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Dinner that made my boy go "Oh my gosh, Mom!"
PULLED PORK SANDWICHES WITH BARBECUE SAUCE (Bonnie Stern, in National Post, February 5, 2011)
Even if you don't need this much pulled pork, it makes sense to braise a whole pork shoulder (a. k.a. pork butt) because you can use the leftovers for poutine, on pasta or in grilled cheese sandwiches and macand cheese. Or freeze the leftovers for future meals. The trick to braising a pork shoulder is to cook it until it is fork tender. It can easily be made a day ahead. Ask for Canadian pork at your butchers, or look for the Canadian flag on the package at the supermarket.
Paste:
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp each paprika, pepper and cumin
- 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 lb boneless pork shoulder (pork butt roast)
Cooking liquid:
- 2 cups apple juice
- ½cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 6 whole cloves garlic
- 2 onions, thickly sliced
Maple barbecue sauce:
- 2 cups favourite barbecue sauce
- ½cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp each Worcestershire sauce and apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
Sandwiches:
- 12 soft buns
- coleslaw (see recipe below)
- chipotle mayo (see recipe below)
- guacamole -your favourite, optional
1. Combine brown sugar, salt, paprika, pepper, cumin, mustard and garlic. Rub into roast. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
2. Combine apple juice, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Place garlic and onions in the bottom of a Dutch oven and set roast on top. Add liquid. Cover roast with a piece of parchment paper and then cover pan tightly. Cook in a preheated 325F/160C oven for 3 to 4 hours or longer, until pork is so tender it falls apart when pierced with a fork.
3. Meanwhile, in a saucepan whisk barbecue sauce with maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and mustard. Bring to a boil. Cook gently 5 minutes. Reserve.
4. When roast is ready, remove from pan. Slice thickly and chop. Combine with half the barbecue sauce, adding some of the strained cooking juices if meat is too dry. Reheat meat just before serving in a 325F oven for about 30 minutes.
5. Make sandwiches on the soft buns with meat, extra barbecue sauce, coleslaw, chipotle mayo and guacamole (if using).
Makes 12 sandwiches
CREAMY-STYLE COLESLAW
This creamy coleslaw tastes great either in a sandwich or on the side.
- 4 cups shredded green cabbage
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 1 carrot, grated
Dressing:
- ¾cup mayonnaise
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper or to taste
1. Make coleslaw by combining shredded cabbage with salt. Place in a colander set over a bowl, with a plate on top, pressing down on the cabbage to extract excess moisture. After about one hour, rinse cabbage and pat dry, pressing again firmly. Combine with carrots.
2. For dressing, combine mayonnaise with garlic, sugar, vinegar and pepper.
3. Combine dressing with cabbage mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
Makes 12 servings
CHIPOTLE MAYO
Chipotle chilis are smoked jalapenos -- hot and delicious. When I buy a tin of chipotles, I open it up and puree it all, transfer to a Ziploc bag, flatten the bag so that the mixture isn't too thick and freeze it. That way you can just break off any amount you need and it will defrost quickly. If the sauce is too spicy, add more mayo or some thick yogourt or sour cream. This mayo is also great on grilled chicken sandwiches or burgers.
- 1 cup mayonnaise (I like Hellman's)
- 1 tbsp chipotle chili puree or to taste
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
1. Place mayonnaise in a bowl and stir in chipotle puree, minced garlic and lemon juice to taste. Keep in the refrigerator.
Makes 1 cup/250ml
via nationalpost.com
This is seriously good eating. It looks long and complicated, but the only things I had to buy were the pork roast and some BBQ sauce (I used Diana's traditional). Everything else I had on hand.
I made the pulled pork and chipotle mayo but decided to forgo the coleslaw for sauerkraut that we had in the fridge. I tweeted Bonnie Stern the day before to see if I could make this in my slow-cooker and she gave me the thumbs up.
It is all I can do to not take leftovers out of the fridge and scarf them down cold. Some went (cold) in lunch bags today. And the house smelled fantastic!
Slow carb lunch
- Posted from Toronto, Canada
Adventures in "slow carbs"
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
Okay, you can take the title with a grain of salt, but I've been slow-carbing over the past few days and seeing very encouraging results. The basics of the diet are what is typical in low-carb diets, minus dairy (butter is okay), plus beans, plus red wine(!). Lots of veggies, no fruit. No grains of any colour.
I've been having one of the recommended breakfasts each morning (fried eggs on a bed of steamed spinach, topped with salsa, and coffee with cinnamon and a small amount of cream (only allowed dairy along with butter.) I had a bit of a cheat yesterday at lunch when I was served fruit with my omelet, and had some profiteroles at a birthday party last night, but otherwise I've been true to the diet. Oh, and the best part? One complete binge day per week is acceptable! Like, eat 'til you're sick if you want. My first binge day won't be 'til next Saturday, but I don't feel incredibly guilty about those two cheats on one day this weekend. Tim wouldn't be happy, but you know, it's my gig.
Ferriss is a very compelling writer and a big proponent of tracking stats. On everything. But it's not necessary to do that to reap the benefits of this plan. In the past four days I have dropped 5.6 pounds, of which 4 pounds were fat. ( He's also big on tracking body fat, which I am doing with a scale that (possibly not completely accurately) hands me this lovely measure.) My body fat % is quite high, so I've got to work to get this down and low-carb approaches have always worked best for me.
On the plan for today is to make a big pot of beef and bean chili for dinners, and a cold bean salad to have in the fridge for lunch with a pile of greens.
If you're looking for a realistic (no big cooking efforts needed) low carb diet that understands why red wine is an integral part of the examined life, give it a try. It's available as a kindle ebook as well.
I'll keep you posted!
Not just beautiful beer...
- Posted from Toronto, Canada
Shepherd's pie....an oldie but a goodie!
Had some leftovers from our wonderful lamb dinner the other night, so put together a quick shepherds pie. Here's my go-to method:
Hopefully, you have some leftover meat, potatoes, vegetables (or just use frozen peas and/or corn), and gravy.
Chop and fry an onion and some garlic (there was enough garlic in the gravy from our leftovers, so I left that out this time.) Add minced leftover meat and chopped veggies (I had some green beans and broccoli that I threw in). Heat this up and add gravy to make a thick stew and put it in a casserole dish. (If you don't have gravy, use a cup of beef or other broth, a tablespoon of tomato paste and 2 tbsp of flour and just throw that in instead. Season with salt and pepper and maybe some parsley.)
Mash the potatoes if they are not already in that form, with lots of whatever makes them creamy. I like to add some cream cheese and/or butter and/or cream plus some Lawry's seasoned salt. Top the meat mixture with potatoes, grate some old cheddar or whatever cheese you want to use up, and pop it in a medium oven, uncovered, for twenty minutes or until the cheese has melted and the stew is bubbling up the sides. (You can assemble this in advance and just heat it up before you're ready to eat.)
Total comfort food! Additional gravy to pour over the top is a bonus.
Jamie Oliver’s slow-roasted lamb shoulder
Made this terrific lamb dish last night. I couldn't get lamb shoulder at my local butcher so used half a leg of lamb. It took less time to roast than the recipe, but I simply reheated it in the oven before serving.
You roast the lamb on a bed of rosemary and garlic, and then make gravy with the drippings, removing the herbs but mashing the garlic into the sauce. Adding fresh mint and red-wine vinegar gives a beautiful, rich taste. I served it with fingerling potatoes and broccoli, along with the beautiful gravy in the recipe. It was the perfect fall dinner!
Click on the link above for the recipe.
A last minute Thanksgiving.
As I do pretty much all the cooking these days (well, for the past few years), holidays really just felt like more of the same. With teenagers who have an attention span of about 12 minutes at the dinner table, I REALLY didn't want to cook all day for a meal that lasted 20 minutes, the last 10 of which was just Z and I talking to each other. So Thanksgiving meals have either been done really casually, or at a restaurant. No pressure on anyone (meaning me).
Up until yesterday, I hadn't given Thanksgiving a thought. I was planning to just kind of ad lib my way through. Maybe we'd order in or go out for Korean Barbeque or something. Alex was arriving home Friday night and Z and I had been busy most nights this week, and I just didn't want to plan.
I was picking up something at the pharmacy next to our local Bruno's and so I popped in to see what they had. I spotted some beautiful stuffed and rolled turkey breasts and suddenly I felt like planning a meal. Maybe it was taking the big bird and turning it into an elegant and easy to prepare roast, but I grabbed one of those guys and headed over to Loblaws to get the rest of the meal.
So, in half an hour, we'll be eating said stuffed turkey breast, Pioneer Woman's creamy mashed potatoes (made with 3/4 sweet potatoes), gravy, homemade cranberry sauce (how easy is THAT?), roasted asparagus, and assorted pickles, followed by a cheese plate. For dessert, I made two pies: an apple from fruit picked by my brother and his family, and a pumpkin made from cooked, pureed pumpkin that I froze last fall.
We have much to be thankful, and that will be tomorrow's post.
Day One of Paleo Diet
Other than a massive headache, it went okay.
I'm not sure whether the headache was due to lack of caffeine, lack of sugar, too much Angry Birds on my iphone, or an act of God, but I couldn't make it to choir last night and only managed to watch two episodes of Weeds and one of Mad Men before retiring to the kitchen sofa with a book and promptly falling asleep.
Here's how the food portion of my day went:
Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, two mini cucumbers, two large black plums, tea with honey
Snack: almonds
Lunch: tuna salad with real mayo (no dairy) and pickle relish, two plums, two mini cucumbers
Snack: cashews and raisins
Cocktail: arak with water
Dinner: large spicy sausage with mustard, steamed broccoli with dijon-honey dressing, strawberries, two plums, plain tea
Snack: mixed nuts
My digestive system has felt a bit wonky, but better this morning.
I also decided that I'd make coffee and drink it black, because I have a meeting this afternoon and didn't want to risk another headache. I actually quite enjoyed the coffee and realised that I'm not ready to give it up, even without cream.
This morning, I made a mushroom and two-egg omelette, and had an orange and two cups of java. Larabars look suitable for the diet, so I'm going to start carrying a couple in my bag for those times I need to eat and suitable fare isn't available. And a bag of plain, raw almonds.
I'm off to Canadians Connected 2010 this afternoon down at the Westin Harbor Castle. It's a Symposium and the AGM for CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority), of which I am a member, owning a couple of .ca domains. Terry O'Reilly and Mitch Joel are two of the speakers and it should be an interesting afternoon. Hashtag is #cira2010 for those of you on twitter and interested.
I need to shock my system
I have been incredibly lethargic these past few weeks, probably a combination of stress/grief/anxiety....and unbridled consumption coupled with not-so-much exercise. I had the old "I'll just cut back on portion sizes" talk with myself, but apparently I wasn't listening.
A random tweet crossed my iphone this evening that took me to this blog post, and I found myself thinking that this might be the ticket. Something to try for a month and see how I feel. The Paleo Diet. Lean meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds. (Or maybe not seeds. TBD.) No added salt. Honey or maple syrup for sweetening. No dairy (cheese! coffee cream!). No grains (bread! pasta! rice! cookies!).
Now you medical people amongst my friends and family are probably shaking your heads in dismay, but if I'm able to drop some weight and feel better in apparently many potential ways, I think it will be worth a try. My main issue will be cooking for my men, but I'll just have to do the layered thing that I did when the boys were toddlers, except that I'll be the one not eating some of the food.
I start tomorrow.
I am strangely drawn to this watermelon salad ...
Watermelon Salad
- 8 cups cubed watermelon
- 1 small Vidalia or other sweet mild onion thinly sliced
- 1/8 cup red wine vinegar
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
- 2 - 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
- mint sprigs for garnish
Directions
In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, salt, pepper, and whisk until salt is dissolved. Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Add in the chopped mint, taste, and adjust seasonings.
In a large bowl, combine the melon, onion, and feta. Pour the dressing over the melon mixture and toss gently until everything is coated and evenly mixed. Garnish with mint sprigs.
via skiptomylou.org
I love this blog (link above). Lots of great ideas for handmade and homemade things in all categories.
I'm going to make this salad when my sweetie returns from his sad trip to Paris. Just the ticket for a warm, summer Sunday.
