Pork Loin

Had some pork loin in the freezer. Had some left over spinach and mushrooms so I decided to stuff the pork loin with both. It was pretty good except while trussing up the loin after stuffing the mixture started to fall out, and even more fell out while trying to brown the thing in the pot. The recipe I was adopting said to cook the whole thing on the stove top, but Jen wisely suggested to throw it in the oven. It came out juicy and tender. I made a balsamic reduction for a glaze at the end. I did not get any pics of the final dish arranged but here is the spoon with the glaze (it got thick!) and the left over loin.

Our 12th…..

Here are some pics from the meal I prepared for our 12th Anniversary dinner. Jen likes lasagna, she also likes ravioli, so I combined the two and made ravioli lasagna! I made a ground beef, spinach and mushroom mixture for the ravioli stuffing and made some marinara sauce. After I browned the beef I added the spinach and sauted mushrooms all together in the food processor with some bread crumbs and an egg to make the texture easier to deal with to stuff into the pasta sheets.  It turned out pretty good I think. I got to use the ravioli maker Jen got me for xmas, works like a charm. Enjoy the pics.

Uncle Michael makes chili

Made a few things for a Superbowl get together at my place yesterday. One of the things I made was chili for the first time using my slow cooker. It turned out pretty decent. I'd say a  7 out of 10. The folks that tried some seemed to like it, too. Although I will say that I had insanely terrible heartburn later in the night. But I think that might have been the super hot buffalo wings I made combined with the salsa rio Doritos, the cool ranch Doritos, the Little Cesears Pizza someone brought over, the meatballs someone made and the IPA beer.
I made a few changes to the recipe below. I used tomato chunks instead of tomato puree. And I drained the beans because I prefer a thicker chili compared to a soupy one.  I also like  a lot of vegtables in my chili so I added an extra green bell pepper and some more onion. And I left out the celery, because I think celery in chili is just weird. Also some of the comments said the recipe was a little bland so I upped the spice amount by about double. So I guess that's quite a few changes.
Finally I recommend making it the day or night before, as I did. Freshly made it's just not as good as it is after it has sat for a while and simmered all together.

This recipe is from allrecipes.com and is called "slow cooker chili II"

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 3/4 cup diced onion
• 3/4 cup diced celery
• 3/4 cup diced green bell pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans tomato puree
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans with liquid
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans with liquid
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Directions

1. Place the beef in a skillet over medium heat, and cook until evenly brown. Drain grease.
2. Place the beef in a slow cooker, and mix in onion, celery, green bell pepper, garlic, tomato puree, kidney beans, and cannellini beans. Season with chili powder, parsley, salt, basil, oregano, black pepper, and hot pepper sauce.

Cover, and cook 8 hours on Low.  

Birthday Feast

 

These girls love seafood and this year they were so lucky, Daddy cooked up a feast!  I cannot believe they are 7!

As Promised–Cheese Crackers

 

These were good!  The boys liked them more than the girls, but Sean and I had to watch out, these are NOT low fat!  I have found recipes that were lower fat, but I wanted to try the full version so I had a reference point.  They do go from golden to burned in the blink of a eye, beware!

		Crackers. Barrett liked them. VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Mapo Dofu!

One more quick post, I made a dish called Mapo Dofu or Tofu. It is a Szehcuan dish so it is on the spicy side. It consists of cubed tofu in a black bean sauce and chili sauce with a small amount of ground pork. It is very good with rice and I also added as a side some bok choy with soy and lemon. It’s a good dish on a cold night. By the way Mapo Dofu means roughly “tofu dish with freckles” I guess this dish was invented by a chinese lady with lots of freckles and some tofu hanging around.

Home made Ramen!

During the few years I spent in Japan as a child I remember how good the Ramen was. I remember being intimidated by how large the bowl was and yet excited by the wonderful smell of the broth. I loved the ritual of bringing the chopsticks or “hashi” loaded with noodles up to my mouth and slurping them down loudly and having the noodles dissolve on my taste buds. Using the big ornate spoon I would drink down the soul warming broth, I was fascinated by all the things they put on top of the noodles including fresh vegetables, fish cakes that looked like pinwheels, and juicy cuts of pork loin. Well, I had to try it at home, and I have to say it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Mama loved it too and got in on it by making her own Gyoza, which was also very good.  I ended up serving the left overs to the kids the next day and they all loved it as well. I think what really made it good was Mama’s Chicken Broth and the Kombu (dried Seaweed) I put in at the end. here is the recipe.

For the broth:

• 2 quarts homemade chicken stock
• 1.5 lbs pork loin
• 1 leek, trimmed and sliced into 1″ discs
• 1/3c ginger, peeled and roughly chopped or sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/3c shoyu or other high-quality soy sauce
• 1 tbs vegetable oil
• salt
• 1 sheet of kombu (dried kelp)

For the ramen: 

• 24 ounces curly chuka soba noodles OR 6 3.5-ounce packs of fast ramen noodles (noodles only, no flavoring)
• 2c fresh baby spinach
• 3 thinly-sliced scallions

Instructions

1. In a very large stock pot, add the chicken stock (or water + chicken), garlic, ginger, leek, and shoyu. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer while you prepare the pork.
   Note: You could use a large slow cooker instead of the stock pot + stove burner.
2. Heat the vegetable oil over medium- high in a saute pan large enough to accommodate the pork. Salt the pork on all sides, and add to the pan.
3. Brown on all sides. About 12 minutes total. Transfer the browned pork to the stock pot.
4. Simmer the broth mixture and pork over low for 2 hours, or until the pork is very tender.
5. Once the pork is tender, remove it to a plate and refrigerate. Strain the remaining solids out and discard them.
6. Return the broth to the pot. Add the kombu, and continue to simmer for an hour and a half.
7. Remove from heat and let the broth cool for a while, and rest. Skim the fat and/or “scum” that appears on top.
8. At this point, you can either use the broth to make ramen right away, or you can refrigerate or freeze it and save it for later.
9. To finish the ramen soup, preheat the broiler. Slice the pork loin into 1/3″ slices.
10. Brush the slices with shoyu. Heat under the broiler for about 5 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.
11. Prepare the ramen or chuka soba noodles according to the package instructions, and heat up the broth (approximately 1 1/2 cups of broth per serving).
12. To prepare each bowl: Add the noodles, and pour 1 1/2 cups of hot broth over them. Add 3-4 slices of pork, 1/4c spinach, 2 sheets of nori, and sliced scallion to garnish. The spinach will wilt in the hot broth, and the nori will hydrate and become soft.

Here is where I got the recipe obviously made some changes but this is the original.

http://www.lolfoodie.com/archives/2010/10/shoyu-ramen/