If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you may be aware that I went to the most piggy event I’ve ever been invited to, Cochon EPIC, back at the end of July. I went through a considerably long stage in my life where I absolutely refused to have any kind of pork product: no ham, no ribs, not even bacon. As I began cooking for myself, I realized that pig wasn’t nearly as awful as I thought and have since slowly started incorporating it back into my life (although I still don’t fully get ham and probably still need some time before I decided to try it.)
Anyways, going to this event was a big deal for me. I was about to eat pig, and basically nothing but pig, for an entire event. I couldn’t pass up this challenge especially when Crispin Cider offered me a ticket! One thing I’ve definitely learned in cooking is that there is rarely an ingredient I actually don’t “like.” I may not like the preparation, but to discount an ingredient entirely isn’t fair. So what better way to give pork a chance than with some of the best local chefs preparing it? “EPIC” is the perfect way to describe this event. It was absolutely insane. The chefs used all parts, and I really mean all parts, of the pigs to deliver outrageous treats for attendees: pork-fat matzo balls, cured pork loin “lox,” pork blood waffles, pork snow cones, and naturally, a scrabble bar (we are in Philly after all). I also was completely star struck to see all these amazing chefs in one location: David Katz, Kevin Sbraga, Marc Vetri, Jason Cichonski and more! I grabbed a Crispin cider to wash all the porky goodness down and was really pleasantly surprised by the taste. It is, well, crisp, and really refreshing. I tend to think of cider as a fall beverage, but Crispin easily translates into a summer drink as well. And it pairs wonderfully with pork. So naturally, I needed a bit of a break from pork after the event, but I couldn’t stop thinking about making a dish with pork and Crispin Cider. I found a recipe for Slow Cooker Pork and Cider Stew on the Whole Foods website and used it as a base for my recipe below.
My poor slow cooker never gets a break. Even in the summer, I use it quite a bit! Slow cooker meals are great because they don’t heat up your entire kitchen, and usually make at least 8 servings, great for a party or for leftovers. Plus, you can put the ingredients in a slow cooker, go to work, and have dinner nearly finished when you return!
But I need some variety every now and then, so I decided to finally try my hand at making some. This recipe for carnitas from myrecipes.com is really simple. All of the ingredients can be found in your local grocery store.
Ingredients:
1 (3-pound) boneless pork shoulder
10 whole garlic cloves, peeled
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 chipotle chiles canned in adobo sauce, drained and chopped
20 (6-inch) corn tortillas, warmed
2/3 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup fresh salsa (I have a Fresh Salsa recipe on my blog. Just omit the corn.)
It is too darn hot to be using the stove/oven, don’t you think? The grill is a great option for hot days, but we have recently been getting the most inconvenient thunderstorms right around dinnertime. I wanted to find some recipes that are perfect for summer but can also be made in a slow cooker so your whole kitchen doesn’t heat up. This one for Slow Cooker Pulled Chicken Sandwiches is really easy to make: you brown the chicken, line the slow cooker with onions and garlic, pour the sauce over the chicken, and let it cook for 3 hours. You’re left with a really tender pull-apart chicken perfect for summer evenings!
I’ve mentioned on here many times, I really stink at getting an entire meal on the table. I can usually handle making the main dish and then I just scramble to throw a salad together and call it a meal. So when Cooking Planit told me about their app, it was like they had made it with me in mind!
The app, available for the iPhone and iPad (android coming soon) can also be accessed online. Your usage is synced up through your login, so you can browse on your computer, iPhone, and iPad seamlessly. (The app is currently on sale for $0.99 for iPhone and $1.99 for iPad)
The overall goal of Cooking Planit is to get a meal, sides included, on the table at the same time. The app includes tons of recipes that come already packaged as meals, but you can also mix and match to suit your tastes.
Once you choose your recipes/meal, you can add it to “My Cookbook” to store for future use. When you’re ready to go food shopping, just add the meal to your grocery list. The app gives you the option of planning for 2, 4, or 6 servings which I absolutely love! The grocery list can be viewed as a list by aisle (produce, dairy & eggs, canned goods, etc.), images (in case you have no idea what a leek looks like), or by recipe so you can see what you need for which recipe. Once you find and purchase your ingredients, just check them off and remove them from the list.
When you’re ready to get cooking, just bring up the recipe and click get started. The app will walk you through the meal, step by step, so that all parts of the recipe will finish at or around the same time. The app even shows you which cooking equipment, kitchen supplies, and appliances you need to make your meal, almost foolproof! It also lets you know how long it will take to make from start to finish. I liked being able to browse the recipes online at work, get the grocery list up on my phone at the supermarket, and then use my laptop at home to view the directions while I cooked. Super easy! The iPhone/iPad app also has voice control, so if you’re elbow deep in cooking, you can give voice commands like “Move On” or “Go Back.” When parts of the recipe need a timer, automatic timers show up at the top of the screen for you. The app will also tell you when to slow down so that all parts of the recipe finish at the same time.
So I decided to try it out and give the results below! I (of course) messed with the recipe slightly so my version is below. I chose “Sunday Supper” but changed it to Baby Back Ribs instead of Short Ribs and used my slow cooker instead of the oven.
It’s no secret that I love tomatoes. So when I was contacted to participate in a celebration of Pomi’s 30 year anniversary, I was more than happy to oblige. To celebrate, each month Pomi sends me a Pomi product and an ingredient that should be paired with the product in a recipe.
March’s package came with Chopped Tomatoes and the ingredient of the month was wine, so I loosely used a recipe from Eating Well as a base for a Braised Chicken Thigh recipe with Mushrooms, Peppers, and Onions. (Note: I used my Ninja Cooking System for this recipe but you can use a normal slow cooker as well. I have directions for both below.)
Making a large batch of marinara sauce and freezing it for later use makes dinner on really hectic weeknights significantly easier. My mom used to make pots upon pots of tomato sauce during the first snow of the season which always made the house smell oh so good, especially after coming in from the cold. We haven’t had our first snow yet, but that’s not going to stop me from trying out this slow cooker marinara from Cooking Light. The sauce can be frozen and used for months.
The original recipe used fresh tomatoes but I hate peeling tomatoes and the plum tomatoes this time of year just aren’t very attractive. So I used the next best thing, canned whole peeled plum tomatoes. If it’s summer when you make this, go for the fresh ones!
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups chopped onion (about 2 onions)
3/4 cup sliced carrot (about 2 carrots
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup minced garlic (a good dozen garlic cloves)
I made a realization this weekend. Chili is so hearty that I really don’t realize if there is even meat in them. So why add it in?
With a bunch of different beans and peppers, you can still deliver an absolutely delicious chili that doesn’t even need meat! (I’m not knocking those that like meat in their chili, I just apparently prefer the vegetarian version)
Katherine Martinelli had a chili link up last week on her blog and I couldn’t stop thinking about chili. Her Three Bean Chili in particular looked so fantastic, I decided to make my own version of it below. It is based off of her recipe but I did make some changes, so to see the original recipe, check it out here.
This Tri Vegetarian Chili is aptly named. It uses three types of beans, three types of dried peppers, and three types of bell peppers.
I love recipes that make it easy to serve a bunch of people with minimal effort. A slow cooker is usually a go-to for those types of recipes but I’ve never considered using it to make breakfast before. The Ninja Cooking System is the perfect tool for it though. They sent over this recipe for a Slow Cooker Apple French Toast Casserole and I couldn’t wait for the weekend to come so I could make it.
This recipe makes 8 servings so it would be great for breakfast for a larger group but I also packed up the rest of my servings to reheat during the week.
Ingredients:
½ cup butter
2 Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup pure maple syrup
1 loaf challah bread (about 1 pound), cut into cubes
It isn’t Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce. We’ve always had the canned cranberry sauce at my Thankgivings growing up; I honestly believed the ridges from the can were there so I knew where to cut. I am all for the canned version, but I thought I’d attempt to make a homemade version in my slow cooker. I based it slightly off of Cooking Light’s Classic Cranberry Sauce but changed up a few ingredients and the method of cooking.
My goodness it dropped in temperature quickly! It feels like we went straight from September weather to December weather. Luckily, I have the perfect warm drink to keep you toasty. This is a (probably) oversimplified version of a drink my aunt and uncle always have at their house for the holidays: Wassail. It’s basically a mulled wine that warms you up from the inside out. I’ve been thinking about Wassail since the change in temperature so I decided to make a quick batch with things I already had in my house.
I’m not even going to pretend to care about football. I have no clue what is going on on the field, nor do I honestly want to. Not even going to school with Flacco could peak my interest in the sport. But I do care about the food aspect of watching football, to no one’s surprise.
So with the season in full swing, I figured it was about time for me to figure out how to make ribs. I “surprisingly” do not have a smoker in my tiny apartment, so I went in search of a slow cooker recipe. This Bourbon BBQ Baby Back Ribs recipe fit the bill.
Ingredients:
5 lbs baby back ribs, cut to fit in your slow cooker
As soon as the weather begins to move into fall, I begin to think of all the hearty meals I will be making in the upcoming months. A slow cooker is such a helpful tool during colder months, it allows you to make a bunch of servings all by dropping them in a pot and just waiting. Slow cooking tough cuts of meat also turns them into the most tender fall-off-the-bone protein. I’ve never tried osso buco before, but a slow cooker version sounds basically idiot proof, so I decided to make it. I actually put this together Sunday night and when I woke up the next morning, spooned out a portion for lunch that day and froze the rest. What a great way to start the week!
I had a heck of a time finding some ingredients despite them being pretty common. So I kind of fudged some of the ingredients. For the original recipe, check it out here.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon ground black pepper, divided
½ teaspoon kosher salt, divided
About 5 pounds veal (go for the cheaper cuts—its usually made with veal shank but they were all out at my market – I used cubed veal and one veal loin chop so that there was some bone)
2 teaspoons butter, divided
2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
2 cups coarsely chopped red onion
1 ½ cups chopped celery
6 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups beef broth
2 cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon minced anchovy fillets (the original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon anchovy paste)
St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, which means Americans nationwide are gearing up for a corned beef and cabbage feast. Despite being Irish-American myself, I’ve never eaten this St. Patrick’s Day staple before. My boyfriend, a huge corned beef fan, was really looking forward to having some, so I finally decided it was time to try to make it. I choose to adapt this recipe from Food Network for Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage so that I could use my slow cooker and not have to watch over it for hours.
Ingredients:
4 pounds raw corned beef brisket
Pickling Spice (included with brisket)
1 medium rutabaga, halved, peeled and cut into wedges
I am having way too much fun trying out all these new meats through Arganica. This week I thought I’d try to conquer elk. Elk has a similar taste to beef and is low in both fat and cholesterol. I thought it was another perfect excuse to use my slow cooker, and to invent my own barbecue sauce! I decided to make a Chipotle-Guinness barbecue sauce.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium sized yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 (~12 oz) bottle of Guinness
1 (14.5 oz) can tomato puree
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon of the sauce from a can of chipotle peppers in adobo
I spent most of Saturday in the car driving to/from North Jersey in a freak Nor’easter snowfall that really made the ride quite an experience. After yesterday, it is clear that winter is (sadly) not too far away, so I better get started on some of my favorite cold weather foods. First up, chili.
I just joined a new farm club called Arganica, that just started delivering to Philadelphia. I actually joined it because my CSA share is ending and I still wanted to receive different vegetables during the winter months. However, as I was looking over their offerings, their meat and fish section is what really caught my eye. I decided to take a chance on a new type of meat I’ve never cooked with before: venison. When I mentioned I was planning on making venison chili to my boyfriend, his eyes lit up. Here’s hoping my chili can live up to whatever high expectation he has for this meal! To go along with the chili, I also made pepper Jack corn bread muffins.
For those a bit wary about venison, the meat is actually quite lean; venison is lower in fat, calories and cholesterol than beef, pork, or lamb.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons oil
2 lbs ground venison
4 strips of bacon
2 cans red kidney beans, drained
1 can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon ground chili
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 jalapeno (or similar) pepper, seeds removed and chopped
