recipe on the side of some cumin I bought and it looked extremely easy.  I had everything but the chick peas so I bought those at the store along with some pita bread to make into chips.  I’ll make those two into a post later on, just suffice it to say they’re both pretty simple.

By the time I was done with the hummus, Emily was conked out in the sling, so I took her out, swaddled her up, and put her in the swing.  I decided she’d probably be asleep for a while longer, so I pulled out my mixer and decided to try a peanut butter cookie recipe that was in my recent issue of All You.  I managed to make a full batch of those while Emily was sleeping.  There were way more cookies in a full batch of those than I thought there would be, so now I’ve got more peanut butter cookies than I can shake a stick at. 

In the midst of all this, I managed to clean up as I went and while each batch of cookies was baking, so not only do I have dinner, dessert, and a snack made, I don’t have a complete mess in the kitchen.  This is probably the most productive day of cooking I’ve ever had that wasn’t a lead up to a major event.  If only I had this much energy every day!

Pumpkin Chili

I got this recipe from a friend of mine from college named Donna.  When I went shopping for the ingredients, I had trouble finding pumpkin.  I went to three different grocery stores and none of them had it.  Two of them were out and the third didn’t even have a place on the shelf for it.  When I mentioned it to my grandma, she happened to have a can, so that took care of that. 

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped
• 2 jalapeños, ribs and seeds removed, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with their liquid
• 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin purée
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium high heat. Add onions, bell peppers, jalapeños and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, or until tender.
2. Add turkey and cook until browned.
3. Add tomatoes, pumpkin, 1 cup water, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to low, then add beans.
5. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes more.
6. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and garnish with cilantro.

Substitutions:

When my friend posted this (I would link to it, but it’s behind facebook), she noted that she leaves out the jalapenos and adds a can of rotel instead.  I should have done this, but I forgot to check her substitutions when I made out my grocery list, so I ended up just leaving out the jalapenos instead.  Also, I despise cilantro, so I left that out, and I forgot about the sour cream, so maybe next time I’ll add that.

Verdict:

This chili came out very good.  If I didn’t know there was pumpkin in it, I would have never known.  I think between the turkey meat and the can of pumpkin, this is probably a pretty healthy chili recipe.  I’ve already bought the stuff to make this again (even the pumpkin, which was back in stock) since we liked it so much.  The only changes I’ll make are to add a can of rotel (like I meant to do the first time) and put in two cans of kidney beans instead of one. 

Tortilla-Crusted Pork

I found this one while looking for low-carb recipes on myrecipes.com.

Ingredients:

• 2 Pounds Pork Tenderloin
• 1/2 cup finely crushed blue-corn tortilla chips
• 1/2 cup finely crushed tortilla chips
• 1 Tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Salsa

Directions:

1. Remove silver skin from tenderloin, leaving a thin layer of fat covering tenderloin.  Cut tenderloin into 1-inch thick medallions.
2. Combine blue-corn tortilla chips, tortilla chips, ground pepper, chili powder, salt, and cumin into a bowl. 
   
3. Brush pork medallions with 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil and dredge them in the tortilla chip mixture, pressing mixture into all sides to thoroughly coat.
4. Cook pork medallions in remaining 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for about 6 minutes on each side, or until done.
   
5. Serve with salsa.

Step-by-step

1. I didn’t know exactly what “silver skin” they were talking about.  At the time, I just trimmed off what looked like big fat deposits, so according to this site, which actually explains about trimming pork tenderloin, I probably covered all the bases on that one.
2. No problem here.  In the future, unless I’m fixing this for a special occasion, I’ll probably just just use all regular tortilla chips instead of going out of my way to buy the blue ones.  I guess they taste a little different, but I think I’ll take my chances since they’re more expensive and I then end up with two big bags of opened tortilla chips instead of just one.  Granted, they also make the finished product prettier, but I can get over that.
3. I finally bought a basting/pastry brush.  I’ve gotten around it on a couple of recipes before, but since it keeps coming up, I went ahead and got one.  In this case, I didn’t want a thick layer of oil, so the brush was definitely worth it.
4. Something I like about pork medallions is that they’re a bit like the Oral B Indicator tooth brush.  I know the recipe says 6 minutes, but you can tell just by looking how far the pork has cooked just by looking at the side as it turns from pink to white.  I just let it get white halfway up, then flip it over and let it finish.  Easy, breezy, beautiful.
5. Since there are just two of us, I usually make a recipe twice off a single tenderloin.  The first time I made this, I forgot about the salsa.  They were still good, but when I served them with the salsa the second time, they were much better. 

Verdict:

I’m starting to really like pork tenderloin.  This is the second recipe good recipe I’ve found using pork tenderloin.  I’m so used to just cooking with beef and chicken, but I’ve always liked pork chops, so finding another way to add pork back onto the menu in new and different way is strangely exciting. 

I have another recipe for pork tenderloin that I like better, but this one is definitely a keeper.  The tortilla chips in the coating added a crunch, while the spices and salsa gave it just enough of a flavorful kick.

15 Bean Soup and More Musings on Custard

I successfully made a custard, but there wasn’t much to tell.  I got the recipe off the Argo website and I didn’t have any problem getting it to come out the right consistency.  The problem was that the taste was just sweet, not much real flavor to speak of.  Next time, I’ll try either adding more vanilla or some other flavoring to get it to come out better.

As for the 15 bean soup I had a similar problem.  It was good, but a little bland.  I added salt as I dished up, and that helped, but there wasn’t any spice…no real flavor.  It was just average. 

I repeated a couple of recipes this last week, so I haven’t had anything new to share.  Last night, I tried a spicy rub on steak, but there wasn’t really much to say.  Tonight though, is tortilla-crusted pork tenderloin, so I’ll share the outcome of that in the next post. 

Daniel has decided to try out a low-carb diet, and while he’d be perfectly happy to fix himself simple stuff each night and let me cook whatever, it’s no fun cooking for one.  I found a couple of low carb recipes on the internet that I’m looking forward to, but trying to avoid pasta, potatoes and most vegetables takes a lot of recipes off the table.  I do have a new cookbook on the way from Amazon though, so stay tuned for more!

On a final note, I was going to try a recipe for Pumpkin Chili, but I couldn’t find any pumpkin puree!  I checked at 4 different stores and no one has it.  Apparently there is full fledged pumpkin shortage right now, but I think everyone is trying to keep it on the DL to avoid widespread panic. 

15 Bean Soup – Part 1

The next recipe to cross off my list is 15 bean soup.  I don’t know if' I’ve ever had it before, but it sounds like loads of fun.  This one looks like it’s going to be pretty easy, but it showcases another of those simple tasks (like cooking a whole chicken) that I’ve never done before.  I have never cooked dried beans. 

After I bought my 15 bean soup starter kit, containing a variety of beans and a seasoning packet, I figured I should make sure I’d gotten my money’s worth, so I sorted through and made sure I had actually received 15 distinct bean varieties.  Here’s what I came up with:

Interestingly enough, the ingredient list on the package said the bag contained 15 of 17 listed varieties, so it was up to me to figure out which ones I’d actually gotten.  It got a little dicey when it came to some eerily similar white beans, but as far as I can tell, my soup will contain the following beans: northern, garbanzo, green split pea, large lima, cranberry bean, baby lima, kidney, pinto, small white, pink bean, small red, yellow split pea, lentil, navy, black bean.  All that, plus some polish sausage should be quite the treat.  I put the beans on to soak a few minutes ago, so everything will be ready to go tomorrow.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Custard’s First Stand

In my last post, where I talked about making Decadent Chocolate Delight, I mentioned how I thought a nice custard poured over the top of the dessert would be absolutely divine.  Last night, i decided to follow through on that sentiment and find a recipe for custard.  Turns out, custard comes in a lot of varieties.  I read all about it on wikipedia and thought I wanted something called Crème anglaise.  There are a lot of different recipes for this concoction, most of which involve double boilers and strainers and things I didn’t really have the patience for at the time.  I then came across a recipe that looked pretty simple.  Mix vanilla with milk, mix egg yolks with sugar, heat the one, mix the two, then heat the mixture.  Simple enough, right?  Apparently not, because the outcome was not as desired.  After consulting my mom (you’ll start to see a theme where I often consult my mother right after a failed attempt to make something new) I think I overheated at the end, causing the egg to cook.  Turns out, even a simple recipe can be a delicate process. 

I’m going to try making custard sauce again, but I’ll probably follow my mom’s advice and look for a cornstarch based recipe.  I might even try to find a powdered version, because I think what I’m really wanting is Bird's Custard.  I don’t think I can find this stuff locally though, and Amazon only offers it in bigger quantities than I want.  I wonder if Jell-O custard mix can be adapted to make a pourable custard?  I’m not sure, but I’m not giving up on this one just yet.