Been working hard in the kitchen the past few days. I was told that there was a massive influx of relatives coming to town so I was to get ready. So I bought 18.5lbs of pork shoulder, 5lbs of chicken thighs, and other things. All my meats were on sale for under .$0.99/lb- perfect for feeding a swarm of locusts...errrr...relatives.
A day later, I was told that the visitation was occurring closer to Palm Sunday.
Well, I still needed to feed MY household, and the stuff I bought wasn't going to keep in the fridge until then, so...
I took the larger pork shoulder- @9.8lbs- and made my usual pork pot roast. The meat is cubed, then seasoned with onion & garlic powder, some black & cayenne pepper, and then seared. Then I added 3 yellow onions, about 8 cloves of garlic (minced), fresh and dried parsley, and sliced portobellos. Eventually, 2 cans of cream of celery soup was added for flavor & thickening. Served over your choice of penne pasta or diced Yukon gold potatoes.
I forgot the bay leaf, but it still came out good. We ate @1/2 of it, and the rest was put into the freezer in 2 bags.
The chicken was made into a chicken & sausage gumbo. The sausage in question was Eddy's smoked (a beef & pork sausage) and my family's all-beef Louisiana hot sausage. I used a mix of chicken stock, homemade turkey stock, and some chicken bouillon for the broth, seasoned with thyme, filé, parsley, black & red pepper, and bay leaf. It was a bit of an experiment- usually, I make seafood gumbo. So getting the flavor and the ratio of liquid to solids was a bit of clever guesswork on my part. After 2 meals, I have about a gallon of that left. Dad might take some to his office- his staff have all heard of my mighty gumbo, but only one or two have ever tasted it, and one isn't a fan of seafood. So they've been asking for a C&S gumbo, but I keep telling them to buy the ingredients. But I don't have a problem with sharing in this case. I hope nobody's a softie when it comes to spicy food, though.
Today was the big experiment, though. I didn't want to make MORE pork pot roast, so I tried my hand at a red pork chile. I found a good recipe that nonetheless presented challenges.
First, it called for ingredients that people in the household would balk at. One person in the house can't eat much in the way of bell peppers. Sometimes, they're ok in recipes- see fajitas- but usually, we don't use them. And while I'm personally bean/no bean ambivalent when it comes to chili, there's a very strong anti-beans in chili in the house. So those had to go. But the beans in this recipe aren't just for stretching the servings and adding a teensy bit of flavor, they also work as a thickener. I subbed in some finely diced red potatoes for them.
Finding a substitute for bell peppers required more thought, though. I stood in the produce section of Kroger looking at peppers for quite a while. Eventually, I bought some poblanos, anaheims, anchos, and cascabels, all pretty mild. I decided to use one of each-finely diced- because each had a different flavor.
Also, it involved a slow cooker. The meat was 3x the size of the recipe's requirements. In fact, at 7.7lbs, it was physically bigger than my 6qt pressure cooker, and almost bigger than my 10qt one, too. So I had to use my 13.5qt Dutch oven and slow cooked that bad boy in the oven.
Did I mention that its a slow-cook recipe? Stage 1, in which the seasoned pork is cooked with low heat (200-220degF) in a beer broth, takes 8-10 HOURS! Then for step 2, you take it out of the oven, add your other ingredients, stir, and then cook it for another 4-8 HOURS!
I was in the midst of step 2 when I stirred over vigorously, and a little bit of the...slurry?...cleared the rim. I wiped it up with a fingertip (without burning myself) and tasted it.
Even at this stage, I could tell this stuff was going to kick butt!
A day later, I was told that the visitation was occurring closer to Palm Sunday.
Well, I still needed to feed MY household, and the stuff I bought wasn't going to keep in the fridge until then, so...
I took the larger pork shoulder- @9.8lbs- and made my usual pork pot roast. The meat is cubed, then seasoned with onion & garlic powder, some black & cayenne pepper, and then seared. Then I added 3 yellow onions, about 8 cloves of garlic (minced), fresh and dried parsley, and sliced portobellos. Eventually, 2 cans of cream of celery soup was added for flavor & thickening. Served over your choice of penne pasta or diced Yukon gold potatoes.
I forgot the bay leaf, but it still came out good. We ate @1/2 of it, and the rest was put into the freezer in 2 bags.
The chicken was made into a chicken & sausage gumbo. The sausage in question was Eddy's smoked (a beef & pork sausage) and my family's all-beef Louisiana hot sausage. I used a mix of chicken stock, homemade turkey stock, and some chicken bouillon for the broth, seasoned with thyme, filé, parsley, black & red pepper, and bay leaf. It was a bit of an experiment- usually, I make seafood gumbo. So getting the flavor and the ratio of liquid to solids was a bit of clever guesswork on my part. After 2 meals, I have about a gallon of that left. Dad might take some to his office- his staff have all heard of my mighty gumbo, but only one or two have ever tasted it, and one isn't a fan of seafood. So they've been asking for a C&S gumbo, but I keep telling them to buy the ingredients. But I don't have a problem with sharing in this case. I hope nobody's a softie when it comes to spicy food, though.
Today was the big experiment, though. I didn't want to make MORE pork pot roast, so I tried my hand at a red pork chile. I found a good recipe that nonetheless presented challenges.
First, it called for ingredients that people in the household would balk at. One person in the house can't eat much in the way of bell peppers. Sometimes, they're ok in recipes- see fajitas- but usually, we don't use them. And while I'm personally bean/no bean ambivalent when it comes to chili, there's a very strong anti-beans in chili in the house. So those had to go. But the beans in this recipe aren't just for stretching the servings and adding a teensy bit of flavor, they also work as a thickener. I subbed in some finely diced red potatoes for them.
Finding a substitute for bell peppers required more thought, though. I stood in the produce section of Kroger looking at peppers for quite a while. Eventually, I bought some poblanos, anaheims, anchos, and cascabels, all pretty mild. I decided to use one of each-finely diced- because each had a different flavor.
Also, it involved a slow cooker. The meat was 3x the size of the recipe's requirements. In fact, at 7.7lbs, it was physically bigger than my 6qt pressure cooker, and almost bigger than my 10qt one, too. So I had to use my 13.5qt Dutch oven and slow cooked that bad boy in the oven.
Did I mention that its a slow-cook recipe? Stage 1, in which the seasoned pork is cooked with low heat (200-220degF) in a beer broth, takes 8-10 HOURS! Then for step 2, you take it out of the oven, add your other ingredients, stir, and then cook it for another 4-8 HOURS!
I was in the midst of step 2 when I stirred over vigorously, and a little bit of the...slurry?...cleared the rim. I wiped it up with a fingertip (without burning myself) and tasted it.
Even at this stage, I could tell this stuff was going to kick butt!
Last edited:
