Uncle Earl's Pig

So, I have to give a disclaimer right off the bat: Rachel and indulged in slightly tipsy cooking. So not all of these pictures are as good as I usually attempt to make them. My fabulous and gorgeous friend Rachel came to visit me on my day off and to teach me how to make her "Uncle Earl's Pig". Apparently her mother had to beg him for the recipe for around 6 years, and he had to be married to his wife at the time for years until she shared the recipe with him. So you see, I have connections and got this recipe to share with you right now. It is dead simple! You wouldn't believe it! Or maybe you will and you'll follow these simple instructions to a delicious pork roast.

Most importantly you will need:

...a fabulous friend who will drink sparkling wine and eat cheese and crackers with you, because it makes everything better, even cooking. Featuring the gorgeous and fashionable Rachel!

OK, enough jokes, here are the ingredients you need, and it's only 3 different ones, and a kinda freebie.

Ingredients:
Pork Roast (We used a two pack)
Garlic (we used two heads, one for each roast)
3 Bottles of Liquid Smoke
(Some water)
[That's it, crazy, no?]

Get your roast out.

Now you want to peel all your garlic cloves. I'm not sure if I shared with you my mom's technique for easily peeling garlic cloves. Rachel shared it with me again, so we got it down pat.
First cut off both ends of the garlic clove.

When you have cut off both ends place your knife flat side on the clove. Now hit the knife to slightly smash the garlic. You'll see Rachel uses the heel of her hand, I use a fist.

Now you should be able to just slip the clove out. So don't smash it too hard and turn it into puree, just a little flatter.

Look at that cutie!

The garlic smell makes Rachel happy! The sparkling wine might be a factor too. ;)

Now that you have peeled all your cloves we will move on to stuffing them into the roast. If a clove is really big or wide you can cut it in half vertically.
Take your knife and stab a hole into your roast.

Stick your garlic clove into that hole!

Repeat the procedure until you have put all the garlic cloves from one head into your roast and distributed them relatively evenly.

Look at what a good job Rachel did.

Of course I had to do the other one. There's no just sitting and watching in my kitchen.

Then place the roast(s) into a dutch oven.

Pour all three bottles of liquid smoke on top of the roast into the dutch oven.

So, Rachel was a little tipsy and forgot that it's a good idea to add a cup or two of water so the roast stays more moist and the liquid doesn't bake to the bottom of the pot. So I'd definitively recommend adding some water or a bit of broth.

Place the lid on the pot and stick it in the oven for 3.5 hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

You can see most of the liquid evaporated because we failed to add water. This just formed a very flavorful slightly crunchy crust on the bottom of the roasts, so it was no biggie. They were delicious!

We served the roast with plain white rice, but you can really serve it with anything you'd like.
(Side note: Your house may smell like a bbq shack for a day or two after you make it, haha. But it is a very pleasant bbq smell.)

While we waited for the roast Rachel and played with makeup and she got to test out the set of makeup brushes I gave her for her birthday. Holla.
I actually got some new colourpop eyeshadows and lipstix in the mail that day, so of course I had to try some of the makeup right away.

I love all of their stuff. I'm also wearing one of their blushes.

We then convinced our friend Ryan to come over.

More wine!

And this is how you can tell I have the best friends and we are all so very comfortable with each other. It's nap time. Rachel pretty much always has a nap when she comes over. Ryan's just getting comfy.

Sleeping beauty! Nola guards the sleeping!

Ryan snagged the partner quilt I have with my friend Brandy. Brandy mailed me a ton of fabric and I made two matching ones with that fabric, so we each have one.

Cooking is always more fun if you're doing it for your friends. I am very grateful for the friends I have!


Quickie Summary:
Ingredients:
Pork Roast (We used a two pack)
Garlic (we used two heads, one for each roast)
3 Bottles of Liquid Smoke
(Some water, or broth)

Peel your garlic cloves.
Make slices on each roast and stick the garlic cloves into each slit.
Pour all three bottles of liquid smoke over the roasts into the pot.
Add a cup or two of water or broth.
Replace the lid onto the pot.
Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for around 3.5 hours.
Serve with rice, or any other side dish f your choosing. It has a bbq type flavor.

Potstickers

Today I'm giving you one of my favorite recipes. Haha, I think I may be saying this about every recipe I post. It's still true though. My husband and I love postickers. It's especially great because I don't even have to modify it to exclude onions or garlic which make me sick. My husband calls it my ginger pork instead of potstickers. He's right, you better like ginger, or you won't like this.
I also need to preface this by saying I made this for my sister who was in the country with her husband and visited us. I happened to have lent them my good camera and my private cell, so I took these pics with a point and shoot camera I gave my husband a few years ago. The pics aren't too bad, but not awesome either.

OK, here goes:

These are the ingredients you need. (Not pictured is the cayenne I used. The recipe calls for Sichuan pepper, however there is an import block of that to the US. Something about citrus plants. However some Asian specialty stores still have some. They can sell what they have, just not import more. The cayenne works just fine for me though.)

Potstickers:
2-3T Soy Sauce
2T Sesame Oil
2 Inches Fresh Ginger
1 lbs Ground Pork
1 Eggs
1t Cayenne
Wanton Wrappers

You will see I just about tripled the recipe. It's up to you though. Also, try to buy round wanton wrappers if you can. I'm a big fan of making everything from scratch, however, I've found that using the pre-made wrappers are just as good if not better than homemade dough. Way less muss and fuss too. If you can't find round ones, you can buy square wrappers and cut off the corners, that'll make them round enough to stuff.

First grab your ginger.

Peel it and chop it into little pieces. Cut through the grain, as it's very fibrous.

Then I toss them into my cusinart. (Thanks mom!)

As you can see I may use more ginger than the recipe calls for. I love ginger though.

Ok, now blend it all up. In theory you can cut it all up by hand, but I'm lazy and love my conveniences.

That delicious fresh ginger smell. Ginger is super good for all sorts of things. It helps with nausea. I swear by ginger. It's also supposed to help increase circulation, or so I'm told. I bought honey crisp apple cider which was too sweet for my sister, so she added a pinch of ginger and a shot of lemon juice to it.


Now start adding all your other ingredients to the cuisinart.
Add your pork.

Add your cayenne.

Add your egg(s)
Add your soy sauce
Add your sesame oil

Now blend it all up until it's all the same consistency and thoroughly mixed.

Now it's time to stuff your wanton wrappers.

This is the brand they sell at my little Waremart (Winco's little baby). They are super great quality. For my batch that's 2.5 times the whole recipe I get two of these packs and end up with a little bit leftover. Which is perfect, since I made my husband fry some up for me as a midnight snack while I was working on them.

I make a little workstation for myself. I take a big cutting board to work on  into the living room and put it onto my coffee table. The stuffing is time consuming, so I like to watch tv or something like that while I work on it.

You'll also need a little bowl with lukewarm water.

Here you can see my little stuffing station. My husband stepped in to act as a photographer for this one.

I use two teaspoons for the filling. One to grab a small scoop of the filling, and the other to help it off the spoon. Be aware to not stuff them too full, or they will burst open while you're cooking them and it gets messy.

Now dip your finger into your water bowl and run it across the edge of the wanton wrapper so it's a half circle.

Now fold over the other half and smooth the edges shut. The water mixes with the flour and acts like a glue.

This takes a little bit of practice, but it really is simple. Pinch the dough and fold over into pleats.

Now just keep making more and more.

You can freeze them and cook them straight from the freezer if you want.
There are a few different ways you can cook these. You can steam them, just fry them on both sides, and I've even seen someone just plain old boil them. I'm going to show you the trickiest version, but in my opinion also the tastiest version. I still find it challenging and make my husband do it. Haha, I'll have to practice it myself too.
Heat up a cast iron frying pan with oil (preferably peanut oil as it can handle the highest temperatures).
Add your potstickers one side down into the hot oil.

Once they've browned on one side, add 2/3 of a cup of water to the pan and place the lid on it until the water has evaporated. This will steam the other side, about 5 minutes. You'll have one side crunchy crispy, and the other side pretty much soft and steamed.

Now here is your delicious treat.

Dipping Sauce Recipe:

4 mashed garlic, 

1t hot oil, 

1t rice vinegar,  

¼t sesame oil, 

3T soysauce, 

(optional hot pepper flakes)

I usually triple the dipping sauce. I also leave out the garlic, but obviously if it doesn't make you violently ill like it does me, it's a tasty addition.

As usual, here is the quicky sumary of the recipe:

Potstickers – Jiaoz

Ingredients:

2 inches ginger, peeled and sliced

1 pound ground pork shoulder

2-3 T soysauce

2 T sesame oil

Setchuan pepper, toasted in oven, mortar + 1-2- t salt

1 egg

Wanton wrappers

Mix all the ingredients in a food processor, if you don’t have one, cut everything very fine and mix.

Stuff into rounds of wanton wrapper. Dampen edges in a half moon circle, fold over wrapper, pinch shut and fold over so there’s a ruffle.

Dipping Sauce

4 mashed garlic, 1 t hot oil, 1 t rice vinegar, ¼ t sesame oil, 3 T soysauce, (optional hot pepper flakes)

How to cook:

Flat skillet on high (cast iron),

Add peanut oil to cover generously

Add potstickers for 1 minute

Add 1/3 cup warm water, put on cover/lid and cook until it evaporates (5 min)

If using frozen ones use add 2/3 cup warm water and extend cooking time by 10 min (You can freeze the stuffed potstickers

#Day100

November 8th

#Day100 celebrating good news.

My friend had some news, and I got into the NADSP program at work, so we celebrated with some sparkling apple cider and my Pork Fried Rice. Charlie celebrated with us, but was the one taking the picture. 
Yes, I completed the #100happydays challenge!

Pork Fried Rice

Fried Rice is one of my signature dishes. It's the one thing that we always eat all the leftovers of. I'm not that great at eating the leftovers most of the time, but this is the one time that I always want them!
So, shall we get started then?

Ingredients:
Rice (I prefer jasmine rice)
Pork (I use pork chops when I can)
Water Chestnuts (optional)
Eggs
Slivered Almonds (You can use whole, but I like the slivered better)
Ginger (fresh, you can also use powdered, I sometimes supplement with it, but don't substitute the fresh completely)
Soy Sauce (I prefer low sodium)
Rice Vinegar
Worchester Sauce
Toasted Sesame Seed Oil
Cayenne Pepper
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Maggi Sauce (if you can get it, but not necessary)

Got all your stuff together? OK, lets get started!

Get your meat out and lay it all out so you can season it.

Now season the meat with the cayenne, salt, pepper,and paprika.

Also cut up some of your ginger into little bits, or grate it.

Preheat your pot or sauce pan with some peanut oil. (Peanut oil is a good choice because it can handle the highest heat.)
Now throw your meat seasoned side down into the pot and add the ginger.

Now season that side too.

Sear them on both sides, and then dump in a bunch of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame seed oil, worchester sauce, and maggi. It'll boil down somewhat and infuse everything with the flavors. Lower the heat to medium to cook your meat.

I get the meat out and cut it into bite sized cubes, before returning it to the sauce to finish cooking. This also gives it more of the flavors.

Cut them up.

Return it to your pot:

While that is cooking, I add the sliced water chestnuts so they can soak up some of that flavor. I like the crunchiness with the great flavor.

Take the rest of the ginger and grate or chop it up. I use my mini cuisinart. Ginger is a very fibrous root. So if you are going to chop it up into grated consistency, you should cut the pieces across the grain like this:

Get your wok out. Preheat it with the  peanut oil. Until it reaches almost smoking point. While it's preheating beat up your eggs like you would for scrambled eggs. Pour into the wok, break them up, and let them cook.

Remove the cooked eggs and reserve them on a plate that has paper towels on it so they can absorb the excess oil.

If the eggs have depleted the oil in your wok, add some more and ensure it has preheated. I toss in two chili peppers if I have them. Then dump in your grated ginger:

Then add your almonds and let them get golden brown.

Ok, so if I was a normal person, I would add my rice to the wok, and then add all the other ingredients, and yay. However I am not a normal person, and I doubt there is a wok made for my needs. Also I am a weak feeble girly girl, so what actually happens is that I throw everything into the biggest pot I have. Add a ton of soy sauce, more sesame oil, and a bunch of rice vinegar. Then I yell: "HOOONEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!" And then I make him stir and stir and stir. Season to taste. 

Oh, goodness! This is indeed one of my absolute favorite foods. It's also as customizable as you want it to be. Add green onions, add different meats (I've made it with ground elk before too), add whatever sounds good to you.

I also always provide soy sauce and rice vinegar when I serve it. I tend to want more of both in my rice so I season a bit under, that way everyone can customize as they want.