Cayenne-Cinnamon Baby Back Ribs

Whoa, two posts in one day, what's going on??? Unemployment, that's what. No, I wasn't fired. And no, I wasn't laid off. My judicial clerkship ended yesterday. Can you believe how quickly a whole year passed? It's been over a year since I graduated law school, one year since I took the bar exam, and 8 months since I got sworn in as a brand spanking new attorney. Oh, how time flies...

So, what's next? Nothing just yet, but I'm looking. It's kind of scary to be moving forward without a concrete plan, but I'm pretty sure it'll be OK. I've got a solid resume with a lot of good work experience, there are plenty of legal job search directories out there, and I've got Dan + my parents rooting for me. In the meantime, I'm just going to be a job application-mailing, food-blogging machine.

Anyway, enough about me. Lets get back to the really important stuff -- ribs. Juicy, meaty, glazed ribs. Ribs that ooze fatty, salty, porky juices with every bite. Ribs that were rubbed, roasted, glazed, broiled, and ready to eat in under two hours. Ribs so good that between dinner last night and lunch today, all 6 pounds of them are gone.

This was my first time making ribs, and I was under a bit of a time crunch. Usually, stuff like this need to cook for several hours on low heat to get that lovely fall-off-the-bone quality. Unfortunately, I didn't have several hours. I didn't get home from work until after 6pm, and my guests were scheduled to arrive at 7:30. Luckily, the Steamy Kitchen blog had a rib recipe that involved cooking the meat at slightly higher heat for less time. 

Because I was cooking 6 pounds of meat instead of 3, I actually had to keep my ribs in the oven for a little longer than the recipe called for -- after one hour, some of the meat was still bloody. I probably should have cooked everything even longer than I ultimately did, because the meat didn't fall off the bone like it was supposed to. Still, the ribs were still very tasty, and my guests had no complaints. I think my friend Andrew ate over a pound of meat by himself! Awesome.

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the Steamy Kitchen blog.
(Her pictures make these ribs look way more delicious than mine do...)


For other great recipes, click here or here.

Baked Taquitos al Pastor

There is so much al pastor in my fridge right now, I almost don't know what to do with it. Almost. I'm toying with the idea of combining it in some form with kimchi, but I haven't quite decided which direction to go with that yet. For now, I'll have to settle for taquitos. Why baked? Because I just spent the weekend gorging on steak and lobster and brownies, and I'm feeling a little guilty. Nothing about this recipe is healthy, per se, but surely baked is less sinful than deep-fried?

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the Pink Parsley blog. 

Tacos al Pastor

Second semester sophomore year, Ana's Taqueria took over the space formerly occupied by a mediocre crepe shop inside the student center, and my life changed. Not in an altogether good way, mind you. On the one hand, I was over the moon because this place had the best Mexican food in Cambridge. On the other hand, I loved the food a little too much too often, and put on ten pounds that semester. Two grande burritos and/or quesidillas per day will do that, I guess. It took me the entire summer to run those pounds off, but looking back, it was totally worth it.

The next year, I toned down my Ana's consumption, but it was Dan's turn, as a newly minted college man, to discover the joys of an Ana's grande burrito with everything in it. I bought him his first burrito at Ana's, but it wasn't long before he was there by himself for lunch and dinner multiple times per week. Of course,  lucky bastard that he is, Dan did not gain a single pound. What a jerk.

You want to know what the best thing on Ana's menu was? The al pastor burrito. And the al pastor quesidilla...and the al pastor tacos. Seriously, the al pastor was amazing. I'd never even heard of "al pastor" before Ana's, but one bite of the fatty, savory-sweet pork and I was totally hooked. And of course, I eventually got Dan hooked. These days we regularly have al pastor cravings that cannot be satisfied, because apparently none of the Mexican places in the area make it, and if they do it doesn't taste right. So sad.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I decided to go wild and make my own al pastor. I marinated a slab of pork shoulder in chili-pineapple sauce over night, covered it with slices of fresh pineapple, and stuck it in the oven for 2 hours. The result was a mound of massively delicious, juicy, fatty pork that had a hint of sweetness and some heat from all the chili peppers I used in the sauce. So good. Not quite the flavor of Ana's, but close enough. 

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of Closet Cooking.

** Note: Two of my favorite blogs, Crumbly Cookie and Confections of a Foodie Bride, said that pineapples contain an enzyme that breaks down meat faster than normal and causes it to become mushy if you marinate the meat too long. I didn't know that at the time, and marinated my pork shoulder in chili-pineapple sauce over night. I don't know if it's because I kept the shoulder intact, while they both cut their meat into slices before marinating, but my pork wasn't mushy at all. Just something to think about...

One year ago: Chocolate Fudge

Smothered Pork Chops

Today was supposed to be a lazy day. I was going to meet a friend at a restaurant near work and let the pros take care of my dinner while Dan fended for himself at home. But then a thunder/snow storm set in and my dinner plans were cancelled as both my friend and I scurried out of our offices a couple hours early to avoid getting marooned at work when the city inevitably shut down. DC is incapable of dealing with snow and/or inclement weather in general.

But, for once the Metro didn't screw me, and I managed to get home by 4:30. Dan, however, remained stuck in traffic until midnight, his 30 minute commute having turned into an eight and a half hour nightmare of bumper to bumper traffic caused by countless cars abandoned in the middle of the highway and iced-over roads. Virginians apparently also suck at dealing with snow.

So, when dinner time rolled around I was home alone with the cat, hungry and bored. What could I make that would keep me occupied for a period of time yet not be a pain in the ass to cook, and taste delicious? Gotta go with my standby: pork chops! But with mushroom cream sauce this time.

I've never made this particular dish before, but I've made pork chops so many different ways that it wasn't too difficult to come up with something workable. There was no time to brine the chops, so I made do with direct seasoning instead. Then, the chops were pan seared on each side before getting tucked into the oven for about 15 minutes. The cream sauce was similarly simple: mushrooms sauteed with garlic, combined with heavy cream in the pan, and thickened with a little Parmesan.

Maybe it was the hunger, but...improvisation tastes good! The chops were juicy and flavorful, and the cream sauce was so delicious I actually licked the saucepan clean to get every last savory drop. Served with Caprese salad and a baked potato, these smothered chops were an amazingly satisfying meal.

Smothered Pork Chops

Ingredients:

- 2 pork chops, tenderized

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1 clove of garlic, minced

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

- 1 cup chopped mushrooms

- Salt and pepper for seasoning

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 425.
(2) Sprinkle both sides of the chops with salt and pepper, to taste.
(3) In a saucepan on medium heat, cook garlic in oil until fragrant.
(4) Add chops to the pan, cooking each side for about 1-2 minutes, until lightly brown.
(5) Remove chops to a lightly greased baking dish, and stick in the oven.
(6) Bake for 15 minutes.
(7) While waiting for the chops to finish up in the oven, start cooking mushrooms in the original saucepan. Add more oil, if necessary. (I just go with Pam)
(8) When mushrooms are brown and tender, add cream and Parmesan, whisking until the sauce thickens to the consistency you want. Season with salt to taste, then set aside.
(9) Pull chops out of the oven and onto heated plates. Smother with mushroom cream sauce. Sprinkle with chives or parsley.
(10) Enjoy!

Glazed Pork Chops

My first kitchen adventures of the new year ended in complete disaster. Dan and I had just gotten back from a day of skiing, and I really wanted warm bread rolls and a steaming bowl of beef bourguignon for dinner. But, I was too tired and hungry to make a Julia Child-esque meal, so I decided to cut some corners and use one of the "fast and easy" bourguignon recipes I found online. Worst idea ever! It is impossible to make good beef bourguignon in less than an hour. Cannot be done. Should not be done. Trust me.

Naturally, I felt the need to make something delicious to erase the stink of failure hanging in the kitchen, ASAP. These pork chops were just the thing to do it. 

Everyone has a standby in the kitchen, the one thing they make well every single time. These glazed pork chops are mine. They are the only meal that I regularly cook for me and Dan, and my favorite go-to for when I want to impress dinner guests. I'm not sure how these chops have managed to escape my blog for this long, but I think it has something to do with the fact that they're so delicious that they're half-eaten before I even think to reach for my camera. I made these recently for my friends Rick and Jamie, but forgot to take pictures. Luckily, my friend Grace is visiting this week, so...yeah. Pork chops again.

I regret nothing. There's a reason I make this meal so much, and the reason is that these chops are delicious. Juicy, with a delicious, pleasantly sweet glaze that caramelizes on the grill. So good, especially if eaten with mashed potatoes and baked mac n' cheese (which will get a post soon).

Glazed Pork Chops

Ingredients:

- 4 pork chops, brined (some people like to brine over night...for those of us who are less organized in the kitchen, 1.5 hours before dinner is good too.)
- 2/3 cups brown sugar

- 2 tbsp salt

- 1 tsp cloves

- 1 tsp ground pepper

- 1 tbsp minced garlic (or, garlic powder if you're out of the real stuff)

Steps:

(1) Turn oven to "low broil."

(2) In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar, salt, cloves, garlic and pepper. Mix well.
(3) Pat pork chops dry, then rub thoroughly on all sides with dry mixture. Place in baking dish, and let rest for a few minutes.

(4) If using an indoor grill, turn it on to high. Cook chops on each side for about 2 minutes, until just slightly brown, and glaze has caramelized.
(5) Remove chops from grill and put back in the baking dish. Stick it in the oven to broil for about 10 minutes.
(6) Serve drizzled with own juices.

Stuffed Pork Chops with Gravy

Apparently Thursdays are now "pork chop" days, because this is two weeks running that we've eaten pork for dinner. What can I say, I'm unimaginative in my eating. Also, I still have a million pork chops in the freezer that need to get eaten. And I just love pork, period. It's like Anthony Bourdain once said on an episode of No Reservations -- "the pig is a noble and delicious animal." So true, Tony, so true.

I've never stuffed anything other than a chicken, and so I had to look up what it meant to "butterfly" a pork chop. Apparently it's just a fancy way of saying "stick a sharp knife into the side of a chop and cut a little pocket." So that's how you stuff a pork chop! I've always wondered. Seriously.

The recipe I found online called for stuffing the chops with a mixture of blue cheese/bacon/chives. That sounded too salty, even for me, so I went with a more traditional stuffing route. Bread cubes, melted butter, chicken stock, and onions. I used whole wheat bread, but I think corn bread or white bread would be tastier.

After stuffing, the chops get browned on both sides in a hot skillet, and then transferred to a greased pan for baking in the oven. Only 25 minutes, and you're digging into a piping hot pile of porky goodness. Time in the oven didn't dry the meat out at all, and the savory stuffing was a perfect compliment to the juicy, delicate chops. Delicious!

Stuffed Pork Chops with Gravy

Ingredients:

- 2 pork chops, butterflied

- 2 slices bread, chopped into cubes

- 1 tbsp butter, melted

- 1/4 cups chicken stock

- 1 tbsp diced onion

- Salt + pepper for seasoning
- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tbsp minced garlic

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 325.

(2) In a small bowl, combine bread, butter, chicken stock, and diced onion until desired stuffing consistency is reached. Set aside.

(3) Season pork chops on both sides with salt and pepper to taste.

(4) Stuff each chop with heaping spoonfuls of stuffing.

(5) In a hot skillet, cook garlic in olive oil until fragrant. 

(6) Add pork chops and brown on both sides. Remove chops from skillet and place in greased pan. (Save oil/fat from skillet)

(7) Stick everything in the oven and cook for 25 minutes.

(8) Serve with favorite gravy.

Homemade Gravy

Ingredients:

- Leftover oil/fat from browning chops in the skillet.

- 1/2 cup chicken stock

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

- 2 tbsp flour

Steps:

(1) Heat skillet with leftover oil/fat from pork chops.

(2) Add chicken stock and heavy cream. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

(3) Keep stirring until liquid has noticeably reduced.

(4) Add flour, and stir until well mixed.

(5) Season to taste with salt/pepper.

Baked Italian-Style Breaded Pork Chops

There is way too much food in our freezer. We've got a billion packets of bacon, tubs of uneaten ice cream, endless gallon bags stuffed with steaks, chicken breasts, pork chops, salmon filets and tilapia. I think there might even be a container of scallops somewhere in the back. Why? Because we live a block from BJ's, and I just can't help myself. 

So, I've been cooking frantically this week in a effort to open up some space in the freezer. I used up the frozen shrimp for carbonara on Monday, chicken for my lunch salad on Tuesday, and grilled steak for dinner last night. In an effort to keep things exciting in the kitchen, I decided to make pork chops tonight.

We've already had glazed, grilled chops two or three times in the last few months, and I felt it was time for a change. Closet Cooking was no help this time, because all of his recipes were a little more involved than I felt like dealing with at 7 o'clock on a Thursday night, and they called for a slew of ingredients I didn't have on hand. Plus, I was tired of using the electric grill for our dinner meats. Lucky for us, I had all ingredients to make breaded, baked pork chops.

This wasn't exactly a Rachel Ray-esque 30-minute meal, but the pork chops were very straightforward and easy to make. Both chops were seasoned, breaded, and browned in no time at all, and while they were baking in the oven, I had time to whip up a make-shift version of creamy au gratin potatoes, and sit down with a former DEA agent to answer a few quick back-ground investigation questions for Emily's new job. What can I say, I'm a multi-tasker.

I think I prefer the savory, caramelized crust on my glazed grilled pork chops better than the Italian-style breading of these chops, but overall I would rate this dish as "tasty." The meat was tender and juicy, and very flavorful. I'm glad I decided to salt/pepper the chops directly pre-breading though, because I think without that seasoning they would have just been bland and greasy.

Baked Italian-Style Breaded Pork Chops (Adapted from AllRecipes.com's Italian Breaded Pork Chops recipe)

Ingredients:

- 1 egg, lightly beaten

- 1 tbsp milk

- 2/3 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan 

- 2 tbsp dried oregano

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 2 pork chops

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 325.

(2) In a small bowl, beat together the egg and milk. In a separate small bowl, mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan, and oregano.

(3) Heat the olive oil in a large, oven-proof skillet over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, cook until brown.

(4) Dip each pork chop in the egg mixture, then the bread crumb mixture. Make sure each chop is evenly coated.

(5) Cook the chops on the skillet until lightly brown on each side. 

(6) Place the skillet/chops into the oven. Cook for 25 minutes.

Chinese Birthday Meal

I have the best mother on the planet. I know everyone thinks their mother is the best, but take my word for it guys...mine is the greatest ever. She's beautiful, glamorous, wildly intelligent, kind-hearted, and generous to a fault. She's always there for me when I need her, I'm pretty sure her life goal -- other than becoming an international expert on honeybee viruses (which she is) -- is to make sure I'm happy and fulfilled, and she bullies me into being the best that I can be every day. She is my idol, and I love her. And I don't think I do enough to show her that I appreciate her.

Her birthday was last Thursday, and as per usual I had something delicious delivered to her office to be shared with her co-workers. But, because I was feeling particularly grateful to my mom (she and my dad gifted us the down payment on our new condo...see what I mean about generosity?), I wanted to do something extra special for her. So, I invited her over for a home-cooked, traditional Chinese birthday meal. What better way to show someone you care about them than to feed them?

We started with deviled eggs. OK, so deviled eggs aren't exactly a "traditional Chinese food." But, I read somewhere online that eggs are eaten on special occasions in China, because their round, smooth shape symbolizes continuity and unity. Or maybe it has something to do with fertility? Either way, eggs are special, so I was making eggs for my mom. Plain ol' hard-boiled eggs are gross though, so I jazzed them up a bit with mustard and mayo. Delicious!

Dumplings are also can important dish for special occasions, because they look like money (old school Chinese money), and so symbolize good fortune/wealth. My local grocery store didn't carry dumpling wrappers so I had to make do with wonton wrappers instead. I mixed together ground pork, green onions, chopped cabbage, soy sauce and sesame oil, folded them into roughly dumpling-esque shapes, tossed them into my wok, and hoped for the best. Not the prettiest dumplings I've ever made, but pretty tasty anyway.

No Chinese birthday is complete without "longevity noodles." Noodles are a symbol of longevity in China, and long noodles represent long life. On birthdays, we customarily eat bowls of noodles to ensure that we live long and healthy lives. I want my mom to live a very long and very healthy life, so I obviously had to serve her noodles.

As far as I know, pork doesn't symbolize anything...Chinese people just love to eat it. Who can blame us? It's fatty and delicious. My dad makes the best fatty pork dish I've ever tasted -- the fat just melts on your tongue, and the rest of the meat is unbelievably tender and flavorful. I couldn't even begin to compete with that, so I decided to make braised pork ribs instead. My friend from college recently posted a recipe for it on her blog, and I tried it out to great success and praise from everyone. Thanks, Lucy!

My proudest achievement in this meal was this birthday cake. Chinese-style birthday cakes are different from traditional birthday cakes in that they're a lot less sweet, utilize tons of fresh fruit, and have a much lighter/fluffier frosting. My mom has a crazy sweet tooth, but she hates the run-of-the-mill, sickly sweet birthday cakes found at grocery stores the world over. In recent years we've started ordering cakes from our local Asian supermarket, and they are always light and delicious. When I saw that my friend Lucy also had a post about Chinese bakery-style birthday cakes on her blog, I knew I had to try my hand at it. I am the world's worst cake froster, but the cake was wonderful. The spongy cake was light and fluffy, the frosting was delicate in its sweetness, and the fresh fruit was scrumptious. Dan and my dad both ate second helpings and declared it to be better than any other birthday cake they'd ever eaten. And my mom? She actually finished an entire slice of cake, and didn't scrape off 90% of the frosting like she usually does. Success!

Happy birthday, Mom! Hope you had a great day :)

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork

Thanks to Southern night with the Summer Supper Club, I'm getting my second guest blog. This post is courtesy of my good friend Karen, who made slow-cooked pulled pork for our feast. I'm writing the post on her behalf, because she is too busy with bar review class to type it all out (technically, I am too, but...whatever!), but all pictures were taken with her camera.

*****************************************************************

Karen and I met in our first year of law school. In the three years that I've known her, she has repeatedly insisted that she can't cook. She swears up and down that all she is capable of making is chili and jello, and given the choice between chopping some vegetables to make a sandwich at home or trekking to Safeway for one of their pre-made American subs, she'll go to Safeway every time. Yet somehow, when Southern night rolled around, she showed up with a pot of delicious, juicy, home-made, slow cooked pulled pork. Interesting.

Apparently she doesn't consider rubbing meat with spices, wrapping it up for a couple hours, then leaving it in a slow cooker for 8 hours to be cooking. It is, Karen...it is. 

And when you decide to tweak a recipe by substituting 1/2 cup apple juice + 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar for water, because you remembered that's how your dad always made it back in the day? Definitely cooking. And lets face it: you're good at it. Say it with me, Karen: "I am a good cook."

Karen's pork was, of course, delicious. Juicy, tender, and flavorful. A little sweeter than I'm used to, probably because she cut back on the salt and cooked the meat in apple juice. Still, very tasty and thoroughly enjoyed by the other members of the Summer Supper Club. 

Recipe courtesy of Bridget at the Crumbly Cookie.