Crockpot Pulled Pork

When Brian and I moved in together last July, one of the first "new" things I got for our place was a crock pot. I found it for $5 on craiglist, and I think it's been a stellar investment. I've heard that newer crock pots cook faster than older crock pots... which sort of defeats the purpose of a slow cooker? In any case, mine looks like it's from the early 80s with an ugly floral pattern on the outside. It's a little small and a kind of pain to clean, but I luvz it anyways. If I ever want to get a bigger one, I'll look first for a used, old one.

I've mostly used the crockpot for overnight oatmeal (water, steel cut oats, spices, raisins... overnight... low heat... breakfast... yay), but since I've started working, I've also been looking for more meals I can cook throughout the day and have pretty much done when I get home. I've made a good turkey chili, an okay beef burgundy... and today, I tried pulled pork barbeque. That was redonkulously easy. This is not the Eastern NC barbeque that we know and love, though I think we could adapt this if we found a good vinegar sauce. Instead, it's more of a Western NC barbeque... all sweet and tomatoy. Since there are so few ingredients in this, be sure to use a barbeque sauce that you like a lot - what we used today was less spicy and more sweet than Brian and I like - next time, we'll definitely try something else.

This is based on a recipe that called for a 3-4 pound piece of pork, but I've adjusted it down for the size of my crockpot and for how much we could reasonably eat over a few days - this should double easily.

[For those of you without crockpots... I think you could use a dutch oven or heavy pot, cooked over very very low heat or in a low oven for a few hours. No guarantees on that, though!]

Pulled Pork Barbeque
~2 pounds pork top loin, trimmed of excess fat
1/2 onion, chopped roughly
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
9 oz barbeque sauce of choice (1/2 regular-sized bottle)

Combine all the ingredients in the crock pot and put the crock pot on low heat. Walk away for 6-8 hours.

Increase the heat to high for the last hour or so. Remove the meat from the crock pot and place in a bowl. Take two forks and start pulled the pork apart - it should fall apart easily. If it doesn't, put it back in the crock pot for another hour or so. Keep the pulled meat moist and warm in the crock pot while serving.

You can serve this on hamburger buns, but we just had ours with some corn bread and lima beans. Easy peasy.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Usually, I leave the baking to Brian, but it was my turn to make treats for the office this Wednesday. I felt like my officemates needed a little southern comfort to push them through the rest of the day, so red velvet cupcakes it was (along with Cara Cara oranges and blood oranges for those who wanted something "healthy")!

As much as Paula Deen scares me ("hey, y'all, let's use some butter, y'all. we gonna fry it, y'all"), I figured she would have a good recipe for red velvet cupcakes. And it's true, they were a hit! I made this recipe almost to the letter (I upped the cocoa to a heaping tablespoon from a teaspoon), but if I make them again, I would reduce the amount of oil by 1/4 to 1/3 cup - they were a little greasy on the bottom.

Rather than use the cream cheese frosting recipe with this recipe (a pound of cream cheese? 2 sticks of butter? oh my.), I used one I found in the Joy of Cooking.





Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cold cream cheese
4 tbsp. butter, softened
2 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Mix the cream cheese and butter with a hand mixer. Add the confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup of time until well-mixed.

Indian Spinach with Paneer

Indian food. It's tasty. At least the American version I get - I imagine the real thing is good too. To keep me from going to the little Indian food district we've got goin' on here in Seattle all the time, I make this dish from time to time. I've made it with some homemade naan and spicy chicken (show off), but I'd be pretty happy just eating this plain from the tupperware. As I may have done.

This recipe is adapted from one in Fine Cooking - it was originally for 6 servings (this is roughly 3 servings) and also called for chick peas instead of paneer, but it was a strange texture. If you don't have garam masala, throw in a bit of cumin, a bit of clove, and whatever else you feel like. Also, there were a bunch of words and warnings in the recipe, and I didn't think they were that important. And sometimes, I forget to thaw my spinach in time, so it ends up being a big block of frozen spinach in my pan. That takes a while, so if you're like me, maybe you should thaw it first in the microwave?

Indian Spinach with Yogurt and Paneer
1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, or 1 shallot, chopped to medium dice
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped (about 2 tsp.)
1 1/2 tsp. minced ginger
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
10 oz box of frozen spinach, thawed
1/4 tsp. salt
black pepper
scant 1/2 plain yogurt
paneer, diced into 1 in. pieces

Heat the oil over medium-high heat, add the onion or shallot and saute until soft and lightly browned. Add the garlic, ginger, garam masala and coriander and cook very briefly, stirring quickly for 15-30 seconds.

Add the spinach to the pan and stir until well-mixed and heated through, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and add salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer the spinach to a food processor and add the yogurt and then puree. Return the mixture to the pan and warm the mixture back up. Add the paneer pieces and cook for another minute or so.

Meyer Lemon Love Fest

For the past few years, around this time, I've read about Meyer lemons in my food blogs, cooking magazines, etc. Like my other favorite citrus fruit, blood oranges, Meyer lemons are only in the grocery stores around here for a limited time.

I have a few lemons in front of me right now, and they are the prettiest little lemons I ever did see. They are a very bright yellow with a thin, almost giving skin - they look like lemons should look, not like the hard little light yellow things we see in the grocery store. They have a sweeter, less acidic taste, and you could almost just eat them out of hand. I picked these up at the gourmet grocery store near our place - the regular grocery store doesn't have them - and i'm contemplating what to do with them. I used one of my four last night in a Meyer lemon dressing that I used on a spinach salad with toasted almonds. For the others, I'm considering a lemon sorbet, or maybe a lemon meringue pie?

Meyer Lemon Dressing (adapted from Bobby Flay's recipe)
1/4 cup fresh Meyer lemon juice (or 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice combined with 1 tablespoon orange juice)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon homemade garlic aioli*
3 anchovy fillets**
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated hard Italian cheese (I used Asiago, though Parmesan would be a bit milder)

*Substitute tablespoon store bought mayonnaise and add 2-4 cloves of garlic or 1/2-1 tsp. garlic powder
**I left these out, despite having some - I wasn't sure if my guests would enjoy the anchovy flavor. I bet they would be a good complement to the lemon, though

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender except for the oil and cheese. With the processor or blender running, slowly add the olive oil until the mixture emulsifies. Add the cheese and blend until incorporated.

Mayonnaise

I'm not sure when mayonnaise got such a bad rap. I blame Hellman's and Duke's and fake mayonnaise king's, Miracle Whip. I used to hate mayonnaise on my hamburgers, on my sandwiches, whenever I saw it in those gross packets. Wait, I still do. Because it's usually the wrong mayonnaise! Wrong! But real mayonnaise... oh my. Supah tasty. And very easy if you make it in a food processor or with a mixer. Don't do it by hand. Don't. Do. It. And if the idea of mayonnaise grosses you out? Call it aioli and let's call it good. [Brian would like to note that he doesn't have the love affair with homemade mayonnaise that I do]

Homemade Mayonnaise

1 egg
2 tbsp. lemon juice
Dash of cayenne pepper
Dash of ground mustard
Salt or pepper to taste
3/4 c. - 1 c. olive oil or canola oil
Other additions

In a food processor, combine the egg, lemon juice, salt and pepper and any additions. Slowly (slowly!) add 1/2 cup of the oil through the feedtube or into the bowl with the mixture. The mixture should begin to thicken - add up to 1/2 cup more of the oil through the feedtube.

Possible additions to the mayonnaise: 1 tablespoon or more of chopped herbs (cilantro, dill, rosemary, parsley, etc) or a few cloves of garlic. Enjoy on french fries, hamburgers, your sandwich... with a spoon.