Meal Plan Week 2
Hi there! OK, here we go with week 2!
Carnitas Tacos with Slaw
So, I don't really have a recipe that I can link for this because I kind of just make it up. But, I did find a recipe in a cuban recipe book years ago, from "Memories of a Cuban Kitchen" for carnitas (pork shoulder) and this is loosely how I have been making caritas ever since. Oh and my apologies for the picture below I know it's not really blog worthy but whatevs.
-big pork shoulder (I usually get one that is a few pounds, 3-5 lbs)
-1 onion cut into quarters
-2 T ground cumin
-the juice of one orange, save the spent orange halves to add to the pot
-2 bay leaves
-a bunch of garlic
-salt and pepper
-oregano (1 T dried, or 2 T fresh)
You are going to braise this, so best to have a braising pan like a Le Crueset or something that can go from the stove top directly into the oven, like something that is cast iron or steel. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the braising pan on the stove top on medium heat. Season the pork shoulder with salt, pepper and the ground cumin. Pour a few tablespoons of oil into the pan. I use avocado oil, but you could use whatever cooking oil (avoid olive oil for high heat cooking). Once the oil is hot, add the pork shoulder into the pan to brown. You are going to flip it so that you can brown all sides, and get a nice crust on all sides of the shoulder. Once it's all browned up, add in your quarters of onion and let those pieces brown up for a couple minutes. Add in your garlic and let cook for about 30 seconds. The pan is going to be real hot so you may need to turn it down or take it off the heat because you don't want to burn the garlic. Pour water over the pork shoulder until you mostly cover it. Squeeze the juice out of the orange into the pot, and add the spent orange halves. Drop in your bay leaves and oregano, add a little more salt and pepper, cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, pop that braising pan into the oven and let cook! I usually let the shoulder braise for about 1.5 hours, then turn the shoulder over and make sure I don't need to add any more liquid to the braising pan. Then put the lid back on and let cook for another 1.5-2 hours or until the shoulder is falling apart. The whole braising process usually takes about 3 hours minimum, so plan accordingly. Once the shoulder is done and falling apart nicely, turn the oven off, pull the pan out, take the shoulder out and put onto a cutting board, and then strain out all of the aromatics from the remaining liquid. Put the braising pan back onto the stovetop and boil the liquid down. I usually boil on high or medium high---make sure that you have strained all of the remaining onion, etc out of the liquid because you're going to boil it down to a sauce. It takes 20-30 minutes to boil down. While the liquid is boiling, you will work on the meat. Cut or pull out all of the fatty and grisly pieces and cube up the remaining meat. Put the cubed meat into a bowl. The liquid will boil down to a thicker consistency and you will know that it's done when you drag a wooden spoon or whatever your cooking utensil of choice is (maybe a heat proof silicone spatula?) through the liquid and it parts ways without immediately rushing back in to fill in the space that you just dragged your utensil through. Turn off the stove top and pour the liquid over the meat. Stir the liquid through the meat to coat evenly, and add some salt and pepper to taste. Remember that since you will be crisping up the meat under the broiler, do not add too much salt, since the meat will get even saltier after broiling. Then pull out a large baking sheet, line with aluminum foil, put the meat out onto the baking sheet in a thin layer, and pop into the oven under the broiler. You will want the meat to be on the highest level on the rack so that it's pretty close to the broiler. You want to get the meat nice and crispy. But don't walk away. The meat can go from perfectly crispy to burnt to a crisp in a second. So just sit there and watch it through the glass. After a few minutes, I actually pull the meat out and move it around a little bit so that some of the other pieces can get crispy too rather than only the meat on the top. Pop it back in until the meat gets to your desired crispy-ness. Turn everything off and pull it out! I serve the carnitas with either corn tortillas or if I want to splurge, I will fry up some of those corn tortillas into crispy taco shells sprinkled with salt. (try it sometime, it's heaven!). This is totally preference, but you can add some queso fresco or some shredded mozzarella or cotija cheese. Definitely serve with chopped cilantro, lime wedges, maybe some sliced radish and chopped onion, and some sour cream. Whatever toppings you like! Serve with a side of the slaw, recipe below.
Slaw Recipe:
I don't even know what to call this, but it's just the slaw we make and eat with carnitas or pulled pork sammies.
-green and/or purple cabbage (I usually use about half of one for our dinner)
-2 large carrots, shredded
-2-3 T of cilantro, chopped
-2 green onions, chopped
-a few dollops of mayo
-some sort of dijon or brown mustard
-lime juice
-salt and pepper
Chop the cabbage in whatever way you prefer. I like to chop it so that the cabbage makes long strips. Chop up all the other ingredients. Add all the veg into a bowl. Stir in a few dollops of mayo (maybe half of a cup and add more if you like?), stir in the dijon or brown mustard to taste, I usually add 2 T or so. Add in lime juice. I usually squeeze 2 limes worth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes if the slaw is too acidic, I will stir in a little bit of honey. It just depends on how acidic you like the slaw. But remember that you will be eating this with the pork which is more salty, crispy, and rich. So it won't taste as acidic next to the pork.
Lemongrass Pork Meatballs with Vermicelli Noodles
Sometimes I don't have ground pork, so I just cut up some sort of beef into strips, or use ground beef instead and it works well, too. But, try it with the pork also because it really is super tasty.
Chinese Lemon Chicken, stir fried broccoli and green beans
Almost all of the asian food that I make now is courtesy of Marion's Kitchen. She is legit! And we never get takeout Chinese food anymore because all of the chinese recipes we have tried from Marion are so good!
For the broccoli, I just chop the broccoli into bite size pieces, whatever your preferred mouthful of broccoli size is, lol. Heat up a non stick pan with some cooking oil, I usually use medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add in the broccoli. You're going to stir fry the broccoli so depending on the heat output of your stove, you may need to increase your heat up to more than medium. When you add the broccoli the oil with splatter so please be careful. Stir fry the veg until your desired brown-ness but do not overcook! Right before the broccoli is done stir frying, I add in several cloves of crushed garlic, and some salt and pepper and let fry with the broccoli for about 30 seconds. Make sure that you are stirring it all around constantly so nothing burns. Take the pan off the heat and add about 1/2 cup of water, and cover the pan immediately. Add back onto medium low heat and let the broccoli steam for a minute or so until it reaches your desired level of softness. Remember the broccoli will keep cooking for awhile after you turn off the heat so I usually just cook it a little less than my preferred softness. I like the broccoli to have some crunch. This will likely take a few times for you to figure out, but just remember you can always add the broccoli back onto the heat if it's not soft enough but you can't back it up and make the veg more firm so don't overcook! No one likes woogy broccoli. At least, no one SHOULD like woogy broccoli. Blech.
For the green beans, I loosely follow this recipe:
This recipe uses pickled Taiwanese Cucumbers but you don't have to use that if you don't want to or if you can't find it.
Chicken Shawarma Salad
Pizza
Pretty self explanatory. I make my own pizza dough, I got this recipe from my friend Olivia:
-4 cups of Flour (I use half wheat and half unbleached)
-1 t. salt
-1 t. sugar
-2 1/4 t. yeast
-this isn't in the recipe, but I usually add in about 2T of olive oil
-1.5 cups of warm water
This will make two pizzas.
Add all the dry ingredients to your stand mixer, use the dough hook, stir all the dry ingredients, while the mixer is on low, add the olive oil, then slowly add the water. Let mix for about 5 minutes. Take the bowl off of the stand mixer, cover with plastic wrap, pop in the oven on the bread proof setting. If you don't have a bread proof setting you can put your bowl of dough somewhere warm to proof but it may take longer, especially here in Seattle. I used to wrap the bowl with the warmest, coziest blankets I had to keep it warm, lol. It takes a couple hours to prove in the oven and several hours just out on the counter. You can also use a bread maker for this as well, if you have one.
One the dough has doubled in size, I separate it into two chunks and roll it out onto a floured surface. You can also just drizzle some olive oil onto a cookie sheet and press the dough with your fingers out onto the cookie sheet. I like to roll it out sometimes because we have a pizza stone and peel so the pizza gets cooked real well on the bottom that way. Spread your sauce and toppings, and cook!
Brinner
This is one of those "I'm so effing tired of cooking 4,256 meals that my kids don't eat anyway, so I just want to make something that they will eat and I want it to be quick and I also want a vehicle for some maple syrup so let's make brinner". It's 'breakfast for dinner'. Make whatever! I usually do pancakes or waffles, bacon, eggs, and a salad consisting of shredded carrots, chopped apples, lemon juice, and honey. Enjoy brinner!
Bibimbap
I obviously don't know how to cook real Korean food, but this turned out real yummy!
There you have it! I'll post another one for week 3 at some point soon!
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