Kalua Pork with Cabbage

What a week!  It is good to be back into the kitchen, but better now that I am settled (sort of) in my new place.  Along with moving I was working on a commercial for NBA 2K15 - yes, the video game - on top of working my normal job.  With all of that going on this was placed on the back burner (no pun intended) and forgotten about.  But it is a new day and I have a new recipe to share.

If you are anything like me, you enjoy food...I would hope so if you are reading this blog.  If for some chance you got here by mistake and have read this far - good for you!  Maybe cooking isn't your thing.  That's totally fine, but try these recipes out.  If it doesn't turn out...well, just post about it on HERE and let me know so I can enjoy your mishaps while I photoshop the crap out of mine.

Back to the recipe, living in Las Vegas there is a large Hawaiian population.  With that comes amazing Hawaiian food and restaurants.  One of my favorites here is L&L Hawaiian BBQ where they have everything from Spam Musubi to Kalua Pork.  Personally, these are my two favorites but I'm not about to go out to eat all the time so I started making it myself.

Normally this recipe would have you cooking the pig in a hole in the ground.  For those of you that live in Vegas you probably know how impossible it is to dig into the earth here.  Though, it's delicious I am not about to try and dig through this ground, so we make due with what we have.  A SLOW COOKER!  Below is the recipe as I have found it online.  With that being said...let's just get to cooking.


Kalua Pork and Cabbage

Kalua Pork and Cabbage

Ingredients

• 2 TBS Kosher Salt
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 (5 lb) bone-in pork shoulder roast
• 1 TBS soy sauce
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp liquid smoke flavoring
• 1/2 large head cabbage, shredded

Instructions

1. Mix kosher salt, black pepper, and ground ginger in a bowl; rub evenly into surface of pork roast; place seasoned roast in a slow cooker.
2. Stir soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and liquid smoke together in a bowl; pour over the pork roast.
3. Cook on Low 10 hours.  Add cabbage to the pork and sauce in the slow cooker; cook another 30 minutes.  Shred pork to serve.

There you have it.  Simple and easy.  I did change the recipe a bit.  Before I do the rub I like to pierce the pork roast with a knife a fair number of times - a la Jodi Arias - so the liquid can get into it a bit.  With the pork in a slow cooker I will rub the liquid mixture into the pork as best as I can.  Doing this helps keep the dry mixture of salt, black pepper and ground ginger on the pork.  Whether this helps or not I don't know.  It's just what I do, and there is nothing wrong with deviating from recipes.  It's hard to mess this recipe up.  Also, as I don't need 5 pounds of pork so I only use two to three pounds and adjust the recipe accordingly.  Now, if you aren't into doing the conversions yourself HERE is the link to the original recipe where you can adjust the number of servings and it will calculate all of the measures for you.  This original recipe makes for 10 servings.  Changing it it to six servings as I did will call for just over 3 lbs of pork.

I love this recipe, but some of the people in my house didn't care for the lingering smell that comes with slow cookers.  Vegetarians...I hope catch a flesh eating virus.  How ironic would that be?!?  (Disclaimer:  Only kidding about that.  My roommates are neither vegetarians nor have a virus.)  On the bright side, if nobody else eats it at least the dog will like it.

That's all that I have for today.  Enjoy, share, reply and until next time....

Happy Snacking!

Luke

Thai Red Peanut Curry

This post is coming a little late, but I am still going to get it up! So, I am just going to make this short. After a long day of working all I wanted when I came home was some Red Peanut Curry. Without any more a due:

The Recipe

Red Peanut Curry
Adapted from this recipe.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, sliced into small chunks
• Optional: 1-2 cups chopped eggplant, skin left on
• 2 kaffir lime leaves, OR substitute bay leaves
• 1/2 cinnamon stick (OR add 1/4 tsp. cinnamon to the sauce)
• handful fresh basil and coriander/cilantro

Red Curry Sauce

• 1 can coconut milk
• 2-3 Tbsp. minced fresh lemongrass, OR bottled/frozen prepared lemongrass
• 1 shallots OR 1/4 cup purple onion, sliced
• 1 thumb-size piece galangal OR ginger, grated
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup peanuts
• 1-2 fresh red chilies, sliced, OR 1/2 to 1 tsp. cayenne pepper, to taste
• 2 Tbsp. tomato ketchup or cooked tomato puree
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 11/2 to 2 Tbsp. chili powder, depending on how spicy you want it 
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, + more to taste
• 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

Preparation

1. Place all curry sauce ingredients in a food processor or blender. Process well. Pour the curry sauce in a wok, deep frying pan, or large pot. Bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the vegetables and continue simmering another 15 minutes, or until vegetables are cooked. 
2. Do a taste test, looking for a balance of flavors. If not salty or flavorful enough, add up to 1 Tbsp. more fish sauce. If too salty, add more fresh lime juice. If too sour, add a little more brown sugar. If too spicy, add more coconut milk. If not spicy enough, add a few fresh-cut chilies or dried crushed chili/cayenne pepper.
3. Ladle the curry into a large serving bowl. Sprinkle generously with fresh basil and coriander (cilantro), and serve with plenty of Thai jasmine-scented rice. ENJOY!

Yield: Serves 3-4 as a Main Entree

For this dish, feel free to add any and every vegetable you wish to the curry. Tonight I made it without the eggplant, but with tomato, green pepper, green beans, onion, carrot broccoli and shiitake mushrooms. Served on a bed of rice, it is hard to go wrong with this curry.

Goodnight everyone. And until next time...
Happy Snacking!

Mushroom Shichimi Rice Bowl

This year Christmas was spent away from my family and in the big city. For my friend, Oriana, and myself it was our first year alone on Christmas in Chicago. Naturally we spent it together. There was the traditional gift exchange, and movies. And just like every other time that we hung out together there was hookah, board games, and of course, food!

As we are both vegetarians it was puzzling us on how we were going to pull off a Christmas dinner. The friends that we had invited to share this dinner with us all found their ways back home, so cooking without having to have them in mind made the planning a lot easier. For me, I was all about the desserts - Raw Key Lime Pie and a Vegan Pecan Pie. (Will post those later in the week)

Oriana, on the other hand, had ideas left and right and after a trip to the grocery store, where everything seemed to be on sale, we had our ingredients. But what were we going to do with them. It wasn't until Oriana found the recipe for Mushroom Shichimi Rice Bowls that we knew that Christmas dinner was going to be Japanese inspired.

I didn't have anything to do with this recipe, but I needed to share it because it was so delicious.

The Recipe

Mushroom Shichimi Rice Bowl (in the bowl) and Sweet Potato Falafel (on the plate) 

Mushroom Shichimi Rice Bowl

Ingredients 

• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced
• Fine-grain sea salt
• 12 ounces / 340 g mushrooms of your choice (I used shiitake, sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 8 ounces / 225 g firm tofu, cut into tiny cubes
• 1 small bunch kale / 3 oz / 85 g, well chopped
• Shichimi Togarashi or red pepper flakes, to taste

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil and butter in a large skillet over high heat. 
2. Add the mushrooms in a single layer, stir well, and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, and then brown, about 5 minutes more. Stir a few times along the way, but don't overdo it; you want the mushrooms to be deeply browned on both sides. 
3. Stir in the garlic roughly 20 seconds before the mushrooms finish cooking. If you need to cook the mushrooms in two batches, do so. Transfer the mushrooms to a plate, set aside.
4. Using the same large skillet, no need to clean it out, cook the tofu along with a couple pinches of salt over medium-high heat until heated through, and until it starts to brown a bit. Roughly one minute before the tofu is finished cooking, stir in the kale. It should collapse and cook down over the next 60 seconds.
5. Season all the components generously with Shichimi Togarashi and salt to taste. For each serving, dish up a heaping spoonful of brown rice along with some of the tofu/kale mixture and a some of the mushrooms.

Serves 3-4.


This recipe was so delicious that I have made it three times in the last week. Not only that, but it includes two of my favorite super foods: Mushrooms (Shiitake, in our recipe) and Kale. When we made this recipe we didn't use tofu as I am limiting my soy based products that I am eating. It still turned out amazing and it is probably better because it didn't have the tofu. We also topped the entire bowl off with soy sauce to taste.

I can guarantee you that if you make this you and are not a vegetarian that you will not miss any meat in this meal. It is simply seasoned, but with a bit of soy sauce the flavors will be bursting in your mouth. Be careful not to over salt the kale as I did the first time that I tried to recreate this dish. Honestly, I would say not to salt the kale as it is just going to get some soy sauce before you eat it anyway.

Cost for this meal is around $5 for the rice, the kale and the Shiitake mushrooms. I only suggest shiitake, but that is my own personal preference for this recipe. I hope you enjoy this one!

Please comment if you have tried this and tell me how you like it.

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Thank you to Heidi from 101cookbooks.com for sharing this recipe.
Recipe can be found here.

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Until next time...

Happy Snacking!