Pork

Apple Cider Pork Roast

I found a pork shoulder roast on sale, and of course I had to get it – clearly there would be something to do with it. Although I am awfully bummed out that summer is coming to an end, there are some great flavors in fall cooking (even though it’s still quite warm outside!). Apples and pork are one of those quintessential fall flavor combos, I think. This did not disappoint, and was worth the time. I found this on Epicurious, and did not change anything beyond using a heavier hand with the pepper and thyme. Great with mashed potatoes for the sauce, and a roasted squash side.

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Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are one of my favorites, packed with veggies and SO much flavor. I stumbled across a photo of a Vietnamese menu, and couldn’t stop thinking about them, so I thought I would give it a go, and they were great. This is actually an excellent way to clean out your fridge from veggies and/or meat, and spring roll wrappers can be found in the regular store. I used ground chicken with cucumber, carrots, green onions, and a handful of leftover herbs for these. Most anything would work. Don’t overstuff them! They do fall apart easily if you do, though the taste is still great.

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Egg Roll Bowls

I found this on Delish, and loved the concept – egg rolls are one of my favorites, but almost impossible to find one that fits all of my diet restrictions. Super easy to make a bowl version, though, and turned out that it was awesome. We both loved it, great to use up some ground pork we had on hand, and if you’re after low-carb, this would work well for that. You could easily use ground chicken or turkey in this as well. Being a bowl, it’s super easy to customize – add mushrooms, celery, different sauces, etc.

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Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Now that the weather is starting to improve, I come in from the barn later in the evening and would rather have something convenient for dinner. Something that doesn’t end up being a handful of pretzels. I haven’t done this in a while, but it made sense to start trying out recipes for freezer meals (the challenge being they have to be adaptable for my diet – mostly stick to AIP). This was a winner that I took from several techniques to get something that worked. There is dairy in it, but cheese has been my hardest thing to give up, and I find if there is NO other dairy for a while, it works. This comes together quickly, it’s very good, will freeze well, and is modified for AIP.

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Breaded Pork Chop Cutlets

I am generally not a fan of breaded anything, but these were awesome and very simple.  I brined the pork chops for a couple of hours before cooking, which really does make all the difference IMO, no matter what the cooking method (I’ve started doing it with chicken breast too, and get great results).  This is from this month’s Cooking Light, and we had it with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts – we both loved it.

porkchopsbreaded

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Meat Pies

It seems like only yesterday that we went to London and Brussels, but it has been three years!  Time really flies.  To celebrate, we had a weekend of food we enjoyed there, from pubs around here with lovely Belgian and English beers on tap, to mussels and frites, baked beans (Shawn loves a full English breakfast 🙂 ), and finally meat pies.  I won’t lie, I actually got the idea to make them to go with Shawn’s awesome beans when I picked up our Harry Potter cookbook and saw, “Molly Weasley’s meat pies.”  How could I resist that?  Coupled with the fact that Shawn had been wanting to make them for a while made it a no-brainer to give them a shot.   We made two hand pies, a traditional beef and onion British pie, and a Tourtiere, which is a French-Canadian pork meat pie. We preferred the beef, but the pork was good too and with some adjustment (more gravy – it was a bit dry) would be excellent.   These were a lot of fun, and if you make hand pies, you will have plenty to freeze for later!

meatpie

 

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Vietnamese-Spiced Pork Chops

This Cooking Light recipe was good for a quick weeknight dinner, especially when grilling season is over and we typically like to grill our pork chops. We did brine the chops for about an hour prior to cooking them, which I think always makes a huge difference.  We had this with baby bok choy for a very low cal and carb but filling dinner.

vietnameseporkchops

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Asian Pork Brine

Another in the (delicious) quest for more excellent pork chop brines – I think this is now up there with my other favorite’s, Jon’s Cider chops and beer brined chops. Awesome on the grill! I adapted this from Rasa Malaysia.

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Herb Rubbed Pork Chops with Pesto

This was another grilled pork chop recipe (and we have yet to tire of grilled pork chops!) that we liked a lot.  Very easy for a weeknight dinner.  There were no bone-in chops at the store, but the thick boneless were actually fine.  I did do a quick brine of these before the herb rub/grilling.  The pesto was from our basil, and we grilled some of our squash as a side.  This came from Serious Eats.

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Caribbean Brine Pork Chops

We’ve had so much success with brined chops that I’ve been looking through a few other brines to try them out.  This was good, but too sweet for me.  If you like sweet with a nice hint of spice, you would probably really enjoy this.  I mean, I didn’t leave anything on the plate. 😉  We had this with our squash tossed with some of our dill and chives, and some corn we picked up.  Will be corn season in Virginia soon!! 🙂

 

carribbeanbrine

 

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