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(Classic) Slow-Cooker Cuban Pork | Make Ahead Mondays Highlight

June 11, 2012 by 20 Comments

 

Back in March of 2009, this blogging novice posted a recipe that remains one of the most popular ever here on Foodie With Family. And let me tell you, it deserves every bit of its popularity. Slow-Cooked Cuban Pork is one of those crazy recipes that somehow manages to be dead simple, insanely inexpensive, habit-formingly delicious, almost infinitely customizable, and wickedly versatile. This is the original Foodie With Family unicorn recipe.

A testament to how fabulous this recipe actually is is the fact that so many of you made it even though I split the recipe into two different posts and made you go to two places to print it. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I was a newbie. So today, for Make Ahead Mondays, I am finally righting my wrong against you all with a bright, shiny, easy printable version of this classic recipe. I’m doing a little roasting two pigs with one post action, too… because in the last several months the readership here has grown explosively AND I LOVE YOU ALL MADLY FOR IT but that means that some of ye who are new around these parts may not have yet seen the Slow-Cooked Cuban Pork and in a wild display of run-on-sentence-ery, I’m here to tell you that you must, must, MUST make one or several.

If the five reasons given above weren’t good enough to convince you to make this at the soonest possible moment, I have a couple more to persuade you.

  1. It makes a massive amount which makes it good for…
  2. FREEZING. I realize I’m type-screaming a lot with the all-caps today, but I’m very excited to share this recipe again.

This is truly Make Ahead Monday friendly. You get a gigantic amount of shredded pork to eat off of and freeze into individual portions. Win/win!

We use leftovers from this recipe for Barbecue Pulled Pork Sliders, Barbecue Pulled Pork Pizza, and Hot TexMess among other things. A couple containers of this pork in the freezer is the best guarantee against the “I have no idea what to make for dinner” syndrome.

Over the past three years, I’ve received all sorts of emails from people who have up-sized the Cuban Pork enough to feed a couple hundred people at church suppers, wedding receptions, and down-sized it to feed a singleton or a couple. If you’ve been around here for a while, and you’re one of the many who HAVE tried the recipe, would you tell us how you made it? Did you serve it for a special occasion?  Did you make any changes to it? Add anything to it that you absolutely love? Fill me in!

If you prefer the old posts along with the photo tutorial, they’re still there and here, but I, for one, will be using this brand-spanking new all-in-one, easy-print version below.

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(Classic) Slow-Cooker Cuban Pork | Make Ahead Mondays Highlight

(Classic) Slow-Cooker Cuban Pork | Make Ahead Mondays Highlight

Of all the recipes published here on Foodie With Family over the years, this remains one of the best loved and for good reason. Fragrant, garlicky, moist and yet crispy, this mouth-watering pork is as easy to make as it is wonderful and habit forming. The recipe yields a large amount making it perfect to feed a crowd or freeze for quick meals in the future.

Ingredients

    Step 1:
  • 1 (8-10 pound) bone-in pork shoulder, make sure it fits into your slow-cooker. Cut to fit if necessary.
  • 1/2 cup frozen 100% orange juice concentrate
  • 1/3 cup lime juice (fresh squeezed or bottled)
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 8 whole peeled cloves fresh garlic (or 1 Tablespoon granulated dried garlic)
  • 1 Tablespoon (or more, to taste) ground cumin
  • 1 Tablespoon dry oregano leaves
  • 1 Tablespoon or more fresh ground pepper
  • 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional
  • if available, 2 stems (no leaves, just stems) fresh cilantro
    • Step 2:
  • Slow-cooked pork shoulder, thoroughly chilled
  • Cooking juices from slow-cooked pork shoulder
  • 2 Tablespoons lime juice
  • 2 Tablespoons white wine or cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried mustard powder
  • 2 drops liquid smoke, optional

Instructions

Step 1:

Drizzle the olive oil in the slow-cooker bowl. Place untrimmed pork, fat side down in the bowl then flip fat side up. Toss garlic cloves in around the roast and sprinkle with salt, pepper, cumin, oregano and crushed red pepper flakes. Use a spoon to dollop the frozen orange juice concentrate over the top of the roast. Pour the lime juice around the edges of the roast, toss on cilantro stems- if using, cover, and turn cooker to ‘HIGH’. Allow to cook for 1 hour, turn the heat to ’LOW’ and continue cooking for another 12 hours or until meat falls apart when prodded with a fork. When the meat is tender, turn off slow cooker and place the slow cooker bowl in the fridge. (If your slow-cooker doesn’t have a removable insert, transfer the contents to a large container with a tight-fitting lid and pop that into the fridge.

Step 2:

Use a spoon to remove the congealed fat from around the pork shoulder. Discard the fat. Transfer pork shoulder to a large cutting board, preferably one with a groove to catch juices. Otherwise, keep the paper towels handy! Let sit while attending to the pan juices.

Pour the cooking juices that surrounded the pork through a fine mesh strainer positioned over a saucepan. Remove and discard any solids left in the strainer. Add the lime juice, vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes, dried mustard powder and liquid smoke to the cooking juices. Whisk until evenly combined and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Allow to boil (while working on shredding the pork) until reduced to about 1/4 of the starting volume. Set aside until pork is fully shredded.

Pull the bone out of the pork and discard. Scrape as much fat as you can from the outside of the pork shoulder. Throw away the fat or give it to your spoiled and lazy dogs. Pull large chunks of the shoulder apart. It should naturally come apart at places where there is additional fat you can remove. Take as much of the fat out as you can without wasting meat.

Using your hands -or two forks- shred the meat into small pieces. When you’ve shredded all the meat, you can leave it as is or chop through it quickly with a knife to ensure that you have small bite-sized pieces. It depends on what you’ll do with the pork. I usually run through it with the knife since I have so many little mouths eating it. When pork is fully shredded (and chopped, if desired) transfer to a 9? x 13? baking dish with sides. Pour the reduced pan juices over the pork and toss. Tightly cover the pan with foil. If you plan on serving it immediately, put into a preheated 350ºF oven and heat for 25 minutes, or until hot all the way through. If you are preparing this ahead of time you can either place the pan directly into the freezer or into the fridge.

To reheat from chilled:

Place, still covered in foil, in a preheated 350ºF oven for 30 minutes, or until heated through.

To heat from frozen:

Place, still covered in foil, in a preheated 350ºF for 45 minutes, or until heated through.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/06/11/classic-slow-cooker-cuban-pork-make-ahead-mondays-highlight/

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Component Foods, kid food, Main Dish, Make Ahead Mondays, Meat, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, slow-cooker, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , ,

One Ingredient Mango (or Banana) Ice Cream

June 8, 2012 by 18 Comments

Around a decade ago, my stepmom, Val,  and my dad gave us a seriously burly juicer as a gift. For those of you well-versed in juicers, I’ll name drop for a second here; it’s a Champion. That thing is jet-engine powerful. And I used that jet engine to make juice. Lots of juice. Juice is good for kids, right?* But there’s only so much juice a gal and her crew can consume.

*Well, as long as it’s real juice and not a sugar bomb. I know…

Then one day, while we were hovering around Val’s kitchen looking hungry (because if you’re smart, that is the way you’ll arrange your face in her kitchen so you can taste her food), she offered to whip up a treat for us. She fished some frozen mango strips and bananas from the freezer. She assembled her own juicer and stuffed the frozen fruit into it. The motor whirred and out of the end of the juicer came… what?… seriously???… It was ice cream. Or at least it looked it.

And oh-my-sweet-heavens it tasted like it. It tasted like the most glorious, indulgent ice cream I had ever eaten. I didn’t even wait until it made it to my own personal bowl. My spoon kept going back to the bowl sitting under the juicer. The Evil Genius’s spoon was even faster than mine. Superlatives were used folks.

That was a day that will live in our memories forever, because it was the day we discovered (I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but my kids are standing over me insisting I tell you what they call it) Fruit Poop. If I wasn’t so desensitized by being the mother of five boys, I might have died just now putting that in print for all you to read, but that’s what the kids (including the big, adult one to whom I’m married) like to call it. This name came about while watching the juicer extrude the fruit. Okay, boys. I told them. Can I go back to calling it ice cream now?

All summer long, this is our go-to dessert. And for years, I’ve kept my mango strips, bananas, and whatever other frozen fruit I wanted to use in plastic containers in the freezer. The only problem was that the lids on those dad-burned containers always shattered on me when I tried to pry them off. I tried switching to freezer bags, but those would slip down in and among rock-hard venison loins, bags of peas and corn, and white paper packages containing that half-a-pig we ordered. It drove me batty.

I recently discovered the joy that is Glad Freezerware. It’s made to go into the freezer! (Duh, right?) It’s tough stuff. It’s made to go from freezer to microwave to whatever and is dishwasher safe. SCORE. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make my kids dishwasher safe. That would so simply my life. Glad… can you get on that? Please?

Here’s how I use it for the One-Ingredient Ice Cream. Cut a large amount of ripe mangoes and bananas into strips or one-inch thick chunks. Believe me. You’re going to want this often. Lay them out -not touching- on a parchment lined baking sheet and stash them in the freezer until frozen solid all the way through. The point in freezing them like this is so you don’t have one giant lump of frozen fruit. No matter HOW burly your juicer or food processor, you cannot make something good out of lump-o-fruit.

Do your level best not to snitch them at this point. Yes, I know they’re tasty, but they’re MAGICAL when they’re frozen and turned into fruit poop, er, one-ingredient ice cream.

For best results, transfer the frozen fruit into Glad Freezerware containers, then store in the freezer until ready to use.  You’re going to be grateful those lids don’t shatter when you take them off, because you’ll be taking the lids off all. the. time. to make this ice cream.

The lid, the lid, the lid didn’t shatter!

Again, no snitching! I had to smack a hand away from these containers. Alright. I smacked my own hand away, but the point is that you want what’s coming next!

I am not engaging in hyperbole when I tell you this is some of the best tasting stuff I have ever eaten. And look at the banana “ice cream”.

I do so love this plain. I adore it. But if I was to accidentally trip and drizzle a little chocolate syrup on top, I would love it that way, too. Ahem.

We also love blends. Mango/Banana? Two thumbs up. Blueberry/Banana? Big yes! Have fun with it. You have to taste this to believe it. It tastes like soft-serve frozen custard, but it’s good for you. Holy cow. It’s really good for you. It’s FRUIT!

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One Ingredient Mango (or Banana) Ice Cream

One Ingredient Mango (or Banana) Ice Cream

You'll have to taste it to believe it, but this super-creamy, luscious ice cream is made from just one ingredient! Whether you choose mango or banana or another fruit entirely, you'll be blown away by how decadent frozen fruit can taste when blitzed in a food processor or a juicer with a blank plate. Summer heat doesn't stand a chance when you have this recipe under your belt!

Ingredients

    For Mango 'Ice Cream':
  • Strips or small chunks of frozen mango
  • (The equivalent of 1 to 1 1/2 mangos yields one very generous or two medium servings.)
    • For Banana 'Ice Cream' (Taste like vanilla ice cream):
  • Strips or small chunks of frozen banana
  • (1 1/2 bananas are about equal to one very generous or two smaller servings)

Instructions

For Either Flavour of 'Ice Cream' Using a Juicer:

Put the blank plate on your juicer (the one that allows you to make 'whole juice' vs. strained juice.) Add the chunks of frozen fruit to the hopper and press down gently until all the fruit has been extruded.

Either eat immediately for soft-serve texture, or pack gently into a freezerware container, cover and put in the freezer until solid. This is best served the day it is made, but can be stored longer and softened slightly at room temperature before serving later.

For Either Flavour of 'Ice Cream' Using a Food Processor:

Put the chunks of frozen fruit into a food processor work bowl that has been fitted with a metal blade. Put the lid in place and process until it is a soft-serve consistency. You may find you need to stop the food processor to scrape down the sides occasionally.

Serve immediately like soft-serve, or pack into freezerware containers, cover and put into the freezer until solid. This is best served the day it is made, but can be stored longer and softened slightly at room temperature before serving later.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/06/08/one-ingredient-mango-or-banana-ice-cream/

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received Glad Freezerware but the opinions contained in the post are entirely my own. I really do love these containers. For more information on the new Glad Freezerware containers, visit their Facebook page.

Filed Under: Comfort Food, Desserts, Freezer Pleaser, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Holiday Food, Ice Cream, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Salsa Beef and Bean Lettuce Cups

June 1, 2012 by 9 Comments

I went to bed the other night all prepared to make delicious little calzones for the family’s dinner the next evening. The next day, the temperature outside was roughly that of the surface of the sun. And humid.

Now I don’t know about you, but when it feels like a giant sauna outside, I am not much disposed to baking. (That was a giant euphemism for you couldn’t PAY me to heat up the oven.)

The moral of the story is don’t menu plan.

Actually, the moral of the story is to be flexible. I took the ‘guts’ of the doomed calzones and turned it around into something quick and not at all oven-y. I fried up some bacon, added it to some browned ground beef then stirred in a can of our favourite chili beans and a fistful of chopped cilantro. Thanks to great sale on produce at our local-ish grocery, we were well stocked on lettuce. The result was a smoky, saucy, beefy, bacony, beany concoction that somehow managed to be filling without being heavy. We served it in crispy lettuce cups, topped it with grated cheese, velvety ripe avocado cubes and some spicy salsa, sat on the porch and let what little breeze there was cool us all down. Three cheers for switching it up!

The no-vegetable contingent had the toppings (meat and cheese, thankyouverymuch) over brown rice while the rest of us happily munched our lettuce cups. We ended up liking the dish so much we made it two nights in a row.  Then two nights later, we made it again. Thank heavens for bursts of inspiration!

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Salsa Beef and Bean Lettuce Cups

Salsa Beef and Bean Lettuce Cups

Crisp, fresh lettuce cups with a smoky, saucy, beef, bean and bacon filling are topped with lime-kissed ripe avocado cubes, shredded Cheddar cheese and a generous dollop of your favourite salsa for the ultimate hot-weather dinner. Easy enough for busy evenings but pretty enough to serve to company, you'll be sure to add this to your regular meal rotation!

Ingredients

    For the Beef Filling:
  • 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
  • 1/2 of a pound of sliced bacon
  • 1/2 an onion, peeled and finely diced
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced or pressed
  • 1 can (15.5 ounces, approximately) chili beans in sauce
  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley
    • To Serve:
  • Butter or Iceberg lettuce leaves
  • shredded extra sharp Cheddar cheese
  • cubes of ripe avocado with lime juice squeezed over them
  • salsa

Instructions

To Prepare the Filling:

Stack the bacon slices and cut cross-ways into 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick strips. Fry those over medium heat in a 12-inch, heavy-bottomed skillet or frying pan until crispy. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to drain on a plate lined with paper towels. Pour the remaining bacon fat from the pan and return the pan to medium heat.

Break up the ground beef into the hot pan and add the chopped onions and garlic. Use a wooden spoon to continue breaking the beef and working the onions and garlic into it as it cooks. When the beef is no longer pink in the center, drain off any fat (if there is any!) and return the pan to the heat. Add the can of beans with their sauce, stir well and bring up to a simmer. You can simmer it to thicken the sauce if necessary.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cilantro.

To Serve:

Stack the lettuce leaves 2 to 3 thick to provide a little structure for when you lift it to eat it. Scoop about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the beef filling in the center of the lettuce cup. Top with the shredded cheese, cubes of avocado and a dollop of salsa.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/06/01/salsa-beef-and-bean-lettuce-cups/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, kid food, Main Dish, Meat, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , ,

Rosemary and Garlic Slow-Roasted Almonds

May 31, 2012 by 13 Comments

My friend Lisette is a good person to befriend. She’s funny. She’s charming. She has exquisite taste. And wherever she goes, she has snacks.Good snacks. She has bags of granola bars, homemade energy bars and her signature Rosemary Garlic Roasted Almonds.

My children hover around Mrs. Heckathorn on field trips with their best “I’m starving!” faces on in the hopes that she’ll break out her stash of almonds and offer to share. Is it because I don’t bring food? Or they don’t like what I have? No. It’s just that a.) they love Mrs. Heckathorn and b.) they love those nuts. Big time.

 

Why?

Lisette slow roasts raw whole almonds (overnight!) in a very, very low temperature oven with just enough garlic, rosemary and salt to make them utterly habit-forming. The fragrant, piney rosemary flavour amps up the sweetness of the almonds. The garlic roasts down to a mellow, mild garlic presence and the salt. Well, what isn’t better with a little salt?

These nuts aren’t just delicious, they’re simple. Oh my goodness. You have no excuse (other than forgetfulness) not to have these on hand. The most work of the entire process is peeling and mincing or pressing a garlic clove. Slap ‘em on a pan and let them slow-roast to pure savoury perfection while you snooze.

If you’re a little nervous about letting your oven go overnight (even at such a low temperature) you can use a dehydrator if your dehydrator has an adjustable thermostat. Just set it down around one hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Ta da!

Not only are they crave-able and simple, but they’re oh-so-good for you. In a one-ounce serving of almonds, you get a full twelve percent of your USRDA of protein with zero cholesterol, thirty five (35!) percent of your daily allowance of vitamin E, and about as much calcium as one-quarter cup of milk. (Plus, you don’t have to drink milk. SCORE!*)

*I know, I KNOW. Milk is good for you. I just don’t like to drink it. Never have. Ask my sister who -when we were children- kindly managed a switcheroo with me so she would drink my milk and her own and I wouldn’t have to touch it.

Make yourself nuts today! In a good way!

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Rosemary and Garlic Slow-Roasted Almonds

Rosemary and Garlic Slow-Roasted Almonds

These fragrant and toasty rosemary garlic almonds slow-roast in an ultra low oven overnight (so as not to destroy all those good fats that almonds contain) while you sleep. When you wake, you are in possession of one ultimately sustaining and habit forming snack. Make yourself nuts today! In a good way!

Ingredients

  • 4 cups whole, raw almonds (out of the shell)
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced or pressed
  • 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon whole dried rosemary, crumbled between the fingers to break it into smaller pieces

Instructions

Toss all of the ingredients together in a mixing bowl until everything is evenly dispersed and the nuts are evenly coated with oil. Pour the nuts onto a rimmed baking sheet and spread them into a single layer. Put in a cold oven and set the temperature to 170°F or thereabouts. Roast overnight (or 8 hours) or until the oil is absorbed and the nuts appear matte. Remove from the oven, cool completely and transfer to a canning jar or another container with an airtight lid. The seasonings may fall off of the nuts. That's okay! Just transfer the seasoning to the jar as well!

These are good for up to a month, kept tightly covered, at room temperature. I seriously doubt you'll be able to keep your hands (and mouth) off of them that long, though!

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/05/31/rosemary-and-garlic-slow-roasted-almonds/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Snacks, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , ,

Mom’s Grilled Cheese and Sweet Onion Sandwiches

May 25, 2012 by 6 Comments

Today’s post is powered 100% by nostalgia. My baby brother is getting married this summer and it has totally sent me into a “This is Your Life” tizzy.

My mom was the room mother in my fourth grade year (and my first, second, third, and fifth grades, but I’m talking specifically about year four here…) She was responsible for games for our party days (and I’m fairly certain she volunteered for that duty. My mom is the Queen of Party Games.) The game she had planned for my class on one party day was a game where she wrapped food in pieces of foil and put them in paper bags at the end of a race course. There were two teams of kids. One kid from each team would run to the end of the course, grab a piece of foil wrapped food, unwrap it and eat whatever was in there. Everything was edible and tasty (at least to my mom.) Now here’s where it gets a little complicated. All the little boys in my class (all nine of them*) had a near debilitating crush on my mom. How is that a problem? One of the foil wrapped foods was a slice of Vidalia onion (a delicacy in our home, to be sure!). One of the little boys with a debilitating crush on my mom was evidently mildly allergic to onions. Before I say anything, you all know which packet this little boy picked right?

*Yes. There were only nine boys in my class. That is due in no small part to the fact that there were only eighteen kids in my class all together. As in, in the entire school. I did tell you I grew up rural, didn’t I?

Obviously he picked the onion.

Any sensible person would raise their hand and say, “Excuse me, but I’m allergic to onions. Could I pick another food?” But there’s no such thing as a sensible fourth grade boy with a crush. The kid ate the onion then ran from the room to toss his cookies. Or rather, toss his onions.

That day was memorable for more than one reason. It was the first time I’d seen someone do something stupid for love. It was also the first moment I realized that not every household ate raw onions like apples.

One of my favourite foods from those years (and one that I’m happy to say my kids love now) was a big, gooey grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with thick, crisp slabs of sweet onion, toasted to that perfect rich brown with little rivulets of cheese escaping the sides of the bread. Oh heavens.

Can you even think of something that sounds better or more comforting than that?

Grilled cheeses ruled my world as a kid. And both of my parents make a mean one. My dad always added a ritual to the grilled cheese making. Half of the fun of a grilled cheese with dad has been and remains the “Thwapping of the Cheese”.  We would each unwrap a piece of cheese, hold it by the bottom edge and then swing it up to smack it against our tongues, making a satisfying THWAP sound in the process. Here, my third born demonstrates the manoeuvre.

  1. Here’s the wind-up folks. Note the open mouth and the angle of the cheese slice.
  2. He’s going for it! Looks like he judged the distance just right!
  3. And he’s home. THWAP!

It’s hard to explain why the “Thwapping of the Cheese” is as amusing as it is. Uproarious laughter is the almost inevitable result. When you couple my dad’s cheese thwapping with my mom’s specialty grilled cheese with sweet onion, you’re sure to end lunch with as big a smile as the one you had when you started.

This is, in my book, the perfect grilled cheese. Choose your favourite bread and your preferred onion, but there simply is no substitute for the melty, gooey, drippy cheesy goodness you get from Kraft Singles. Whether you choose the yellow or the white (my family’s favourite) you’re sure to love this grilled cheese as much as I do.

Disclosure: As part of the DailyBuzz Moms Featured Publisher Community, I received a coupon for free Kraft Singles and a stipend to help pay for additonal ingredients, but all opinions expressed in the post are my own. It is my promise to you that I will not write sponsored posts for any product that I do not or would not use myself.

 

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Mom’s Grilled Cheese and Sweet Onion Sandwiches

Mom’s Grilled Cheese and Sweet Onion Sandwiches

My mom's version of the classic grilled cheese is my all time favourite way to eat it. Deep, toasty brown bread topped with melty, gooey cheese and crisp, just-heated-through slabs of sweet onion. On any given day at any given moment, I'm hard pressed to think of something I like to eat more than this.

Ingredients

    Per Sandwich:
  • 2 slices of sandwich bread (I like potato bread or oatmeal bread best.)
  • 2 slices Kraft Singles, unwrapped
  • 1 (1/8- to 1/4-inch thick) slab sweet onion, peeled and separated into smaller rings or half moons
  • 1 tablespoon softened butter

Instructions

Preheat a griddle to 300°F (or put a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-low to medium heat on the stove top.)

Butter one side of each slice of bread, using half of the butter on each slice. Lay one slice of bread, butter side down on the hot griddle, immediately lay down one slice of the unwrapped Kraft Singles, top with as much of the sliced onion as you can get to stay on the bread, the other slice of unwrapped cheese and the last piece of bread, butter side up.

Let it toast slowly until the under-side of the bottom piece of bread is a deep golden to rich brown, taking care not to let it burn. If necessary, you can reduce the heat to prevent scorching. Carefully flip the sandwich, using your hand to hold it together as the onions tend to make it fall apart a little more easily than the average grilled cheese.

Toast the second side until it is a rich brown and the cheese is completely melted inside the sandwich. Transfer to a cutting board and cut it in half on the diagonal. Yes. It MUST be on a diagonal. Sandwiches just taste better that way.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/05/25/grilled-cheese-and-sweet-onion-sandwiches/

Filed Under: Comfort Food, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , ,

Lazy Sushi Bowls (a.k.a. Scattered Sushi) | Make Ahead Mondays

May 21, 2012 by 4 Comments

I’m really excited about today’s post. Why? It’s another one of those things I’ve been making for years and I’m just getting around to sharing it with you. I always feel a mixture of thrill and guilt when I share these perennial favourites. Thrill because I’m giving you something we love so much and guilt because it took me so darned long to finally give you the recipe.

And then there’s the fact that this is hardly a recipe at all so much as it is an idea. A formula. A how-to, if you will. It seems like these are always the last things I think to put here because, well, they’re so simple it’s almost embarrassing. Every now and then I pull up short and have to remind myself that it is just those kinds of things that I should be sharing! Good grief! Get with the program, self!

Without further ado, I present to you Lazy Sushi Bowls (also known as Scattered Sushi). This is a riff on the honest-to-goodness, real-deal Chirashizushi (scattered sushi) that is served in various regions of Japan. Chirashizushi is loose sushi rice (cooked rice tossed with seasoned rice vinegar) in a bowl topped with seafood and garnishes. It’s a riff because most of the time, the real thing is served with sashimi (raw fish or seafood) and frankly, I’m way-hay-hay too far from any ocean to feel good about serving any kind of seafood I can buy around here raw. Beyond that, though, is the wacky toppings I prefer on my Lazy Sushi. My method is a very culinarily mixed metaphor. On top of the seasoned sushi rice, I pile Asian Marinated Cucumber Salad (or cubed English cucumbers), Asian Style Pickled Carrots, flaked (canned) Albacore tuna, cubed or sliced ripe avocado, cooked shrimp, sliced green onions, tiny cubes of cream cheese (thanks a million times over to Rebecca’s sister, Jennifer, of Ezra Pound Cake for the brilliant homage to a Philadelphia roll for this idea!), torn seasoned nori (or Furikake), pickled ginger (when we have it), soy sauce, wasabi paste, and toasted sesame seeds. Does this mean you need all of that on hand to make this dish? The answer to that is a most emphatic no! We make these with as many or as few of the ingredients as we have or want.

I mix up a big batch of the Sushi Dressing (and really, it only takes seconds), store it in the refrigerator and then have it on hand for whenever we get the craving for Lazy Sushi (which is a pretty common occurrence.) So maybe I’m stretching the Make Ahead Monday theme a bit,  but I’ve waited so long to share this, I couldn’t wait any longer!

Why do I call it Lazy Sushi when there are so many components? Let me break it down. The rice is cooked, tossed with the dressing and set aside to cool to room temperature while you prepare the other ingredients. If you have some leftover Asian Marinated Cucumber Salad, your cucumber portion is ready and waiting. If not? Roughly chop or cube an English cucumber (seedless cucumber). Their skin is tender, so no need to peel ‘em. How simple is that? Thaw some fully cooked shrimp and remove the tails. If you have Asian Style Pickled Carrots on the shelf, you need only pop open a jar. If not? Shred a carrot on a box grater or use a vegetable peeler to get thin strips. Open and drain a can of Albacore tuna. Halve, pit and slice an avocado. Tear a sheet of nori or pop open your furikake. Wash and slice a couple green onions. Fish your bottle of soy sauce and your tube of wasabi from the back of the refrigerator. Cut some little cubes from a brick of cream cheese. Give everyone a bowl and you are off the hook. Proverbially and colloquially. Stand back and let everyone assemble their own dinner.

Are you ready for the bonuses? Because there’s more. This is good for you! (Especially if you use brown rice.) This makes a killer brown-bag or picnic lunch. Finally, the biggest bonus is that The Evil Genius and I can have bowls piled teeteringly high with every single ingredient our gluttonous little hearts desire while the no veg contingent is content with a bowl of rice topped with a couple shrimp and soy sauce. It’s almost endlessly customizable and as all you parents (or spouses) out there know, the ability to make a dish that everyone can love is worth more than its weight in gold. This is another Unicorn Dish in our household.

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Lazy Sushi Bowls (a.k.a. Scattered Sushi)

Lazy Sushi Bowls (a.k.a. Scattered Sushi)

Lazy Sushi -seasoned sushi rice topped with your favourite sushi toppings- is great for fun family dinners, entertaining (because EVERYONE loves it), movie nights and those hot, steamy summer nights when the mere thought of cooking makes you break into a sweat.

These are also great for picnics and brown-bag lunches. Just store the rice outside of the refrigerator (or cooler) and keep the remaining ingredients chilled. Assemble and eat!

Ingredients

    For the Sushi Dressing:
  • 1 cup plain rice vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons raw sugar or white granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
    • For each serving of Lazy Sushi:
  • 1/4-1/2 cup uncooked short grain rice (preferably sweet brown rice, but short grain white rice is good, too.)
  • 1 tablespoon Sushi Dressing (see above)
  • Optional:
  • 1/4 of a ripe avocado, (peeled, pitted and cubed), tossed with a little rice vinegar to prevent browning
  • 1/4 cup Sweet and Spicy Asian Style Pickled Carrots or 1/2 of a carrot, grated or peeled into thin strips with a vegetable peeler
  • 1/4 cup Asian Marinated Cucumber Salad or about 2 tablespoons of finely cubed English or seedless cucumbers
  • 1/2 of the contents of a drained can of Albacore tuna, flaked
  • 2-4 pieces of fully cooked shrimp (cleaned with the tails removed)
  • 3-4 small cubes (about 1/4-inch or so) cold cream cheese
  • thinly sliced green onions, to taste
  • wasabi, to taste
  • soy sauce, to taste
  • torn or cut nori (or furikake , to taste
  • toasted sesame seeds, to taste

Instructions

To Make the Sushi Dressing:

Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a microwave safe bowl (or in a small saucepan), heat until very warm and stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour into a canning jar or other heat proof container with a tight fitting lid and store in the refrigerator for up to one month, using as needed.

To Prepare the Lazy Sushi Bowls:

Cook the rice according to package instructions (I prefer to use my rice cooker.) When the rice is done, turn it into a large-ish mixing bowl, fluff it gently and pour the appropriate amount of Sushi Dressing over the top. Fold the dressing in gently, taking care not to smash the rice. Lay damp paper towels over the surface of the rice to prevent it from drying out and let the rice cool to room temperature.

When the rice is cool, divide among serving bowls and let the diners assemble their own Lazy Sushi.

To Pack for Lunch or a Meal Away from Home:

Pack the rice in a container with a tight fitting lid and a great deal of room between the rice and the top of the container. (This is to accommodate the toppings once added.) Pack the toppings in separate containers, combining those items which need refrigeration (such as the fish, cubed avocados with rice vinegar, cream cheese, etc...) Store the rice outside of the refrigerator (preferably in a cool-but-not-cold, dark place) and the remaining ingredients in the refrigerator (or cooler). Assemble just before eating.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/05/21/lazy-sushi-bowls-a-k-a-scattered-sushi-make-ahead-mondays/

 

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Comfort Food, Fish, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, kid food, Main Dish, Make Ahead Mondays, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian

Barbecue Pulled Pork Pizza

May 11, 2012 by 8 Comments

Today I have the second of the three pizzas I planned to share with you for Pizza Week. You can see the dough recipe here and the Spinach and Garlic Alfredo Pizza here. Hooray for pizza! Now, I can’t speak for your own mother, but I -for one- would be thrilled with a homemade pizza for Mother’s Day.

By now you all know how I feel about pizza, but there’s one very big reason to love it that I haven’t mentioned yet. It’s frugal. Oh, baby, it is the frugal hausfrau’s best friend. You can put nearly anything on a pizza, so it’s great for using up odds and ends in from the refrigerator and the pantry. Granted, not every combination will be a winner. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when figuring out what to load onto your crust is “Would this taste great together on a sandwich?” If you answer yourself with a yes, chances are good that it will make a wonderful pizza.

With my own rule in mind, I raided my chill chest and put together today’s pizza. Using a little leftover pulled pork (I used this from one of my most popular posts ever here on Foodie With Family but this one would be great, too!)  barbecue sauce, enchilada sauce, pepper jack cheese and onions from hamburgers, I put together this beautiful Barbecue Pulled Pork Pizza.  It was a handful of this and a fistful of that and a pinch of another thing. We’re talking about little ingredients that so easily could’ve been lost in some forgotten corner of the refrigerator, but they became dinner. In fact, they became a glorious barbecue pulled pork crossed with pizza. How could that be anything less than wonderful?

Another great advantage of making pizza at home is the infinite ability to adjust it to your own preferences. You’re not an onion lover? Leave them off! You dislike barbecue sauce? Replace it with pizza sauce or hot sauce. The world is your oyster, or rather, your pizza!

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Barbecue Pulled Pork Pizza

Barbecue Pulled Pork Pizza

This pizza is a delicious multi-tasker. Yes, it tastes amazing- pizza meets pulled barbecue pork on a crackly crisp crust- but it's also a great user-upper of leftovers from the refrigerator.

Ingredients

  • 1 piece, about 5 ounces or the size of a large plum, of No-Knead Whole-Wheat Semolina Pizza Dough
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cups leftover pulled pork (like this or this.) | http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2009/03/24/cuban-pork-part-i-slow-cookin-good-lookin/]
  • 1/4 cup barbecue sauce (I use this but you can use whichever is your favourite.)
  • 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
  • 1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
  • 2 tablespoons hot sauce or enchilada sauce
  • Optional, but tasty:
  • 2-3 quarter-inch thick, half moon slices of onions
  • mixed salad greens
  • additional hot sauce

Instructions

With a pizza stone situated in the bottom third, preheat the oven as high as you can get it. We use a 500°F setting on our oven.

Lightly flour your work surface. Form your pizza dough into a ball by gently stretching the top of the dough underneath itself. Place the dough on the floured work surface and pat it out gently with your hands into a disc shape until you cannot make it any wider. Flour a rolling pin and gently roll the pizza dough out. This works best if you look at the pizza dough as a clock. Start rolling from the center of the circle toward 12 o'clock, rotate your pin and roll from the center to 3 o'clock, then from the center to 6 o'clock, and so forth, ending back at 12 o'clock. Do this until you have a circle that is about 10-inches in diameter.

Sprinkle a pizza peel generously with semolina flour or cornmeal. Carefully transfer the dough to the peel. Shake gently to be sure no part of the dough sticks. This is crucial. You will be shaking the peel gently after each addition of toppings to make sure the dough can still move freely. If at any point the dough sticks, gently lift the offending area and throw a bunch of semolina or cornmeal under it.

Dot the barbecue sauce over the dough to within a 1/2-inch of the edges. Shake the dough to make sure it's not stuck.

Pull the pork apart with your hands and arrange it over the barbecue sauce to within a 1/2-inch of the edges. Again, shake to be sure it isn't stuck

Sprinkle the pepper jack and mozzarella cheese over the pork and then drizzle with the 2 tablespoons of hot sauce or enchilada sauce. If you're using the onion, separate the slices into individual pieces and arrange over the top. Shake! Shake! Shake! To be sure it isn't sticking.

Open your oven, position your peel over the back edge of the pizza stone. Flick your wrist to get the dough moving, pulling the peel back as you transfer the dough to the stone. Shut the oven and let the pizza bake on the stone for 8-10 minutes, or until the crust is the desired colour and the cheese is melted and bubbly with golden brown or charred areas. Slip the peel back under the pizza and give a little jerk to move it safely onto the peel. Transfer the cooked pizza onto a cutting board. Let it rest 3-5 minutes before slicing.

If you'd like to, and I almost always do, serve the slices with a handful of fresh salad greens and another drizzle of hot sauce over the top.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/05/11/barbecue-pulled-pork-pizza/

Filed Under: Comfort Food, kid food, Meat, Party Food, Pizza, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Kimchi Pancake (Kimchijeon)

May 4, 2012 by 6 Comments

Back in the day -when I worked early hours as a prep cook and late nights as a slinger of pub grub- I wondered more than once how I’d ever find true love when I always smelled like garlic, onions and a fryolater. It was a valid concern folks… I remember one particularly busy week (the café where I worked was in a tourist town that hosted an insanely well attended annual festival) when I broke apart,  peeled, and minced hundreds of heads of garlic and almost as many onions. I spent hours upon hours on my feet frying onion rings and French fries and Monte Cristo sandwiches and dill pickles. I went to a social event at my college after getting off of my shift without hitting the shower first. I heard no fewer than five people say -as they walked by me- something like, “Woah! Are they making garlic fries? I totally smell garlic fries.” or “Something smells like old oil!”

I  was sure that I had to give up cooking or live a lonely life. As it was, I was looking at it all wrong. I just had to find a man who loved garlic, onions and French fries.

…And find him I did. Well, actually, he found me, but that’s a story for another day. My beloved Evil Genius doesn’t just love garlic, onions and fries, he loves almost all stinky food. In fact, more often than not, the stinkier the better. The day my husband discovered kimchi was one of the happiest days of his life.

Our well-loved and now defunct (sob) favourite restaurant was the scene of that happy day. We sat at our usual table and the owner approached us with a small bowl of some vibrant red salady looking stuff. Since we trusted Mr. Wong, we dug in before asking what it was while he told us, “This is my homemade kimchi!” We were both instantly hooked, but my husband’s love of kimchi was stratospheric.

He started buying kimchi at the local Asian market to keep in our refrigerator for occasional snacks, but soon that wasn’t enough. He would walk across the street from his office to the market to buy containers of their funkiest, bubbliest kimchi to have for lunch in his cubicle.

…Do you see where this is going?…

He ate kimchi in a cube farm. Now, I know they’ve improved cubicles and made them look almost like little pods in very chi-chi offices, but whatever they’ve done, they still don’t have technology to contain smells within the airy vertical confines of a cubicle.

He cracked open the jar of kimchi and almost instantly heard people saying, “Oh my gosh. Do you smell that?” “I think there’s something dead in here. Call maintenance!” He stood up, mouth ringed with red hot pepper sauce, and said, “I don’t smell anything!” and sat back down. This carried on for a few days before his colleagues realized the source of the smell and he was asked, in very specific language, to keep his kimchi in the break room.

The next day he retreated to the lunch room to eat his kimchi. Within minutes, a posse of his co-workers showed up to beg him not to eat it in the office ever again. He offered to share to defuse the situation. They didn’t take him up on it. He was forced to take his kimchi love back underground. He brought his chopsticks and kimchi home and stashed the jar in the fridge mumbling something along the lines of, “This wouldn’t be a problem if we were in Korea. Dangit.”

The man is my soul mate.

I’ll be the first to admit that kimchi is rather odiferous. But people, if you put that aside and taste it your rewards will be many and glorious. It is crispy, spicy, juicy, garlicky and a power-packed-punch of umami. It is, for lack of a better description, spicy Korean sauerkraut. Yes. It is fermented. Sometimes (if you’re really lucky) it’s bubbly and wild. There is nothing better than a jug of kimchi that needs to be stored over a rimmed container to catch bubbling juices.

Now just imagine if you will a bunch of this fabulous stuff chopped up, mixed into a batter and pan fried to form a crispy, savoury snack cake. Hello, gorgeous! That wicked smell that accompanies kimchi transforms into a magical, alluring, irresistible smell when it is cooked. I whipped up a batch of kimchi pancakes at a local church during a children’s cooking class. When I tell you this church is big, that doesn’t begin to tell you the size of the building. People were coming from all over saying, “What smells so good?”, “It smells like the best Chinese restaurant ever in here!”, “Whatever you’re making, can I try it?” There were people who don’t venture past meat and potatoes asking for a taste. It’s like a siren song. It’s like alchemy. It’s like Rumpelstiltskin spinning kimchi into gold. In short, it’s what you want to eat. In abundance. And no one will ask you to leave the building, but they might ask you to share.

 

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Kimchi Pancake (Kimchijeon)

Kimchi Pancake (Kimchijeon)

Kimchi undergoes a magical transformation in this crispy, savoury snack cake from something for die-hard lovers only to something that even unadventurous eaters want to try. Beware, though, this is so good it's habit forming!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup chopped kimchi
  • 3 tablespoons of kimchi juice (the liquid in which kimchi is packed)
  • 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
  • ½ cup water
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • Neutral oil for frying (canola, peanut, grapeseed, vegetable, etc…)
    • Optional:
  • ½ cup cooked peeled shrimp, chopped
  • ½ cup cooked, shredded pork
  • Chopped green onions for garnish

Instructions

In a mixing bowl, stir together all of the ingredients (except for the frying oil) until the mixture is evenly coloured and there are no dry flour spots.

Add about an 1/8-inch coating of neutral oil to a heavy-bottomed 10 to 12-inch skillet (cast-iron or nonstick) over medium high heat. Spread the kimchi pancake batter thinly in the pan and fry until the bottom is crisp and the top is cooked most of the way through (some wet patches of batter, but mostly cooked batter on top.) Carefully flip the pancake using two spatulas for control, then continue cooking the pancake until the underside is crisp and has some charred bits. Flip the pancake over again and cook the first side for 1 minute more.

Serve garnished with chopped green onions whole in a platter for people to pull apart with fingers or chopsticks, or cut into bite sized pieces.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/05/04/kimchi-pancake-kimchijeon/

 

 

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Appetizers & Snacks, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, Korean Food, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian
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