Kielbasa Potatoes and Peppers

I remember my mom used to make something vaguely similar to this when I was a kid. I had nothing planned for dinner last night (again) and I needed something quick because it was getting late. This dinner is fast and, as with most of my dinners, it's adaptable based on what you feel like doing.

For my version, which made enough for five hungry people, here's what you'll need:
2 packages of kielbasa or smoked sausage
A sweet onion
2 white and 2 red potatoes (big-ish ones)
mushrooms
1 whole green pepper
1/2 each large red and orange pepper
Also some butter or oil, parsley (opt), salt

The first thing is to cut everything up as shown in the pic. Slice the sausage, strips of peppers and onions. Cut potatoes into 1/4 inch rounds and then halve the rounds.
A trick that I've learned for frying potatoes is to boil them first to make cooking easier. Bring just enough water to cover the potatoes to a boil and boil for five minutes. Drain. Ok. Now you'll need two pans. For the first pan, heat some oil or butter and add drained potatoes. Put the sausage in the other pan to brown. Both on medium. For the potatoes, make sure that you always have enough grease in the pan so that they don't burn. After about 5-6 minutes, once the potatoes have started to brown nicely, add the onion and a sprinkle of dried parsley. After 2 minutes add the peppers and mushrooms. At this point your sausage should be done and you can remove it and add the grease from the meat pan to the vegetable pan for added flavor. Saute for another minute, then add the meat. Add a sprinkle of fresh parsley on top if you have any and serve it up. A quick and flavorful meal that everyone will love!

Citrus Rubbed Pork Roast with Squash and Zucchini

Just a mini-blog this week since I haven't been cooking much.
The kids are gone for Summer break and it's too hot to use the oven.
Stay tuned though, I'll be doing a lot of grilling as soon as I get the tank filled...

Roasts are so easy to cook but sometimes we get bored with the same old veggies and seasonings that go with it. (At least I do). Why not try some different vegetables and a dry rub to spruce that roast up? Here I used a Citrus & Savory dry rub on the pork and also sprinkled it over the vegetables. I added a couple of zucchini and yellow squash, a vidalia onion, and some baby carrots. I just threw the roast on top and put the whole thing in the roaster at like 350 until the mid temp of the roast was about 165.
(Maybe 1-2 hrs depending on size)Delicious, easy, and fun to try new flavor combos.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

My grocery store had boneless pork loin on sale for $1.97 this week so I decided it was a great day to make pulled pork and coleslaw sandwiches.

To serve 6 with lots of leftovers you'll need around 2 1/2 lbs of pork loin, (you can actually use several different types of pork roast or even beef). Go with what's on sale because everything comes out of the crockpot tender.

The good thing about this loin is that it has a nice little layer of fat on one side that will really add flavor to your meat.

Put your meat in the crockpot and turn to "low". You'll need to season the meat to get the best flavor. Use any smoke based seasoning or even a bit of "liquid smoke". This time, I used Grill Mates: Mesquite but you could also use hickory or whatever. I also added some garlic and onion powder like I usually do, haha. There are plenty of different combinations of spices that you can add to the meat as long as you have that smoky flavor in there somewhere.

Once it looks something like this, put the lid on and leave it alone for about 2 hours.

The next part you can either do after the two hours or when you first start cooking the roast, (or you can omit this step completely). But I poured in about 10 oz of rootbeer. I read this somewhere and it sounded like a good idea so I tried it.

Cook for another 4-6 hours or turn the crockpot to "high" to reduce cooking time. Once the meat is tender, shred it with two forks, or however you personally shred meat. :) After you shred it mix it up with the juices in the pot and put the lid on for about another 20 minutes so that the meat can soak up all of that goodness.

At this point the meat is so flavorful that you can serve it just like this and get rave reviews or you can add about 3/4 bottle of BBQ sauce, (I used Sweet Baby Rays), and let it cook just long enough to heat up. Maybe 10 minutes.

This time, probably because I added the extra liquid from the root beer, I had to strain the meat somewhat before I added to the buns so that they didn't get soggy. Normally I don't have to do this, but normally I don't add root beer so, yeah, strain the meat of excess liquid. Just use a slotted spoon.
Serve on buns or Hawaiian rolls, top with coleslaw. I make these all the time for family gatherings or parties because you can make a ton with hardly any work.
Let me know how it turns out.

If you want to make your own coleslaw, that's your business. I bought mine from the deli.

Chunky Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I received a ton of tomatoes from a co-op deal that I did a few weeks ago and I had no idea what to do with all of them. I literally got a produce box full of romas and another one full of hothouse. I decided to prep and freeze some of these tomatoes to save for making spaghetti sauce, (which I've never done in my life!). You can find the directions for prepping fresh tomatoes here Basically you just blanch the tomatoes, peel off the skins, cut in half, squeeze, and freeze. Or you can just use canned whole tomatoes. Drained, cut in half, and squeezed.

Either way you want to add your squeezed drained tomatoes to a food processor or blender. If you're using canned, probably around 2 big cans depending on how much sauce you need, or 10 to 20 fresh. Set aside about a cup or so of the tomatoes and then puree the rest of those babies up til they look like this...

Ok, set aside for now and add a thinly sliced vidalia onion, a jar of mushrooms (always optional), about a tbsp of garlic, and 1 each green and yellow bell peppers to a large pan heated with olive oil.
NOTE: Did you know that bell peppers can also be frozen for later use? Just seed, slice into rings or dice and pop in a freezer bag. So nice to have on hand.
Saute around 2-3 minutes until veggies start to soften.

Then you add a pound of ground pork and a pound of ground chicken. You can add half of each if you want to make less sauce. You can also use ground beef, ground veal, basically any ground meat but I suggest doing half and half of any two that you choose. Cook on medium until meat has browned.

Drain well and add to a large pot. Add the tomatoes you set aside earlier (diced), fresh chopped basil, about a half a small can of tomato paste, a big can of tomato sauce, (I cheated and used a jar of Ragu because I didn't have the sauce on hand lol), a few splashes of soy sauce (trust me), a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce, and maybe a tbsp Italian seasoning. Mix together and add two bay leaves on top. Cover and simmer on low for as long as you want. As long as you get it to a simmering boil, that is the key.

Remove bay leaves and serve over noodles for a thick and chunky homemade sauce to die for! As you can see, we serve our spaghetti over bite sized pieces of green leaf or romaine lettuce, mint leaves, and peeled cut cucumbers. It sounds strange but is a refreshing delicious twist on spaghetti. Try it, you'll be surprised!

Perfect Pork Marinade

I received a new campaign for pork from bzzagent* and although I haven't actually received the coupon yet, it inspired me to share this marinade.

We LOVE pork in our family! My husband is half Vietnamese and he grew up on pork and rice. To me, pork is so versatile and, for the most part, very inexpensive. Here is an awesome marinade using some traditional Vietnamese flavors that makes the most tender, moist, and delicious pork.

I used pork steak this particular time but you can use several different cuts and it doesn't matter whether or not it has a bone.

The Marinade:

about 1/2 c to 1 c fish sauce depending on how much pork you're cooking. I used about a cup. Please don't be afraid of the name. Fish sauce is salty and flavorful but it doesn't make your food "fishy". Try it.
about 2 tbsp diced garlic
about 1/2 cup lemon juice (I use bottled)
about a tbsp of olive oil
Mix everything together in a large bowl then add enough water so that the marinade will cover your meat. (as shown)I also added some chopped cilantro that I had left in the fridge and a splash of Ponzu but these are totally optional. Add your meat. Please don't add any salt because the fish sauce will take care of that.

You can marinate the pork anywhere from 1 to 4 hours or longer. Personally, I leave the marinating meat on the counter for about an hour, but it's up to you whether you are comfortable with this method or not. I've found that pork and beef grill better when closer to room temp. If not, cover with saran wrap and throw it in the fridge.

Now you're ready to start grilling. Heat your grill up to about 300 degrees on medium with the lid closed. Add your pork and close the lid.

One trick to grilling that a lot of people don't get is that you should really try not to flip your meat more than once. Now that we've added the meat, we want to keep an eye on the temperature. Once it's right under 400, open the lid and let them continue cooking. This is a bit of a process and it's something that you just learn but basically this method involves closing the lid to heat it up then opening to cool it down and so on and so on. Don't let it get past 400. Once the meat is starting to turn white on top and brown on bottom, it's time to flip. Continue grilling until bottom and top are cooked equally. Remember, pork doesn't have to be cooked to as high of a temp as say poultry. 145 degrees is the average recommendation with a 3 minute rest, and according to The National Pork Board, it's best that the juices run a bit pink. Overcooked pork is a big reason why a lot of people won't grill it. To be honest, I actually overcooked it a bit myself in this next pic.

Serve with some Jasmine rice and glazed carrots for a delicious meal.

*bzzagent is a word-of-mouth media channel that helps connect consumers with brands, companies and marketers to harness the power of honest opinions. In most cases, I have received a free product to try and give my honest opinion about.