Shredded Asian Pork, Slow Cooked In A Dutch Oven

     While driving home from work today, I realized I had a problem, missing potatoes. No potatoes for dinner is a huge problem for a girl from Idaho who learned how to cook from her Grandma, who also lives in Idaho, growing potatoes. So when faced with this problem and having already commented to pork loin roast for dinner I had to think of what else you can do with pork loin, so I shredded it!
       Since I haven't made this before and I wasn't sure if it would be any good or if I had wasted a couple pounds of pork, I didn't take a lot of pictures and really only could snap one in between Ryan taking bites. Well it turned out, how could it not, I am a genius!

      Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 350. Place pork roast in dutch oven and add soy sauce, water, ginger, garlic, brown sugar and sriracha. Cook for 2 hours, basting every half hour. Add carrots when there is half an hour left of cooking time. 
2. Make you som rice. I used the minute version but be warned, it actually takes five. (grrr) 
3. When the pork is done cooking, let it rest and then slice it into about 4 chunks and put it in your mixer with the paddle attachment for a minute until shredded. 
4. Put it all in a bowl and mix it up and eat it. Nom! 

Mmmm look at that caramelization, this is why I love my french oven and its so easy to clean. 

Recipe

• 2 pound pork loin 
• 2 cups water 
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon ginger 
• 1 tablespoon sriracha
• 2 tablespoon garlic 
• 1/4 cup brown sugar 
• 2 to 4 cups of carrots 

Germany

      We may get to go back to Germany, I hope we do, there are a lot of things that we did while we were there that I would like to do differently. The last time was kind of spere of the moment and not well planned. Mainly I would like to brush up on my French a bit more and give Paris some more time than we did.
      When we decided to take the weekend to go to Paris, well we didn't book a hotel room and we ended up having to stay in Versaille. After eating the most amazing breakfast in the world, fresh chocolate crissants, we asked where the palace was, I am really surprised the guy didn't laugh in our faces when we asked if we needed our car. We drove there, which was a mistake because it was only a couple blocks away and we waited for a parking spot for an hour. Then we stood in line for an hour just to find out that American citizens are suppose to stand in a different line first... FUUUUUUUCK. Our entire day was exactly like that and I blame the car. Really I do, don't drive to Paris unless you are going to spend a week site seeing.

I know you can't tell but those are "lines"

      The places that we enjoyed ourselves at the most were places that we found just while driving. Not having any idea what to expect or what to go see. Like when we found this old church, called Notre Dame.

     Brussels was my favorite place that we visited and it was again, totally spur of the moment. We woke up that morning and thought, "how about Belgium waffles for breakfast?" So we did eat waffles, and chocolate and beer. We went to a beer store, they had more than one and the store was filled with beers from top to bottom, totally overwhelming but we found a book in the store and purchased what they had suggested.

      Actually just all of western Europe was great, yeah, all of it. But if I had to pick just one country to stay in, I would pick Germany and here is why.

The gardens

The strawberries taste better

Nothing goes to waste

Hard work

The history

Because around every corner you find something like this.

The nature

And there are castles

Super Easy Mini Quiche

       Mini quiche is kind of the soup of breakfast. What I mean by that is if you have eggs and cheese, you have mini quiche. Just throw whatever you have left over in the fridge into your quiche, makes it interesting and its always tasty. Use the rinds of cheese hunks, that last bit of sandwich meat thats not enough for a proper sandi, the spinach thats about to go bad, the one spring of green onion you are not sure why you didn't chop up, really whatever. 

      Melt you some butter. It's not necessary to melt it in a pan but I don't own a microwave.

      Crush up some crackers in a ziplock or croutons, or hard bread or just use bread crumbs.

     Fill muffin pan cups with butter and crump mixture and smash down with whatever you can find.

      The hardest part of the whole process is chopping up veggies and cheese and whatever meats you find.    

     If you are using white onions and mushrooms, saute them in butter, and then eat the remainder of the stick.

     Layer the cheese on top of the crumbs, mix the cheese, don't mix it, I don't care what you do.

     Then put everything else on top, filling it to the very tippy top.

     Crack a couple eggs, pour about 1/2 cup of cream in and give it a generous grating of the nut of meg. Use fresh nutmeg, really it makes all the difference in the world.
      At this point you can either fill each cup with egg mix and cook in a 300 degree preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes or you can keep the egg separate from the rest of the quiche and make it later. Like Sunday morning.
   

Ingredients

• 1 cup of crush crackers, bread crumbs, croutons, whatever you have. I used crackers and italian bread crumbs for flavor. 
• 5 TBSP of melted butter
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cheese 
• other toppings of your choice
• nutmeg, salt and pepper. 

   Preheat oven to 300. Melt butter and mix into crumbs, add about a tablespoon of mixture to each muffin tin. Smash into place with fingers or glass jar that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Layer with cheese then other toppings to nearly the top. Mix eggs, cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg then pour over muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

 

Balsamic Vinegar and Blackberry Chicken

     This is the "So good your boyfriend will do the dishes," chicken recipe I have come up with. I am still working on the "Proposal," chicken recipe which I have heard rumored exists but only married women know how to perfect it and are definitely leaving something out of their shared recipes. Anyway, I will share mine and not leave anything out. I have served this chicken with mash potatoes, and pumpkin gratin or sautéed spinach and mushrooms, it goes well with just about everything.
   

Balsamic Vinegar and Blackberry Chicken Recipe

       Ingredients list                                                                                              makes 4 servings

4 chicken breasts

salt

pepper

1/2 tsp sage
3 cloves of minced garlic. 

1 Tbsp honey 

1/4 cup blackberries ( I used frozen)

1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette dressing or 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

     Putting it all together 

1. Heat some olive oil over medium low heat and place your chicken breast in the skillet. Salt, pepper  and add garlic and sage and half of the chicken broth. Flip the breast when you can see its cooked about half way through. 
2. When you flip the chicken add the rest of the broth, blackberries, honey and vinegar. The idea is to simmer the chicken into juicy, sweet submission. Yummy. 
3. After your chicken is done, serve the the yummy glaze over the top of your purple chicken. 

     Lately we have been enjoying sauteed mushrooms and spinach. Just slice up about 4 or 5 baby bella mushrooms and saute in a tablespoon of butter, then add 10oz. of fresh baby spinach and salt and pepper lightly. I also grate about an ounce of asiago cheese on it at the last moment. 

      So like I said, not a proposal but definitely get your dishes washed. 

Things You Can Freeze

     From a little experience of my own I have found that some things freeze better than others and some things were a drunken mistake and you should just move on. Okay well here are a couple things that can and can't be frozen.

   Good to freeze

1. Washed sliced mushrooms. I find it very convenient when making omelets and pizzas to have sliced mushrooms on hand always. 
2. Berries! Great for fruit salad, yogurt and hot cereal, as an extra bonus it cools down your cereal just right. 
3. Shredded cheese. Buy it in bulk or on sale and freeze what you don't use. 
4. Vegetable scraps. Keep the peels and tops of scrap vegetables in a freezer bag then later on make stock out of them, you can freeze the stock as well. 
5. Alfredo sauce. 
6. Cakes. Make a cake in May eat it in September, it will taste just as moist, just make sure to wrap it in clear wrap then foil. 
7. Left over Thanksgiving turkey. Wrap your left over meat in foil then store it in a freezer bag to keep off freezer burn. 
8. Grapes. They are delicious grape popsicles, but don't expect them to unfreeze well. 
9. Minced garlic. Buy bulk garlic, put it in your food processor and store it in a freezer bag, break off a chunk whenever you need it. 

Do Not Freeze

1. Potato soup. I do and have done it a couple times but it will come out grainy. 
2. Yogurt. Unless you are looking to have a tasty frozen treat don't try to unthaw your frozen yogurt. It gets a grainy texture and will loose its creamy thick texture. 
3. Eggs. hehe forgot about that boiled egg I wanted to cool off quickly. 
4. Beer. BIG mess. 
5. Lettuce, but everyone probably already knew that. 

The amount seen in the food processor makes a substantial amount more than pictured in the Mason jar.

Dog Cookies

   

    This time of year I tend to go through a lot of butter, like Julia Child amounts of butter but the other day I baked a dish that was in fact butter-less. It is a hard biscuit made of wheat flour, pumpkin and peanut butter, healthy. Plus I made up a frosting for it using ricotta cheese (because I didn't have cream cheese) and peanut butter with a bit of honey. The ending result some something like a dog treat!

Recipe for cookie:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees
2. Using a wooden spoon, mix together all ingredients in a bowl. The dough will be dry and using your hands is unavoidable. Add a bit of water if you need.  Roll into a 1/2 inch thick sheet and cut out shapes. Place on a baking stone or cookie sheet. 
3. Bake until hard, about 35 minutes. 

Recipe for doggy frosting:

1/2 cup cream cheese or ricotta
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey

   Mix all ingredients together and frost. It will crack if it dries, I like it, you may not.

German style

Red cabbage, sauteed golden apples and brats with mash potatoes and mustard reduction.