What's for Dinner?

Apple Garlic Pork Marinade

This is a great pork marinade, but it does require a good 24-48 hours of preparation time.

Ingredients:

1 pork shoulder, 4-5 lbs.

Marinade:
1/3 cup frozen apple juice concentrate
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
3 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. dry rosemary
10-15 peppercorns, lightly crushed
10+ garlic cloves

Blend all the marinade ingredients together until smooth.

To minimize the apple flavor, you can substitute apple juice for the apple juice concentrate. Or to increase the apple flavor, add a peeled and cored apple. Fresh rosemary is better if you have it, and if you don't have whole peppercorns, substituted 1 tsp. ground pepper. I also like to include a medium size onion, peeled and quartered.

Put the pork shoulder in a gallon re-closable baggie and pour in the marinade. Place into the refrigerator at least overnight, but 48 hours is better. I mush the bag every 4-6 hours to make sure the marinade is getting all over the pork shoulder.

When you are ready to cook the pork, remove from the bag and place in a covered pot. Bake at 250° for 4-5 hours. The meat should be fork tender when done. Don't throw out the left-over marinade. Pour it into a shallow saucepan and cook over medium to medium-high heat until it reduces by half to a quarter of the original liquid and becomes a thick sauce, almost paste-like. The reduced marinade is very strong, but I do love it on the pork. Use sparingly.

Instead of a pork shoulder, you can use a 2-3 lbs. pork tenderloin. Cook at 250-300° for about 2 hours, or until the tenderloin internal temperature reaches 145°. It won't fall apart like the shoulder does after a long bake, but it will still be tender. Cut into 1/4 - 1/2 inch slices and pour a small amount of the reduced marinade over it. Mmm...

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What's for Dinner?

Today, it's a dish I call "Desayuno Mexicano" or "Mexican Breakfast" since I learned to make this in Mexico.

Desayuno Mexicano

Ingredients:
2-3 eggs per person
1-2 strips of bacon per person
1-3 corn tortillas per person
1 clove of garlic per person
1/4 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. dried thyme
hot peppers (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

The amounts are not fixed in stone, and this can be easily expanded to fit the number of people eating and the size of their appetites. Depending on your skill to "wing it" when it comes to cooking, you should be able to play with this recipe. So, on with the cooking steps.

Crack the eggs into a container large enough to hold them. Add the oregano, thyme, garlic powder, and peppers. Mix it all up and let sit for the dried ingredients to hydrate and release their flavors.

Next, I pull my corn tortillas out from the freezer. I don't use corn tortillas often enough to have them on-hand fresh since they keep nicely in the freezer anyway. Separate the tortillas on the counter to thaw. Blot them with paper towels if they get wet, or knock off the thin layer of ice that may have formed on the tortillas. We want them thawed, not soggy. When they are thawed, stack them up, and chop them into one-half to one inch squares.

Fry and crumble up the bacon in a large sauce pan. I normally freeze my packages of bacon. Freezing it lets me chop off one-eighth or one-quarter inch slices of bacon across the grain. When it cooks up, the bacon separates into nice little pieces on its own. So easy! Once the bacon is cooked up, move it off to a little dish. You can drain off most of the bacon fat, but don't throw it out!

Since the pan is still hot and nicely greased with the bacon fat, add in the cut up tortilla pieces and toss, coating them evenly with the bacon fat. Yum. Stir and toss continually. If you need more lubrication, add back in some more of the bacon fat. If there is any bacon fat left over when the cooking is done, pour it into a pint mason jar, seal, and place in the freezer. It's instant bacon flavor! Tossing out bacon fat is one of the seven deadly sins, so don't do it!

Anyway, toss the tortillas until they start to crisp up and get a little golden color. I like some crunch in my tortillas, so I wait for them to crisp up a bunch. Do not get distracted at this point! You can go from the golden-brown stage to the opening-windows-and-turning-of f-the-smoke-alarm stage in seconds if you walk away. As they are just beginning to crisp up, I'll sprinkle 1-2 pinches of salt on them. Don't go overboard! This dish already has bacon for saltiness.

Once the tortillas are crisped to your liking, give the egg stuff a quick couple of stirs to mix up the floating bits, and pour it into the hot pan over the tortillas. Add the cooked bacon bits back in, and give it a quick stir to mix them up. Then stop! Give the eggs a chance to cook and set up on the bottom. If you have a nice non-stick pan and a wide spatula, you can flip the entire mess over once after a few minutes. If you are not so brave, or your pan is nice, but not non-stick, then use your spatula to flip it over in the largest chunks you can manage.

Serve immediately when done. Stop anyone who likes to salt before tasting and explain just how bad an habit that can be. I will sometimes grate some cheese on top, or pour on some salsa or hot sauce if I didn't have any peppers to add to the dish. Yum!

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What's for Dinner?

Tonight, it's an easy Middle East dish of lentils and rice.

3 T. oil
1 large onion, minced
2 t. salt
1 c. lentils
1 c. rice
3 1/2 c. water
plus spices

Chop up the onion and saute it in the oil along with the salt. Once the onion is soft, toss in the water and lentils and stir. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes. Add in the rice, stir, and cover again. Let that simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let sit for at least 5 more minutes to let any remaining liquid get absorbed.

It's pretty good without the spices, but I like it best with a more robust taste. Use whatever you like, but I commonly use curry powder, garlic powder, cayenne powder, basil, oregano, and bay leaf to the onion and stirred it around for a few minutes before adding the water and continuing on.

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