Pork

Savory Braised Pork

This was another good CL recipe, though I substituted a pork loin roast rather than Boston butt because that’s what I had on hand.  Probably a hair more dry than I would have liked it in part because of that (I didn’t remember to adjust the cooking time for a loin), but still quite good.  I also substituted white wine for half of the chicken broth and thought that helped the flavor a little bit.  The original recipe required a pressure cooker, but I did it in a dutch oven and it was fine.  We had this for New Years Day dinner with black eyed peas and braised brussels sprouts.

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Pork and Charred Brussels Sprouts

After the better part of a month on travel, and the end of my CCIE studying (finally), it’s time to get back in the kitchen!  I think *anything* cooked at home would have tasted great today, but this one was really good.  I’ve had my eye on this recipe for several weeks, and just never seemed to get around to it, but I’m glad we did.  This was out of Sunset, and the only changes I made were to up the garlic and sub Sriracha for chiles in the sauce.  The sauce was especially good, and we were thinking it would do well with pretty much any meat out there (steak marinade or fish comes to mind in particular).  Worth repeating for sure.

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Spinach and Feta Stuffed Pork Chops

Apparently I’m on a kick of stuffing pork with spinach.  I mean, it’s delicious so it’s hard to argue.  It’s also easy to make it pretty healthy and low cal.  I got this recipe from Cooking Light, but ditched the sun dried tomatoes as I’m not a huge fan.  I intended to sub roasted red peppers but I was out of them.  Still good with just the spinach and feta as the filling.  We served this with mashed cauliflower and garlicky roasted asparagus.

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Hoppin’ John

There have been very few New Years Days in my adult life that I have not eaten black-eyed peas in some form.  I’m not a superstitious person, but I happen to love black-eyed peas, so why tempt fate?  Can always use a little extra luck to start the year, right?  This is the rendition of Hoppin’ John I’ve been using over the years.  It’s been a lot of recipes mish-mashed into one.  This year I admit I lightened it up a little bit with less oil, turkey bacon instead of regular bacon, etc, but it was still excellent.  It may have to make an appearance more than just New Years Day!

hoppinjohn

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Pork and Napa Cabbage Water Dumplings

This was my first attempt at making dumplings from scratch, and they were a hit.  I did use store-bought dumpling wrappers, but after subsequent trips to H-Mart, I think I have enough ingredients to start trying to make my own.  In theory, they taste better and are more forgiving when wrapping (a good thing, I must have destroyed a lot of wrappers while learning to do this!).  This is a great starter recipe for learning dumplings!  From my Asian Dumplings cookbook, by Andrea Nguyen.

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Dan Dan Noodles

My favorite dish at PF Changs, but  just as good at home.  You could do this with shirataki noodles in place of the Udon noodles.  Do watch the chili oil…the original recipe, which comes from Serious Eats, calls for 1 teaspoon.  The first time I made this, I did use that and found it almost inedible – and I *like* a lot of heat.  I wrote it in as a 1/4 teaspoon here, but feel free to adjust to your taste.

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Char Siu Pork

Easy slow cooker recipe from Cooking Light with tons of flavor. I serve it with steamed rice and snow peas. It makes a lot, so there will be plenty of leftovers, which are even better the next day.

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Rosemary Pork Tenderloin

Nice dinner that is good for a busy weeknight or for company.  I usually serve this with some kind of rice side dish and some roasted veggies.

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