Pork 'n Taters

G'day, Kitschies!  We've almost made it through another work week.  Can you believe how fast time just flies by?  Wasn't it just Christmas/New Years?  Now it's almost Easter.  *sigh*  I'm ready to get off this ride for a little while...how 'bout you?

Anyway...we love having friends over but it doesn't happen as often as we'd like (with 5 kids between us, the besties and us...we get tired just thinking about it!).

This is my bestie's little guy, Cooper, and my little guy, Mason.  Two of the 5.  OF THE FIVE!

But, when we DO get together, we have a lot of fun.  And of course there's great food involved.  When the besties were over a few weekends ago, I tried a new recipe that was soooooo good.  I "found" this recipe when Jessie M from Lacquered, Painted, Polished gave me the head's up.  It's from Kevin & Amanda - they have a *bunch* of great recipes.  This is the first I've tried and I promise I'll be trying more (and sharing them with you, of course).  Don't be intimidated by the amount of ingredients or the number of steps - they are ALL worth it.

Perfect Pulled Pork

1 whole Boston butt

Dry Rub
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp ground pepper
1 Tbsp paprika
1/2 cup brown sugar

Mix well and store in an air-tight container.

Brine Solution
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 quarts cold water
2 bay leaves
3 Tbsp dry rub mix


Add salt to cold water and stir until all the salt is completely dissolved.  Then add the brown sugar, dry rub and bay leaves.  Stir well to combine.

Pork shoulder prep:
Rinse the pork shoulder and place in a large container.  Pour in the brine solution until the shoulder is completely covered.  Cover the container and place in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours.  Remove pork shoulder from brine solution; pat dry with paper towels.  Place pork shoulder in baking pan that is bigger than the shoulder by at least an inch in length and width and at least 3-inches deep.  Sprinkle dry rub on to the surface of the shoulder and massage in so that it adheres to the surface.  Coat all sides and be sure to get in to all the nooks and crannies.  Make sure the fat layer on the hsoulder is facing up before cooking!  Place baking pan, uncovered, in a 225* oven on the middle rack.  Insert a probe thermometer into the center or the thickest part of the shoulder, but not touching the bone.  Monitor the temperature throughout cooking (a digital thermometer with an alarm function is the easiest way to do this).  Do not remove from the oven until the center of the shoulder reaches 200*; shut off the oven and let the roast cool for a couple of hours before removing from the oven.  If the bottom of the pan is dry (or crusted with dried spices), cover the pan with foil to retain internal moisture of the meat during the cooling period.  When the temperature drops to 170*, remove from the oven.  Place on a large clean work surface, such as a cutting board, and remove the large sheet of crusted fat off the top.  Pull apart with two forks; it will pull apart very easily.

NOTES:  This is a VERY looooong process.  I cheated and didn't let the pork get all the way up to 200 and then cool back down because we ended up being short on time.  I put the pork in the oven at 11 and it wasn't finished even at 7.  I had no idea it would take THAT long!  Either way, we loved this!

BONUS RECIPE!

Scalloped Potatoes
6-8 large baking potatoes
shredded Cheddar cheese - 1 small bag
Heavy Cream- 1 1/2 to 2 cups
Seasoned salt - as desired
Salt- as desired
Dried thyme- as desired

Preheat oven to 400*
Use 9x10 baking dish - grease lightly

Slice all potatoes thinly, add a layer in baking pan
Add a layer of cheese and spices
2 layers of Potatoes
Layer of cheese and spiced
Do this until all the cheese and potatoes have been used. Make sure you have enough cheese for the top of the potatoes.
Once you have layers complete, pour heavy cream over entire thing and sprinkle left over cheese on the top.

Bake for 60 minutes. 

NOTES:  This is my bestie's recipe and it's from memory, so it's not the most precise, but you get the picture.

I realize, now, that I added more pepper than the recipe called for.  It says cayenne pepper, but I added crushed red pepper, too.  So, I'm from NM...we like things extra spicy here (though the end result wasn't spicy at all).

Rubbed and ready to go!  That was the hardest part - rubbing in the spices.  Good thing the hubs pushes food service gloves.  Yes, Mom.  The hubs needs to send you a box.

I take it back.  The hardest part of this whole process was smelling the thing in the oven all day long.  It smelled so good!  My dad is becoming a smoking KING...could you imagine this smoked?! *hint hint*

The ingredients for scalloped potatoes...instead of adding salt on top of seasoned salt, I added ground pepper.  I don't know that it matters *what* you put in this dish - it comes out awesome!  Thanks to my bestie (aka: Makeup Zombie) for sharing your recipe with me/us.

The finished products.  SOOOO good!  We served the pork on fresh deli rolls and offered up a couple different BBQ sauces.  Not that the pork was dry, but because they were nice complements to the dish.

Have a good rest of your day.  I've got *lots* of pics to prep for the blog tonight.  Lots of good food to share with you!

Summer's calling!!

Good afternoon, Kitschies! We're officially in to a new week and it's been good so far. However, it IS just Tuesday, so who knows what's really in store for us.

I don't know about you, but it feels like the new year was just last month yet it was over 6 months ago!!! Time is moving much, much to quickly for my liking. However, to help make it slow down, we like to do some grilling outside, preferably with friends and/or family. The weather this last weekend was beautiful and it's been pretty darn nice the last couple of days. See, the thing about New Mexico weather is if you don't like it, wait a few minutes and it'll change. I hope this pattern doesn't change for a while because when it does, that means it's gonna get HOT! Today a patient of mine told me today is the "official" start of monsoon season. What does that mean? Afternoon thundershowers! It's crazy though, because it could be pouring rain one minute and then five minutes later it doesn't even look like it rained. It's nice because it usually cools off the afternoon, but it also can trigger flash floods - not good. Anyway...in light of the upcoming summer, I bring you a recipe/marinade for my favorite cut of meat: tri tip!

If you don't live in California, you probably have never hear of it. Tri tip is a cut of beef from the bottom sirloin. It's a small triangular muscle that usually comes in 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 pounds. Relatively lower in fat, it makes a very good roast and an excellent grilling meat. In my family, we usually use a dry rub and grill it on a gas grill until medium-rare. Now that I live in New Mexico, that cut of meat has been impossible to find. Luckily, my parents come to visit once or twice a year and they're nice enough to stock us up with plenty of tri tip to get us through to their next visit. I know I said that it usually comes in 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 pound portions, but the stuff my parents got me is bigger than that!! One portion easily feeds four adults. Like I said, we usually use a dry rub on tri tip, but I was in search of a marinade to use this time. This is what I found.

Easy Grilled Tri Tip

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp water
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
salt & pepper to taste
4 pounds beef tri tip, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices

Marinate for at least 4 hours, flipping every so often for even coverage

In a large, non-reactive bowl, blend the soy sauce, olive oil, water, garlic, and pepper. Place the beef tri tip in the marinade. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 4 hours.

Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil grate.

Grill the beef slices 3 to 5 minutes per side, or to desired doneness. Discard remaining marinade.

The finished product served with my "potato pack" and El Pinto salsa

NOTES: I think I used a little more than 2 cloves of garlic (we LOVE garlic). You don't necessarily have to oil the grate - I've never had a problem with tri tip sticking to the grate. However, when we do need to oil the grate, we use Pam for Grilling. It's good stuffs! Non-reactive bowl means either glass or plastic. You can either cook the whole thing, which is what we usually do, or you can cut the slab up in to individual steaks. I don't know why, but we always serve this with salsa. Our salsa of choice is El Pinto medium salsa. Before New Mexico, I never knew what salsa really was. I will never NOT get El Pinto salsa, even if I move out of the Land of Enchantment. My Dad usually grabs a jar or two to take back to Cali because you can't find it in the stores there anymore.

This is what I had for dinner - the hubs doesn't like artichokes so I had one all to myself...soooo good!!!

In addition to tri tip, I usually serve my "potato pack". I call it that because when it was just the hubs and I, I would wrap the cut up potatoes in a little foil pack to throw in the oven. Now that we make more (we probably eat more than we should), we've outgrown the "pack" and use a 9 x 13 glass dish. This is just a basic recipe and that's what I like about it. You can mix up the spices depending on what you're serving it with.

Megan's Potato Pack

3 medium potatoes, washed and cubed
small-medium yellow onion, peeled and chunked
olive oil
minced garlic
garlic salt
Italian seasoning
fresh ground pepper
butter (the real stuff)

Wash and cube the potatoes and onion. Place in gallon zipper bag. Add oil, spices and seasonings to taste. Shake to mix. Pour in 9 x 13 glass baking dish. Cube up about 1 Tbsp butter and place all over potatoes. Cover with foil. Place in 350-400* oven for 45-60 minutes, mixing at 30 minutes.

Cubed potatoes and onion

Combine in 9 x 13 glass baking dish

The finished product!

Oh...and I had another Freecycle trade today. MUCH better than the first one - be sure to look for that post coming up in the next couple of days. And while we're on the topic of polish...I am (impatiently!) waiting for my Zoya Polish Exchange package - they charged my account Friday so it should be here any day now!!!

Listening to: Thinking About You by Norah Jones
Mood: good!