Experiments in Woolgathering

Nothing too exciting here for my first blog entry in seven months. Let’s just call it easing back into things. (And in theory this should cross post to my LJ where the last entry is years old. Curious to see what sort of reaction that elicits, if any.)

Anyhow, my recipe for Carne Adovada.

• One pork tenderloin, cut into 1 inch cubes (you can use other cuts, but this will make it REALLY good)


• A couple cups of red chile sauce. Perfect would be if you can get Hatch bran, but I don’t think you can outside of the southwest. Junked up picante sauce is bad. If you can find a place with a decent hispanic food selection they should have something close.


• A few garlic cloves. Fewer if they’re big, but I dunno how much you like garlic.


• Season with any/all of: oregano, sage, cumin, black pepper, chili powder

Cook in a crock pot for at least 12 hours before eating. 24 is better. Meat should really just fall apart.

Roll in a tortilla with hashbrowns, cheese and scrambled eggs for a breakfast burrito.

Serve over rice, or spanish rice for dinner. Or do… whatever floats your boat.

But most of all: Enjoy!

We had a friend over for dinner Saturday. Well, to be more accurate, a friend was coming over around dinner time and I took the opportunity to cook something more elaborate than usual.

The menu was:

Blackened cherry smoked lamb chops
Mushroom risotto
Grilled asparagus (more…)

I haven’t blogged about cooking in a while. I made a semi-new dish last night which came out well, and that seemed as good a reason as any to share it with the world. I give you Mexican Rice Bowl.

First, the rice. I started a regular batch of rice in the rice cooker. To this I added some butter ghee; a healthy dose of chile powder; a few crushed, small garlic cloves (they don’t have to be small, it was just the bulb I had); and some oregano. I let it heat for a 15 minutes or so then opened it up to stir it a bit to make sure the everything was well distributed.

On top of the rice, which you’ll put in a deep bowl, you’ll want some or all of the usual ‘Mexican’ cuisine suspects:

• some spiced meat (I used ground beef with a packet of Chi-Chi’s seasoning to which I added some chile powder, cumin and lemon pepper)


• sliced avocados (or guacamole if you prefer)


• grated cheese (I had some Sargento’s Mexican around, but generally prefer sharp cheddar)


• sour cream


• salsa/tomatos

Now, I have to tell you I had a bit of inspiration when it came to the tomatos. I sliced them into wedges and tossed them in a skilled with a few tablespoons of hot oil. I dashed them with some salt and then added a generous amount of fresh ground black pepper. Once things were cooking nicely, I poured in a 2/3 a cup or so of tequila over them – if I’d been think I’d’ve flambéed them, alas. I let things reduce down and the tomatos to absorb some of the oil and sizzle until they were blackened a bit here and there. Lastly, I pulled off the skins (which is easy if they are well cooked). The result was very tasty – and I’m not normally a big tomato fan.

I served this all warm, though I suspect it would be just fine chilled as well.

Next I plan to try this with some lamb in a quasi Greek dish.

Mushroom & Pork Stuffed Acorn Squash of course! (more…)

Yes, two great tastes that go great together!

We caught an episode of Iron Chef (Japan) the other night. The theme ingredient was peaches, and the challenger made a Peaches and Beef Cheek stew. (There have been two peach batters, this was the Sakai vs Watanabe one.)

Now, those of you that know Rachel well, know she does not mix her fruit and meat. This is too bad, because, I like the contrast of the two.

To my surprise, she was actually interested in to Peach Beef stew dish. Needless to say, I jumped on the opprotunity! Watanabe had made his stew in a pressure cooker, mostly for time reasons I’m guessing. That said, I was going to follow what he’d done as closely as I could. Aside from the use of the pressure cooker, he used the following ingredients (that they named at least):

1. Several insanely expense peaches (like $10 per) [I used 4 ‘regular’ peaches from the nearby Meijer.
2. A big chunk of beef cheek [I bought a regular beef roast]
3. Some kind of stock [I used beef stock, but I think I’ll use vegetable next time]

Not much to go on. On top of what I knew it needed I added some rum, red wine, ginger, a small amount of garlic and some fresh ground black pepper. I sealed the pressure cooker and cooked it for about 40 minutes at an unknown pressure (forgot to check, sorry).

The result was quite tasty, but not very peachy. I attribute this to using a too strong beef stock – though it’s certainly possible that Watanabe’s $10 per peaches were stronger than the random peaches from somewhere in the southern hemisphere that I got at Meijer. Next time a I’ll use lighter vegetable stock and maybe an extra peach or two.

The peaches themselves were tangy (maybe they absorbed most of the wine?) and very soft after being pressure cooked. They had obviously absorbed a great deal of beef flavor, but were still very distinct tasting from the beef (as well as obviously having a much different texture).

I’d also like to try this dish with mangos, either by themselves or in combination with the peaches. Another variation would be to try some sort of game meat, like boar or elk, which would probably require more fruit to be well balanced.

Anyhow, served with some white rice on the side this made a nice dinner as well as a couple lunches.