Even using the sous vide, the prep work may require a couple of steps – as in this case. First I soaked the pork chops in an apple brine for 24 hours, then they went into the sous vide for several hours with some seasonings. Worth the effort for sure.

After several weeks, I’m still learning my way through using the SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. The process doesn’t come naturally like stove top sautéing, or grilling or simmering. But I’m getting the hang of it. This time I pulled some pork chops out of the freezer that I’d already prepped. I’d bought one of those big packages of boneless thick pork chops at Costco. Here’s what I did to the whole batch:

1. Soaked them in a big Ziploc bag in Tyler Florence’s Spiced Apple Brine. For 24 hours. I drained it, then . . .
2. Put two small chops each into vacuum pouches (still left open at this point).
3. Added to each pouch a little sprinkling of capers, about 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard and kind of mushed it around on one side of the meat, about 1/2 teaspoon of fresh chopped rosemary and some pepper. Then I sealed them up with the vacuum sealer.

At this point I froze them so it would be easy to prepare once they were defrosted, which I did 24 hours ahead of serving. The day of, I put them in 131° water in the Sous Vide, and let them cook for about 6-7 hours (the range is 5-8 hours – meaning they’d be done in 5 but they can hold at that temp for up to 8 hours). My DH fired up the gas grill and just seared them for about 1 1/2 minutes per side. I made a kind of a raita sauce on the side (sour cream, fresh chives, minced cucumber, lemon juice, a little jot of champagne vinegar, some fresh herbs, salt, pepper). I’d also done some of the pork in a curry kind of flavoring mix, but none of us cared for it much – so that’s why I made the raita style side. Raita goes mostly with Indian food (you can see the yellow curry in the upper pouch), but it was nice enough with this.

So how was it? Wonderful! The meat was tender as could be – it was perfectly cooked through, pink in the middle too. If you are cooking pork from a raw state the USDA recommends you cook it to 143° to kill the pathogens. But using a sous vide, several hours of that slow cooking provides the same bug-killing at 131° (according to my sous vide information). In my sous vide cookbook, it indicates that pasteurization of meat (beef, lamb, pork) occurs  after 2 hours (1 1/4 inch thick meat). Thinner meat takes less time. So even though the meat was pink in the middle, it was completely cooked and safe.

What I liked: just how tender the meat was, and how flavorful the little seasoning in it was. Brining was definitely the way to go.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. I’d definitely make this again. I’ll likely make a different sauce.

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Another experiment with sous vide cooking. This time I made pork shoulder (pork butt), cooked it at 140° for 48 hours. And I served it with a very tart North Carolina vinegar sauce instead of the usual ketchup-based barbecue sauce that’s more typical. Mostly I did that because my DH is a diabetic and very rarely eats pulled pork because the traditional BBQ sauce just sends his blood sugar skyrocketing.

At least once a week I’m experimenting with my SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. Not every dish I’ve made has made it to a post on my blog, as I’m not experienced enough yet. One pork dish I made was not very good (pork chops were too thin, I think, so it overcooked). I’m liking the long, slow cooking for more things – the less tender cuts. Not steaks and such – they are best with relatively little sous vide cooking. I had a big chunk of pork in the freezer – I’d purchased a gigantic pork shoulder a month or so ago, at a great price and cut it up into smaller cooking portions. But I didn’t have a sous vide cooker then. So the meat was just vacuum sealed with nothing whatsoever in it. I decided to just go with it that way. Nothing else in the pouch but the meat. No salt. No pepper. No onions or seasonings of any kind. I knew I’d need to doctor it up with seasonings later.

So I did some reading about barbecue sauces. Goodness, but there are a lot of different types. I knew there was a Memphis style, and St. Louis style, but that was about it. Referring to one of my Steven Raichlen books, Barbecue! Bible: Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes, I hunted through all the dozens of possible permutations, trying to find one that was low on sugar. We’re mostly tuned into such sauces containing lots and lots of ketchup. Then I read about the sauce that is the favorite with folks in North Carolina. It’s a vinegar sauce and has nary a teaspoon of tomato in it – like ketchup or tomato paste.

So here’s what’s in it – onions sliced thin, apple cider vinegar, water (not pictured), red chili flakes, sugar, salt and pepper. It’s not cooked. You merely combine the ingredients in a bowl (non-reactive) and stir it up. I made it ahead because I wanted the onions to soften a bit in there, which they did. Not only did they soften in texture, but the soaking takes away some of the fresh astringency from raw onions. I covered it and just let it sit out on the counter for several hours.

What you need to know about this sauce is that you combine it with the shredded pork and the meat just absorbs a lot of the vinegar sauce. No, it’s not sour (because the meat has a lot of sweetness to it). You’d think it would be sour. I was unsure enough about this sauce that I took a piece of pork and gingerly dipped it into the sauce to sample it. Oh my. GOOD. Amazing, I thought.

I cut up some green cabbage and put just a little bit of the vinegar sauce on it and served that with the sliders – to put onto the sandwich itself. The meat – so tender and juicy. I added about a cup of the onions and vinegary sauce to it and let it sit for about 5 minutes before I set out the slider buns, the meat, the cabbage. I let everyone make their own sliders. I also made a delicious cabbage salad which I’ll post in a couple of days.

What I liked: the texture and taste of the pulled pork. It was incredibly tender after 48 hours of sous vide. The vinegar sauce was outstanding. I loved it! For left overs I put out regular barbecue sauce (bottled) and some eaters had some of that too.

What I didn’t like: nothing. It was really, really good.

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. . .This recipe hardly even deserves an entire recipe box listing – it’s just pork shoulder, vacuum sealed, done in the sous vide for 48 hours. Done.

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Shall I just tell you that if I’d had a spoon, mine would have been in the pot of sauce, eating spoonful after spoonful of that balsamic and goat cheese combination; it was THAT good. What you see on the right front is a grilled cipollini onion – a VERY grilled cipollini. You might think it’s burned – nope! Absolutely meltingly tender.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a cooking class with James Clark, the chef at Croce’s Restaurant and Jazz Bar in San Diego. He was a very charming man and had all of us 50+ students nearly eating out of his hand (well, not literally). With a few stories interspersed throughout his monologue, this recipe was a real standout. And as I mentioned above, if I could have had a little BOWL of the sauce on the side, it would have been eaten straight. It was just addictive. The class was busy – well, I mean HE was busy. First he made soup, the Croce’s Mulligatawny Soup. Then he made twice-baked potatoes (I probably won’t write up that one just because it’s so simple: to the whipped potatoes, just add butter, goat cheese, parsley, salt and pepper and half and half and put them back into the potato skin; bake them about 15 minutes, along with the cipollini onions), he prepped the asparagus and the cipollini, made the glaze, the marinade. And he made the salad – I’ve written that up already: Pear, Arugula and Fennel Salad. That one was so good. I have one more recipe to go, as well, the dessert. You’ll get all the recipes from this class eventually.

The pork is marinated for 2-3 hours (no longer, no overnight marinade), grilled, then baked in the oven. It rests 5 minutes then it’s sliced and served with the cipollini onions and asparagus. AND the fabulous balsamic goat cheese glaze drizzled all over it. Make it, okay?

What I liked: the sauce, the sauce, the sauce. And the onions too. Pork was lovely too.

What I didn’t like: nothing – it looked easy to do, and some of the work can be done ahead.

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A super easy pressure cooker recipe for country ribs. Not only was it easy, but the flavor of the sauce was outstanding. You can see the little pieces of onion in the sauce.

Going to the freezer, I grabbed a small package of the Berkshire pork we purchased last summer. I’m embarrassed to say that this is the first of it I’ve used (we bought a quarter of a 4-H Berkshire pig). My freezer has been just overflowing. I’ve not purchased any fresh meat for months (except for additional chicken which we eat often), in an attempt to use up some of the good stuff we have in the freezer. But with just two of us eating, it takes awhile to make much of a hole in the jam-packed freezer contents.

In addition, I didn’t even think about how I’d  prepare it. So I went to Eat Your Books, searched for “country ribs” and it told me in the short form what ingredients are in each recipe. Choosing one, yup, I had all that was needed. I can’t say that I have ever done country ribs in a pressure cooker. What a winner of a recipe this is. 25 minutes in the pressure cooker and it was done! Wow. Ordinarily I would have simmered the ribs for awhile in water, then we would have grilled them on the barbecue. Not needed with this recipe. It came from Pressure Cooking for Everyone by Richard Rodgers.

First the ribs were browned in oil in the pressure cooker pot. That was easy and took just a few minutes. The ribs were removed, then I lightly sautéed an onion, with a bit of garlic added in at the end. Catsup was added, some jalapeno jelly (or you could use apricot preserves instead), chili powder and some water to give it just enough saucy consistency. The ribs were added back in, on went the lid and I brought the pressure cooker up to steam and it cooked for 25 minutes. I brought the heat down right away by putting the pressure cooker under the cold water faucet in the sink. Done. While it had been hissing away I made a green salad and some cauliflower.

The pressure cooker pan did have a bit of grease in it, so I spooned that out, then scooped out the remaining barbecue sauce onto the cooked ribs. Oh, it was fantastic. This recipe was so easy – I’d make it again any day. And I just loved the flavor of the sauce.

What I liked: the flavor of the sauce was just right as far as sweet scale. Because the onions are chopped, they don’t disintegrate, and I liked that little bit of texture in the sauce too. Easy to make too. I loved how quickly it cooked too. Just what a pressure cooker is for!

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. (If you were going to make mashed potatoes or rice on the side, I’d suggest you double the amount of sauce as you’ll want some to spoon onto the side dish.)

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What I’d really wanted was one of those lovely, big bone-in pork loins, the kind that Costco usually sells over the holidays. And only during the holidays. My freezer was just too full to buy one, even though I would have cut it into more manageable sizes. So, when my DH went there on December 31st, this type was the only thing available. I’m not usually very crazy about this kind of tied-up roast because the butchers have taken two smaller boneless loins and just stuck them together to make one bigger roast. They never seem to have the same flavor as the bone-in ones. But this was what I had, so I needed to work with it, whatever it was.

My friend Cherrie had made this roast for Christmas Dinner and told me it was really delicious. The original recipe came from Southern Living, their December issue. When I made it, it was January 2nd and although some local food markets were open, I just decided to improvise and use what I could from my own pantry. I wanted it to be grilled on the barbecue, not oven roasted. I wanted to make the sauce in a pan, not nestled in the bottom of the pan with the pork grease, and I didn’t have mixed dried fruits, so I used dried apricots only. And it worked! Maybe not quite as pretty looking as the magazine’s finished product (they butterflied a big pork loin, stuffed it, then rolled and tied it).

Here, at left, are some additional photos: (1) the darling, little Seckel pears used for the sauce; (2) the sauce as it just began to simmer (with pearl onions, honey, butter, lemon juice, fresh rosemary); and (3) a plated portion with the slice of roast on the bottom, sauce on the top with some of the juices.

The roast, in a pan, on a rack, cooked in the barbecue for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and we let it rest, tented, for about 10 minutes before everybody couldn’t stand it any longer and we started eating. And it WAS really good. Everyone seemed to like the fruit sauce. Ideally you will cut thinner slices, so everyone gets a full round slice (with stuffing in the middle). What most people wanted, though, was a half of a thicker slice. It did fit on a plate a bit better, but not quite as attractive without the fruit stripe.

What I liked: how pretty it looked; how tender the meat was, and not dry because it was removed from the barbecue at exactly 145°; the sweet/savory taste of the fruit sauce on top.

What I didn’t like: even though I added butter to the fruit sauce, I think a bit of the drippings from the pork roast would have been exceptionally good in it. I’ll leave that up to you. In the original recipe the fruit soaked up a lot of the fat – I wanted to minimize that – but surely it would be good with just a bit of it.

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An easy and tender grilled pork tenderloin with a complex mustard seed, pepper and coriander rub. Easy for a weeknight dinner. With one generously sized tenderloin (from Costco – theirs are particularly large) we had enough to serve 4 medium-hungry people.

You can see, in this picture above, a very old, probably 100-year or more old, well-used carbon-steel knife. My DH is very proud of that knife, and the carving fork that matches it. One year (probably about 35-40 years ago) my DH was visiting his mother, who was then a widow, and they were driving 30 miles from their home town in Ocean City, NJ, to the cemetery to visit Dave’s father’s grave. You’d never just drive by this place – it’s literally in the middle of nowhere. The small town isn’t even on the maps anymore. It’s where some of the grandparents and their parents are buried. The family plot.

On the way there my DH saw, off at a little clearing in the forest, a makeshift swap meet. I don’t know the why of it – even he doesn’t remember now – but they stopped. My hubby doesn’t usually stop at such things, but he/they did. And he ended up buying the knife and fork set from an old geezer for $8.00. Dave has tenderly cared for them all these years. Since the knife is carbon steel, it holds a very nice, sharp edge (stainless steel isn’t quite so talented), but it also stains, from whatever food it touches. I call that character, so this one has lots of character. It’s touched a generation or two or maybe three of different foods, obviously. The set has horn handles – another little thing that my DH liked about them. His mother thought he’d not haggled with the owner hard enough. Dave loves to tell this story to anyone who inquires about the terribly discolored knife and fork set.

So, there’s your story of the day. Back to the meat. This is one very easy grilled pork dish to make – in lickety-split time. I read about it over at The Bitten Word blog. They said the original came from Cook’s Country. The spices are easy to bring together – you grind them up in a spice grinder, or crack them hard inside a double-layer of plastic baggies – and slap the mixture on the pork. Grill, rest, slice and serve. Easy. Tasty. And do bring out your old carving knife, if you have one. It will give the pork some extra character, too.

What I liked: how quick and easy it was to put together. You don’t have to serve it with a side dish – it might be nice – like some cooked apples – but actually the mustard-based dry spice mix might not lend itself well to a fruit-based condiment. It would be delish, though, with an onion chutney or just serve it plain. I served it with smashed potatoes and a vegetable.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. It’s not a wow dish, but it was definitely very good! And when I saw it wasn’t wow, I just mean if you’re looking to really go over the top, or make it for a big company meal, this might not fit the bill (for me, anyway).

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Our friend James, who used to be a professional chef, was telling me recently about his mother’s Chili Verde. I have a recipe for Crockpot Chili Verde on my blog already – also made with pork – and it actually has more ingredients in it than this one. It’s been awhile since I’d made it, so when James was describing his mother’s and how he slurped it up with some tortillas, it got my mouth to watering. A few days later James handed me his mom’s recipe and I set out to make this version.

Chili verde (green chili) is a moderately to extremely spicy Mexican and Mexican-American stew or sauce usually made from chunks of pork that have been slow-cooked in chicken broth, garlic, tomatillos, and roasted green chiles. Tomatoes are rarely used. The spiciness of the chili is adjusted with poblano, jalapeño, serrano, and occasionally habanero peppers. . .  this came from Wikipedia.

And yes, that describes it perfectly! Chunks of pork (shoulder or stew meat) that’s cooked with some broth, onions, garlic, cumin. After browning the meat well (which will give it plenty of flavor) you add in all those other ingredients and simmer for half an hour. Then you add in some poblano chiles, a jalapeno or two, a yellow bell pepper (gives it nice color) and a whizzed up mixture of fresh tomatillos and cilantro. That simmers for 30-45 minutes and it’s done. Since I always think stews and soup mixtures taste much better the next day, I made it a couple of days ahead, actually, through the first simmering instructions. Then I added the fresh chiles, tomatillos and cilantro and finished it off.

I had on hand some really good tortilla chips, so they were crushed in my hands and sprinkled on top, along with some shredded Jack cheese and a little sprinkling of cilantro. And I served it with a buttered flour tortilla on the side. Delicious. The only change I made to the recipe was using pork broth (I have one of Penzey’s jars of pork soup base) but chicken broth is what’s in the original recipe. Don’t overcook the pork – it will get dry and stringy. Total cooking time is about an hour or so. After the stew was cooked, I cut the pork chunks into smaller bite-sized pieces, and removed the last traces of fat.

What I liked: the rich flavor – much of it from browning the meat very well – that fond in the pan provides so much good taste. It was easy to make too. Great as a leftover meal as well.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. Know that the broth is just that – broth – it isn’t a thick soup, although the tomatillos and cilantro add some good texture to it. That’s why I added the crushed tortilla chips to the soup – they give it texture as well.

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What better way to use leftover pork chop meat than in a soul-warming soup with onion, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, some Italian sausage, flavorful broth and garnished with fresh, crispy raw radish slivers and cilantro. And laded onto a nice piece of bread (underneath the soup). Yum!

Do you despair sometimes with what to do with leftovers? I certainly do. And pork roast is right on the top of my list. My choice is always to have just enough pork roast or chops for that one meal. But, alas, I don’t always plan quite that well, and I suspect you probably don’t, either. In this case I had a big pile of pork chop meat – it was beautifully tender and still pink inside. We’d already had the actual pork chops for a company meal, then two more evenings I’d reheated them. So I was fed up with having that kind of preparation. What to do?

Well, I went to Eat Your Books and searched through my own cookbooks to see what kind of recipes I could find. I didn’t want to continue to cook the meat – it was premium quality meat, tasty and juicy. See in the photo how nice and pink the meat is – perfectly tender. You don’t want to cook it hardly at all! So I needed some quick – flash – prep. Soup. That was it. I’d make soup. I read through all of the pork soup recipes I could find. Nothing quite seemed to fit. Parts of one and ingredients from another, an idea began forming of a mélange of flavors. Yes, I had a little bit of Italian sausage in the freezer too. Dave went to the market and got some fresh Napa cabbage and some radishes. And I made a delicious soup. Perfectly rounded out with flavor from the sausage, the cabbage, the onions, celery and carrots. I added in one of my favorite Penzey’s products, their soup bases  (both pork and chicken), some sugar snap peas as well. I cut the pork chop meat into little slivers (see photo) and just barely heated it in the hot soup then poured it over a piece of toast in the bottom of each bowl and garnished with the radishes and cilantro. Delicious!

What I liked: it’s a low-calorie soup, for one. Delicious flavor too. And I now have a fantastic recipe for using leftover pork (roast or chops) that will become a regular part of my menus. The textures are great (with the raw radishes sprinkled on top) too. Other than the fat in the meat itself, the only other added fat were the 2 T. of oil to sauté the onions and celery.

What I didn’t like: gosh, nothing, really. If I had Texas toast, that would have been nice – what I had was tender white bread, so I put one slice cut in half and double stacked. Or a nice thick piece of French bread would probably be ideal (that’s what I put in the recipe ingredients below).

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Ever even heard of picadillo? That’s pee-ca-dee-yo in Spanish. Actually this has a Mexican derivation. And its much beloved in the culture. We’re on our way home from our trip today, so I’ve set this up to post ahead of time.

Oh gosh was this ever good. It probably doesn’t look like much – a ground meat mixture on top of something. Yup. So delicious. So easy to make and just bursting with flavor. Traditionally, Picadillo is a Latin American dish, but variations exist in many countries, including Cuba. All the variations include something a bit different. This recipe, which came from Dean Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book River Cottage Meat Cookbook, is most aligned with the Mexican version, although it does contain a couple of ingredients from one or more of the other country’s variants. And then I added chives. Not typical. So I suppose that then becomes my variation. And I served it on grits, which makes it even more unusual. Southern cooking is not anything like Mexican or Latin American cooking. Ah, forget all that. Just make it.

This started out because I defrosted a pound of ground pork from our most recent 1/4 pig purchase – a Berkshire pig from a local 4-H kid. I went to my kitchen computer, to Eat Your Books website and typed in ground pork and scanned the recipes from my own books. Not only does it tell me where the recipe is, but it lists the most common ingredients. Yippee! I had everything needed. Except tortillas to serve it on or with. So I improvised. And it called for ground beef too, but I just used the ground pork instead.

First I started sweating the minced onion, red bell pepper and chiles. A friend had given me a lovely Cubanelle pepper a few days ago. Perfect for this. It’s not a hot pepper, but it added nice green color and flavor too. I added some chipotle chili in adobo sauce to the dish to give it a bit more character.

Then I added all the other ingredients – garlic, salt, pepper, sugar (just a little bit), the ground pork, raisins, some olives (I used a bottled product called Olivetta – a mixture of lots of different olives (and a few other things), all minced up – something I buy at my local Italian market), some diced tomatoes, and some tomato paste, along with some pork stock (which was just a dip into my jar of Penzey’s pork soup bases that I use so often). While that simmered I made the cheesy grits (recipe up tomorrow). Then I just served it like a sauce on top of the grits, with some slivered almonds sprinkled on top along with some chopped chives (optional). Dave and I talked about going back for seconds, but we decided we shouldn’t, even though the tastes of everything beckoned us. So, make this, okay? You won’t be sorry!

What I liked: oh gosh, everything. Flavor, texture, comfort food, warm on the stomach. Worth making for sure. Also, it’s versatile – serve it on rice (more traditional), tortillas (or even chips) or mashed potatoes (which would be great for using up leftovers). I think the raisins (that little bit of sweet) is what “makes” this. It’s like finding pineapple in a curry sauce.

What I didn’t like: ah, nothing. I’ll definitely be making this again.

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During a recent cooking class with Phillis Carey, she began the introduction to this dish by saying that this is one of her very favorite dishes. And that she makes it very frequently for herself and has never tired of the combination of flavors. I scribbled notes on my recipe in a hurry there – I always listen closely when Phillis tells us it’s a favorite of hers because I’ve never not liked any of her favorites. And she mentioned that yes, making risotto is a bit of a nuisance, what with all that constant stirring for 30-35 minutes. But she assured us that we’d be glad when we tasted it. And indeed we were. We heard “mmmmm” all around the classroom. My mmmm included! I nearly licked the plate. For risotto. It was so gosh-darned delicious.

It’s a traditional risotto in how it’s made – nothing different about the preparation or the stirring, or keeping the chicken stock hot. It was the combination of the sausage, the leeks, the corn. And the prettiness of the added spinach. And the red of the tomatoes. Well, just all of it.

I made the dish a few nights later, as I said, with the identical ingredients (except I used pork Italian sausage) and my DH and I nearly licked the plate. Don’t skimp on the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Or the butter – that’s an important addition at the end. Do use fresh, baby spinach too. If you have some fresh basil, sprinkle a bit of that on top as you serve it.

So, how’d we like it? Well, I’d had it at the cooking class, so I knew I’d enjoy it. My DH was so busy eating it he couldn’t even look up to say anything. Meaning that he loved it. We both did. It did take about 45 minutes to make, but I didn’t have to stir it every second. I was close by to stir it around every 30 seconds or so and add more broth as I chopped up the tomatoes, cut the fresh corn off the cob. I made it last week for our friends in Colorado too, and they both thought it was delicious.

What I liked: I loved it all. The texture of the arborio rice – it came out perfectly. The sausage added some great taste, but wasn’t overwhelming. The color with the spinach and tomatoes. The cheese. Oh goodness yes, it was all good. And this is now going onto my “favorites” list if that’s any indication of how delicious it is!

What I didn’t like: well, I suppose the stirring gets a little tedious, but that’s it.

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A year ago: Chocolate Mug Cake
Three years ago: Southwest Corn Cakes

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