Braised Pork Torta

There's no real recipe for this. It was an impromptu kinda thing that turned out amazing!



















Here's what you'll need.

Braised Pork Torta
Shredded braised pork
Refried beans
Red enchilada sauce
Chipotle sour cream
Guacamole
Shredded lettuce
Nice rolls, split, cut side toasted

Heat enchilada sauce in a small skillet.
Dip toasted side of the bottom part of the bun into the enchilada sauce.
Please sauce side up on a plate.
Spread a spoonful of refried beans over enchilada sauced bun.
Top with shredded pork.
Drizzle or dollop on some chipotle sour cream.
Add shredded lettuce.
Spread guacamole on toasted side of the top part of the bun and cover sandwich.
Devour!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I threw a pork loin roast into the crockpot with some fajita seasoning my mom got me in New Mexico and some chicken stock. I put it on high and cooked it all day.

If my brain had been just a bit faster than my body, I would have used beer instead of chicken stock. Oh well... it was still wicked tasty.

Shred that.


I had some Cellone's Hard Rolls. I love those for sandwiches.

I split them in half and toasted the cut side in the toaster oven.


I had about a quarter of a bottle of Trader Joe's Enchilada Sauce leftover in the fridge. I poured that into a small skillet to heat it up. Then dipped the bottom, toasted side of the bun into it.


Use whatever enchilada sauce you like.

Spread a generous spoonful of hot refried beans over the sauced bun.


Homemade refried beans, canned, whatever... that was Taco Bell canned refried beans plus taco sauce & lime juice.

Add some moist delicious shredded pork.


Now for the Chipotle Sour Cream.

I was going to make it with canned Chipotles in Adobo sauce. But when I opened my last little can, it kind of exploded a little. So I thought I'd pass on the botulism and just mixed sour cream with Chipotle Tabasco.


Put a nice dollop of chipotle sour cream over the pork.


That's where I wish I had a selection of plastic squeeze bottles.


That would be way more fun for applying sauce to sandwiches or whatever needs saucing!

Anyway... added some shreddy lettuce.


A generous spoonful of guacamole on the top bun.


Cover it up and devour it!


I totally had shredded cheese to put on this. I LOVE cheese. But while assembling them, I completely forgot about it. But ya know what? I think these were perfect without it!!

The pics and directions aren't so great here. But the sandwich was AMAZING!

Pork Adobo

Usually I make Chicken Adobe, but I was wanting something a little different and since I knew I had a pork loin roast in the freezer, I decided to try a Pork Adobo.

Wow! Was this amazing!!



Pork Adobo w/Gravy
1 1/2 C white vinegar
1 C soy sauce
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 TBLS peppercorns
3 bay leaves
1 C water
3 - 4 lbs pork loin roast, cut into large chunks

Gravy
1/4 C flour
3/4 C water

In a hot pot, sear pork chunks on all sides.
Then add remaining ingredients and simmer at least one hour until meat is tender. You can totally just put it on the back of the stove on low for a few hours and it only gets better.

Remove meat and set aside, strain peppercorns out of broth.

In a shaker, combine 1/4 C flour with 3/4 C water and shake to create a slurry. Whisk slurry into soy sauce/vinegar/pork broth, whisk over medium heat until gravy thickens. Add meat back to gravy.

Serve with rice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First, put those beautiful chunks of pork into a hot pan and sear on all sides.


There is more beautiful searing than this... but I guess I didn't get a pic...


Add the remaining vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves and 1 cup of water.


Simmer at least one hour


Remove the meat and set aside.


Strain the broth to remove peppercorns.


Put 1/4C flour & 3/4C water into a shaker and shake into a slurry.


Add to strained broth and whisk until gravy thickens.


Add meat back to gravy.


This can stay on the stove on low heat until you're ready to serve it.



I have to say this was far and away the BEST adobo I've ever made! I don't know if I'll ever make Chicken Adobo again.

Boneless skinless chicken (what my family perfers) doesn't hold up to braising anywhere near as well as pork.

The tender flavorful melt-in-your-mouth pork was so delicious!

And the gravy!!! WOW!!! Silky, sour, so adobo-y... and thicker than the usual broth so it really sticks to the rice.

Our friend Mike said, "Sarap!"

I'll definitely be making this again!!

Sweet Ham & Swiss Sliders

If you frequent food blogs, I'm sure you've seen these a gazillion times. I was thinking... hmmm... should I even post these?? But then I thought... a lot of my family and friends who don't frequent food blogs might enjoy them and not have heard of them at all.

So if you've seen a hundred versions of this, here's one more... or I'm sure it's probably almost exactly the same as tons of them. You'll have to keep reading to find out.

If you haven't seen them. Check them out!! They're pretty tasty!



Ham & Swiss Sliders
24 King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, sliced in half (2 packages)
24 slices of smokey ham
12 slices of swiss cheese
1/4 C mayo
1 1/2 TBLS Dijon mustard
8 TBLS butter
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
1/4 C brown sugar

Line a baking sheet with non-stick foil.

Place the bottom half of rolls on the baking sheet and spread each with some mayo.
Fold one slice of ham to fit on each roll.
Then add half a slice of swiss to each.
Top with roll tops.
In a sauce pan, melt butter, Dijon, onion powder, worcestershire sauce and brown sugar.
Pour butter mixture evenly over buns.
Loosely cover with foil and refrigerate 2 - 4 hours or overnight.
Bake at 350F, covered for 10 minutes. Uncover and bake 5 or 10 more minutes until tops are golden and cheese is melty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Assemble sliders.



Pour sweet buttery sauce over them.


Bake at 350F, covered for 10 minutes. Uncover and bake 5 or 10 more minutes until tops are golden and cheese is melty.


When I first saw these I instantly wanted them. I couldn't stop thinking about them until I actually made them.

These were really tasty! Everyone liked them. I even liked the leftovers cold the next day. Jon wasn't a huge fan of the cold leftovers. He thought the butter sauce was too greasy. Plus he's not a such a fan of cold ham sandwiches in general.

Anyway. These were tasty! Give them a try!

Smoked Ribs & Beer Can Chicken!

We hadn't used our smoker at all this year and decided the 4th of July would be the perfect day to use it. (ok... really any non-work day that's not raining is a perfect day to use it!)

Jon really wanted to do ribs. We haven't used our smoker very much and have had kind of hit or miss luck with ribs. But I figured why not right?

While we were shopping for baby back ribs, Jon also suggested doing a Beer Can Chicken while we were at it. It takes so long to cook stuff in the smoker, we usually go for maximum capacity. So I grabbed a chicken too!



The rub recipe I use for the ribs is slightly adapted from Alton Brown, but we don't use his method.

Rib Rub
8 TBLS light brown sugar, tightly packed
3 TBLS kosher salt
1 TBLS chili powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp onion powder

Ideally we rub this on the ribs the day before. But this time they only had four or five hours before hitting the grill. This is enough for 2 slabs of ribs. If I'm only doing one slab, I'll use the extra on a chicken.

Here's what you need (plus ribs!)


Stir that all together until well combined.


Now to get the ribs ready.

This part is kind of icky! You have to remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. If you just grab a corner, it kinda of peels off. But it's slimy and totally sticks to your hand as it comes away from the ribs. Have your guy do this if you can. Mine was still sleeping, so I had to do it.



Yuck... makes me squinchy looking at it!


When the membrane is pulled off of both slabs. Place them on some heavy duty foil.


Then just rub all of the spices into both sides of both slabs.



Then wrap them tightly in foil and refrigerate overnight.


And for the chicken.


I totally spaced on a rub for the chicken. I have almost every herb/spice known to man. Ok... maybe not that many... but I can definitely make a large assortment of rubs without going to store. But I found a Lawry's Chicken Rub in there and decided to just finish that off.




I don't do the chicken ahead of time. I guess it would probably benefit from it, but it's never occurred to me until just now.

You need a can of beer. Most of the beer at my house is bottled. The only canned beer you might find is Dale's Pale Ale. I usually don't want to cook with hoppy beer, so Jon will typically pick up something cheap. In this case Budweiser. Don't get the tall ones. They gave him tall cans and it just barely fit in the smoker. But you can use whatever beer you like. You'll need to empty some of the beer from the can. Jon always helps with this part.


I have a stand that's made for beer can chicken. Put the can in it.


Then I add some of the rub and some herbs (I used rosemary & thyme) to the can with the remaining beer.



Now it's time to put the chicken on the beer can.




There's a big bowl that sits in the bottom of the smoker to keep everything nice and moist. I wasn't really watching while Jon filled it, but I think he put in a couple liters of apple juice, some white wine, maybe some beer, probably some kind of vinegar and whatever herbs were growing next to the smoker (that's where our herb garden lives) I'd guess that pan holds somewhere between half a gallon and a gallon of liquid.


Now to start putting the smoker together.
First the chicken, since it's going on the bottom level.
There is a probe thermometer stuck in it.


Here's the little smoker window view.


Top level... ribs...

The slabs are too long to fit flat on the grill, so I cut them in half and stand them up in a rack.








I don't want to waste all of those spicy juices in the foil... so I just pour them into the smoker... they'll land in the bowl at the bottom.


So Jon always starts the coals. I have a very hard time with that. It takes 3 chimneys. We only have two, so we start with that and just add one.





Hickory wood chips that have been soaking in water.




When the 3rd chimney is ready to go, we just lift off the top and pour more coals in.

Now the main part gets put on top of the coal part.




And cover it up.


Unfortunately my smoker's temperature gauge doesn't have temperatures, so we keep it in the "ideal" range on gauge.



But now you have 3 or 4 hours.

So about 3.5 hours later... the temperature probe on the chicken reads 165F. Chicken's done! Hopefully the ribs are too.

So we opened it up.






Another window view.


As it turned out the ribs were done too!

Time to eat!


Mmmmm.... moist smokey delicious meat!!!













So that's how we spent our 4th of July. Smoking meat!