Food / Cooking blogs

Kiplog's Foodblog - links. More fun food blogs.

Cooking Blogs

Food & Cooking Blogs Like cooking blogs? Here are a few more.

Pulled Pork

I picked this recipe up off the Internet somewhere and have only modified it slightly. Pork shoulder is one of the only meats that will go on sale around here for less than $1/pound. The first time I bought it I had no idea what to do with it so posted a request to a frugal newsgroup I was on. Here's the slightly modified version of one of the recipes that was sent to me.

1 T oil
2 chopped onions
6 minced garlic cloves
1 T chili powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
12 oz chili sauce (1 small bottle)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 T Worcestershire
3 lb. pork shoulder

Saute the onions in the oil until soft. Add garlic, chili powder, and pepper and cook another minute or so. Add chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Heat till boiling stirring constantly.

Put the pork shoulder in the crockpot and pour the sauce over it. Cover and cook on low 12 hours or on high 6 hours, until pork is basically falling apart. (Longer never hurts.) Shred the meat with a pair of forks and return to the pot and keep warm in the sauce. Serve over buns.

This makes a LOT of pork. I typically freeze the leftovers and they reheat just fine.

Apple Crisp

I have 4 apple trees in my yard. Luckily, one comes into fruit in the early summer and one in the early winter. The other two are full of apples right now and I'm a bit overloaded, cooking, drying, and sharing with neighbors. Apple crisp is one of our favorites, for desert or snack--or even breakfast around here! I usually make a crisp with an oatmeal topping but decided to try a new one the other night and it's quite good!

Fill a 9x9 greased pan with peeled and sliced apples. Pour 1/4 cup of water over them.

Combine:
* 1/4 cup flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup butter

Mix in your blender or food processor or with a fork until in small crumbly pieces. Spread over the apples. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Bacon and Tomato Sandwiches

In my family, nothing says summer like home-grown tomatoes. My children have been known to burst into song, singing John Denver's ode to home grown tomatoes: "There's just two things that money can't buy; that's true love and home grown tomatoes!"

We grow tomatoes every year and eat them for 3 meals a day it seems. Toast and tomatoes or scrambled eggs and sliced tomatoes for breakfast, sandwiches with thick slices of juicy tomato on them for lunch, dinners of pasta with fresh tomato sauce, bruschetta as an appetizer, salsa with whatever, tomato and onion salad, or simple sliced tomatoes on the side. But the all-time "Summer is here!" dinner is bacon and tomato sandwiches. We skip the lettuce. Toasted sourdough bread, thick slices of just-picked tomatoes, mayonnaise and good bacon. My new trick is to bake the bacon rather than fry it, by the way. (Just lay the slices in a single layer in a jelly roll pan and bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. No splatters to clean up and it's all done at once!)

We save any leftover bacon and if we make it past breakfast, some child will pack up a bacon sandwich for lunch at school with the sliced tomatoes in a separate bag so the sandwich doesn't get soggy.

Grilled Salmon with Fresh Tomato-Mango Salsa

It has been pointed out to me that I've been remiss in posting a friend's favorite recipe, which my mother fixed for us one night.

Grilled Salmon with Fresh Tomato-Mango Salsa

3 cups diced fully ripened tomatoes
2 cups diced fresh mango
1/4 sliced green onions
1 tlbs minced jalapeno pepper (seeds removed) I don't use this!
2 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger or one tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tlbs. lime juice

4 center cut salmon filets

Mix all salsa ingredients and let stand for at least 30 minutes.

Grill the salmon filets and serve the salsa on the side.

Chicken cutlets

Chicken cutlets tonight. I took some boneless skinless chicken breasts and sliced them horizontally to make skinny pieces. Alternately, you could pound them. Mine were still slightly frozen though, making it easier to cut them. Mix some flour with salt, pepper, and Italian herbs (basil or oregano or a mixture). You could put the flour in a plastic bag and shake the chicken in there until coated or put the flour on a piece of wax paper and dip the chicken pieces. Put an egg or two into a flat bowl and mix it together with a fork, adding a little water or milk if you'd like. On another plate or paper or in another bag mix together some bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese. Heat up a few tablespoons of oil in a large pan. Take the flour-coated chicken and dip in the egg, then the breadcrumbs. I like to use two forks to do this otherwise your hands get pretty messy! Lay the chicken in the hot oil and cook a few minutes on each side, until nicely browned. Move the pieces around so they get cooked evenly.

Serve with olio e alio pasta if you want to continue the Italian theme or mashed potatoes or rice. For the pasta, bring your water a boil and then heat some minced garlic in olive oil very slowly in a small pan. Watch it carefully--it burns quite quickly! If you like it, add a little anchovy paste. I skip that part. Use a fair bit of oil--this is basically your sauce. Grate some Parmesan while you're waiting. When everything else is done, quickly cook the angel hair pasta, which only takes a few minutes, and drain it. Put the pasta in a serving bowl, pour the garlic and oil over it and mix well. Serve with the grated Parmesan on the table. Put some olive oil out there too--some people like to add more at the table.