An Easy Pulled Pork

Prior to living in Nashville for four years (while I got my education here), I wasn't really a big barbecue person. And by "wasn't a big" I mean "didn't eat at all". My brother could scarf down a full rack of baby back ribs while I would sit next to him chowing down on two baked potatoes (what can I say, I'm Irish!)

Enter Nashville. Enter downtown Nashville, with its Nash trash with a combined total of 10 teeth (between eight people mind you). Enter slow talking, quick eating Nashvillians. Enter honky tonks (these being the absolute best: Tootsie's, Paradise Park Trailer Resort, Cadillac Ranch and the ever popular Wild Horse Saloon), with country covers of Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen. Enter cowboy boots and cowboy hats (I now own nine pairs of boots and have two hats). 

But most importantly, enter Jack's. 

Oh my god, enter Jack's. The barbecue that changed my life. Jack's is located in downtown Nashville and consistently has a line out the door and sometimes around the corner. It is so famous it sells its own barbecue sauces and rubs and memorabilia. When eating in, numerous sauces, based on famous barbecue from around the sauce, are available to pour on your brisket, pork shoulder, ribs, texas sausage, turkey and smoked chicken. I would always go and get a combo plate--ribs, pork shoulder and smoked chicken. Add two "vegetable" sides (by vegetable they mean baked beans, cole slaw, potato chips, potato salad, green bean casserole, etc. I guess some of those were originally veggies, but when Jack's is done with them, they don't resemble any vegetable I've ever seen.)

Because of Jack's, I perfected a perfect pulled pork...that has only a handful of ingredients. Sure, you can make your own barbecue sauce (I don't) and your own rub (I don't) and I bet it would taste a bit better. But is a "bit" better worth all that time? Not to me. Instead, I plop these ingredients in a slow cooker, turn it on low and come back 8 hours later to pull it, add bbq sauce, and stick it in the fridge. Yes, friends, it is just that easy.

Easy Pulled Pork

Ingredients:

Pork shoulder (skin on, if possible--it keeps the meat super tender)
4 cans root beer (I prefer the oldschool kind that comes in a bottle)
Salt
Pepper
Chili powder
Barbecue sauce

Directions:

1. Combine salt, pepper and chili powder in a small bowl. Rub this mixture on your pork shoulder if you bought it without skin. If not, skip to step two.

2. Place your pork shoulder in your slow cooker. Pour the root beer over the meat. If you pork is skin-on, add salt, pepper and chili powder to the rootbeer. Turn your slow cooker on low, put the lid on, and walk away.

3. After six hours, check your meat. If the skin is on, it should be separating from the meat slightly. If not, test with a fork--the meat should literally fall off as soon as touched (LITERALLY--don't pull). If it doesn't, put the lid back on and walk away again.

This, my darling readers, is what fully cooked pork for pulled pork should look like when its finished. That messed up looking section is where the tongs held it to pull it out of the slow cooker. See that damage? That means it is perfect and ready to pull.

4. Pull your pork. Hold a fork in each hand, take a piece of pork off the bone, and shred by pulling the two forks apart. The meat should flake into pieces.

5. Once every piece is pulled, place in a large bowl. Mix in barbecue sauce to taste. If you are storing in the fridge, as opposed to immediately eating, I recommend holding back a bit on the sauce--then, when you are heating it up, put a bit more in the bowl and stir once warm. YUM!


That's it, my lovely readers. It's not the same as Jack's, but for someone who was displaced from one of the barbecue capitals of the world (is Nashville a bbq capital? I feel like I just made that up), it sure does taste good. Enjoy!

Grandmommy's Chicken Noodle Soup

My grandmother, on my mum's side, is an amazing cook. Or was, I guess, since she doesn't really cook anymore. But man, when she did, was she GOOD. When cooking became too much for her and she moved into a senior living home (an old hotel) with a dining room, she passed down her recipes on these lovely index cards that weren't actually index cards, but beautiful stationary with her name engraved on the back.

When I think about those cards, I get sad. My mum doesn't writer her recipes down on cards like that. And I definitely don't...I put them on a blog. Will my grandkids get as sentimental when they read my blog as I do when I see my grandmother's scrawling handwriting on those ivory and green cards?

Sadly, we don't even have all of her recipes on these cards. There are a lot that my mum or I need get...most important, her famous fried chicken that everyone in the family raves about but that I've actually never tried since she stopped making it when people became worried about fried food and clogged arteries. Can you imagine? If I had my grandmother's recipe, I'm pretty sure I could put the Colonel out of business.

When I was younger, my grandmother would come and babysit my brother and I so our parents could go on vacation without their terrible twosome (I like to think we weren't that terrible, but they left us at home, so who knows!) I'd look forward to her breaded veal, fried up in an inch of oil on the stove to a golden brown. And her apple crisp, which remains to this day my favorite dessert, and which I believe is the absolute perfect way to use fall's massive supply of apples (I'm already getting excited for my CSA during that time). And her turkey stuffing, which my aunt still makes since she took over Thanksgiving (although I'd bet it is a bit healthier than the original), and her homemade cranberry sauce (When I was a tiny tot, my grandmother asked me which cranberry sauce I preferred, and I still haven't lived down, to this day, that I said the kind with the lines on it--she used to spend hours making homemade cranberry sauce and was, it is safe to say, not exactly pleased with her grandchild's response. She stopped making the sauce shortly thereafter.)

But my absolute favorite was her chicken noodle soup, which was served with these tiny little pastini, a pasta the size of a pen tip shaped like tiny stars, perfect for little kids because, even now, I have trouble scooping up the massive strips of pasta you get in some soups. This is one of the recipes that my mum has hidden in her Joy of Cooking cookbook written by my grandmother on her stationary and is the perfect chicken noodle soup for those days when you are feeling under the weather and just want your mum, your bed and a bowl of soup. I had my wisdom teeth removed about four years ago and, I kid you not, I survived for days purely on this soup.

I am happy to share the recipe for this soup that has such a special place in my heart with all of you. I hope everyone reading has as wonderful of memories as I do of me and my grandmother, but if yours didn't pass down a delicious chicken noodle soup, feel free to borrow pass this one off as a family recipe. I'm sure my grandmother wouldn't mind.

Grandmommy's Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients

2 1/2 lb. fryer chicken
1 lb. carrots
1 large onion
1 lb celery
paprika
oregano
parsley
salt and pepper
pasta (I recommend a small one like pastini or ditalini)

Directions

1. Peel the carrots; cut the carrots and celery in half. Cut the onion in half or quarters, depending on how large the onion is. Place the raw fryer chicken and cut veggies in a soup pot. Fill pot with water.

2. Add paprika, oregano, parsley salt and pepper to the water. Stir to combine.

3. Cook the soup for two to two and a half hours. The chicken will stay moist since it is cooking in water, so don't worry about overcooking. The veggies should be falling apart.

4. Strain the soup (obviously keeping the broth, since that's the base of the soup. Remove the meat from the chicken and chop the veggies. Return to the broth.

5. If you are not eating the entire thing of soup right now, this is the time to store it. If you are, add your pasta to the soup and cook until al dente. If stored, do not add the pasta until you are eating--then add pasta to the amount of soup you will be eating and cook. This ensures you don't have icky pasta.

As you may have seen from Sunday meal planning, this was one of the meals I was cooking for my dad since he is getting surgery. Thus, I  stored the soup (if five massive containers) so that some can go in the freezer (for meeee) and some my dad can cook this week. After all, it is the perfect meal for when you're not feeling great.

New England Lobster Rolls

I don't often eat lobster. Like...ever. It is, in my opinion, way too expensive! On top of that, the idea of actually killing a living critter by shoving a knife through its head rather than just buying it pre-killed is kind of icky. And by kind of I mean...don't lobsters scream when you kill them? (Ok, I'm pretty sure its not screaming but it has something to do with boiling water forcing air out or something like that but still!)

My parents used to vacation in the Northeast all the time. And my mum, who barely eats any shellfish, used to eat lobster rolls. I've heard stories about lobster rolls for years, but it was not until I moved to...New York City that I actually tried one. Yes, NYC, not Maine, not anywhere in the Northeast, but New York. Weird right? Well the "clam shack" craze has come to Manhattan. And there are a ton to choose from...Mermaid Inn (my personal fave), Luke's Lobster, Ed's Lobster Bar and numerous others. Lobster rolls are even served on trucks (red hook lobster truck, associated with Red Hook Lobster Pound, and Nauti, associated with Luke's)!

Each time I've gotten a lobster roll, however, I wonder why the heck I'm paying for it. There's nothing really difficult about the recipe...in fact, it is pretty darn easy. The only thing keeping me from making them at home is...lobster screams. 

Enter Ardmore Seafood at the Ardmore Farmer's Market. You know what they sell? Pre-cooked lobster tails. PRECOOKED, PRE-KILLED lobsters! Do you know how much this simplifies a recipe that was already pretty darn simple?

Below is the recipe I used to make my lobster rolls. If you don't have access to precooked tails, there are tons of websites dedicated to step-by-step instructions of killing and cooking those little ocean-dwellers. I recommend this one, which even has pictures to ensure you do this correctly.

Lobster rolls in Pennsylvania? Or in a small apartment in Manhattan? The very fabric of my universe has officially changed...

New England Lobster Rolls

Ingredients
(for one sandwich)

1/4 lb. cooked lobster meat
1/4 cup (or so) full-fat mayonnaise
Lemon
Sprig fresh tarragon
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Hotdog bun (I used regular ones, but for a traditional roll, buy New England-style rolls--they're sliced on the top rather than the side)
Butter

Directions

1. Make your lobster salad: dice your lobster into bite size pieces. Add mayonnaise and toss. The lobster should be lightly coated in mayo, NOT completely overwhelmed by it (you want that good lobster taste!) Add diced tarragon, salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice and continue to toss.

2. Toast your hotdog bun...if you have a top-loading toaster, use that, if not, utilize your oven's broiler. When using a broiler, put the butter on before putting it in the oven...if using a toaster, smear with butter immediately upon taking out. I tried both techniques, and I prefer the broiler (just saying).

3. Put your lobster roll together by adding the lobster salad onto the buttered bun.

my very very stuffed lobster roll, take one. I had a lobster roll Saturday for dinner and also Sunday for lunch. It was a lobster extravaganza!

The second time I used a bit less mayo than the first and I think it turned out a lot better...much more lobster-y!

A Late Sunday Meal Planning

For what was supposed to be a very mellow weekend...I'm exhausted! As you may remember, I went home to dog-sit since my parents were away and she had been at camp since Tuesday. It was so cute when I picked her up...she was doing her happy feet! (yes, very similar to the movie, where in a dog gets so excited--but is not allowed to jump up on people--that they literally dance with happiness).

My dad gets surgery this week. So, as the wonderful daughter that I am, I spent the entire weekend cooking food for him. That way, he can simply pull food out of the fridge and nuke it and have a delish meal (unlike his frozen Bertolli meals which he is so fond of). It also means my mum won't have to cook for him, which will be nice for her since she is working from home for the whole week to take care of him. Although the food I cooked is not traditional summer fare (chicken noodle soup anyone?), they are absolutely delish freezer recipes and I will be posting them all soon! Look forward to the soup, roast chicken, meatballs and pulled pork recipes. Also look forward to the meals I cooked for myself, like lobster rolls and bourbon-marinated grilled pork. 

That recipe comes from my new favorite book (from the author of my favorite blog, Dinner: A Love Story. I'm already obsessed and literally laughed out loud at some points of her and her husband's experience cooking for their two daughters. It is absolutely genius for parents of young kids who want to make dinner a family occasion nightly, but is also full of great recipes for those of us who work long hours but still want to cook a delish dinner. I highly recommend getting it off Amazon here.


Also, last week I got the most amazingggg veggies from my CSA! Literally everything I could possibly ask for -- swiss chard, romaine lettuce, potatoes, sweet corn, carrots, green beans, summer squash, zucchini, cucumber, onion, green pepper, eggplant and tomatoes! I'll be doing my best to use all of these this week, but anything left over will be taking the trek down the shore so I don't waste it.


Monday: grilled steak with tomato and mozzarella salad and green beans


Tuesday: mustardy pork chop with onions and apples


Wednesday: one of my girlfriends is coming over for dinner so I need to decide on a delish fish dish to serve! I'm going between salmon with strawberry salsa, mussels meuniere or pineapple-mojito tilapia


Thursday: halibut wrapped in swiss chard with mexican tomato rice tossed with squash and zucchini


On Friday I'm heading either back home or down the shore, wherever my dad is, depending on his surgery. Hopefully down the shore--I haven't been in a couple of weeks and I miss it!

Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

Sometimes, you go on a health food kick and eat omega-3s until you think you're going to turn the same pink as your salmon. When you "splurge", it means you eat two handfuls of almonds rather than just one. 

Other times, you just want some damn pasta. 

The past month or so, I've been chugging along eating perfectly healthy food and not looking back. This past week, however, I've had a bit of stress due to work, and I'm the type of half-Italian where, when I get stressed, the only thing I want is pasta. Spaghetti with meatballs, penna a la vodka, bolognese...you name it, it would be the only thing to satisfy me.

Enter stage right...wild mushroom ravioli. One of my favorite raviolis (in a tie with red pepper ravioli and, obviously, lobster ravioli. But wild mushroom ravioli might be considered, in some circles, healthy (I'm not sure where these circles are located, but I would like to go to them immediately). Enter stage left...butter. Pure, unadulterated, delicious butter. But that would be a little too fattening, so obviously the only solution is to toss in some fresh herbs. Cause fresh herbs make everything a bit healthier right? No? Oh. Well. Good thing I already devoured this then...

Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

Ingredients

1 package fresh wild mushroom ravioli (or porcini ravioli)
Drizzle olive oil
Package of fresh sage
1/2 a stick of butter
Small spoonful of flour
Salt and pepper
Grated Parmesan

Directions

1. Bring a pot full of water to a boil. Cook ravioli according to package directions (it should be around five minutes or so).

2. Heat a sauce pan over medium flame. Add a drizzle of olive oil. Slowly add 1/2 a stick of butter into the pan, in pieces about 1/2 an inch thick. Stir the butter constantly so that it does not burn or begin to brown. Throw in sage--I like sage a lot, so I added about 15 leaves or so. Salt and pepper the sauce and add a small spoonful of flour, which will thicken the sauce a bit. The sauce is complete when the butter is completely melted.

3. Serve the pasta with sauce poured over. Top with grated Parmesan.


And that, my dear readers, is the way to go from a frantic ball of stress...to one sleepy woman. Add a glass of white wine (or even red--the mushroom ravioli can handle it), and you're guaranteed a night without worry.

Soy-Orange Glazed Salmon with Pineapple Salsa

It's rare that we cook something during the summer that we can't grill. The very idea of turning on an oven during the summer just seems blasphemous. The only problem with that is that my aunt has a very strict rule against eating seafood (except shrimp...sometimes) outside, because fish tends to attract bugs. And no one wants bugs around when they're trying to eat their dinner.

However, with temperatures soaring near the 95 degree mark, the idea of eating outside just sounds...icky. Can you imagine? We would all be as cooked as the food is! 

Eating inside opens up a whole new realm of food possibilities, every single one of them revolving around some type of seafood! And you all know that I will take any opportunity possible to get my family to eat seafood...and, with not being able to eat outside, my aunt was more than happy to jump on the bandwagon. 

I decided that I would stick with salmon, as most people (my family included) like salmon, where as some other fish or shellfish get mixed reviews. Since my dad was at the table, I obviously couldn't serve just plain salmon...he would be bored with it. A sweet and spicy salsa seemed like the perfect combination--and a great excuse to get some pineapple, which, for some reason, I have not eaten very much of this summer. A glaze for the salmon was needed so we could stick that puppy on the grill and have it stay moist, and suddenly a seafood meal was put together. Add a couple of sides to create a quick and wonderful meal, cooked outside, as it should be during the summer, and served around the dining room table.

Soy-Orange Glazed Salmon with Pineapple Salsa

Ingredients

4-6 oz of skin-on salmon per person (I got the pieces pre-cut to simplify the process)
Low sodium soy sauce
1 small container of orange juice
2 navel oranges
One pineapple (or a medium container of precut pineapple)
Handful of cilantro
1 habanero (or jalapeno) pepper, seeds removed
2 limes

Directions

1. Rinse the salmon and pat dry with a paper towel. Place in plastic ziplock bag. Pour soy sauce and orange juice into the bag, until the liquid covers the fish. Slice your navel oranges into 1 inch thick pieces and place on the center side (not the skin side). Place the marinating salmon into the fridge for about 30 minutes.

2. Make your salsa--dice your pineapple and pepper into very small pieces and combine in a bowl. Mince the cilantro and add. Cut the lime in half, juice both sides, and zest a small section. Toss all together and place in the fridge as well, so the flavors have time to combine.

3. Remove your salmon from the fridge and grill. Because I had requested individual pieces, my dad use a grill pan covered in foil. If you have a big fillet you can place directly on the grill. Pour some marinade over the salmon and place the oranges on top. Cook to desired doneness--fish should flake easily with a fork. Once done, place the oranges directly on the grill for about one minute.

4. To serve, place the grilled orange on the plate, then the cooked salmon and top with salsa.

The finished plate! We served the salmon with grilled asparagus and jasmine rice--if you are a fan of jasmine rice, I highly highly recommend Rice Select's Jasmati Rice. You can find it at any major grocery store.

Sunday Meal Planning

So this weekend I successfully cemented my place as a klutz. I've always been clumsy. Not one of those constantly-falling-over clumsy people, but more along the lines of bumping-into-things-and-bouncing-off-and-two-days-later-wondering-where-that-massive-bruise-came-from? people. This weekend I took it to all new heights, however, by spraining my ankle by slipping in wet grass. I kid you not. I was doing little besides walking then suddenly...wipe out. I now have a lovely ankle brace on, need to wear sneakers (with my work clothes starting tomorrow, which is never a good look) and have a purplish-black bruise running the length of my instep. 


Man, am I cute!


The reason I'm sharing this is that it causes a bit of a conundrum with cooking. Well, not really cooking--shopping. Living in NYC, I walk...everywhere. Including to the grocery store. Now, however, I'm not exactly balanced (which is an understatement if ever I heard one, since clearly my balance isn't great ever or I wouldn't be so clumsy!) and carrying a massive bag of groceries home is pretty daunting. 


Do I order takeout every night? Make frequent food store trips on my way home? 


I've decided...to do a bit of both. Since I just injured myself yesterday, the idea of going to ANY food store (or even walking 2 blocks out of my way to get there) sounds absolutely awful. Later this week though, I need to grow some cojones and just do it. Wish me luck!


Monday: take out (sushi, obvs)


Tuesday: salmon with sweet corn puree


Wednesday: dinner with one of my girl friends for restaurant week!


Thursday: rum and apricot/peach pork (depending on what I get from my CSA)

Friday: I'm heading home right after work  to dog sit my munchkin!  Which translates to me grabbing something on my way to the train. But it's worth it for a full weekend of just me and the bear!