Mesquite-O Bites

This was not the meal I'd intended to make when I went to the grocery store this afternoon.  However, they had BOGO pork loins, so I bought one, and then I got one.  One of the loins (which is the one that I like to think that I bought) I had an idea of what to do with.   This is not the story of that loin.  This is the story of the gotten loin.  The boughten loin will be dealt with at some point in the future.  When I got back to my apartment, I had 2 meals that I had a rough idea for, a piece of meat with an uncertain future, and some snacks.  So I took the obvious route of combining the meat with the snacks to make an uncertain meal.

Ingredients:

1 Pork Loin Fillet with Slow Smoked Mesquite flavor (Only about a third is used with this batch size)

15 Wheat Thins

Crazy Joe's Mushroom, Onion, and Jalapeno Dip

Hot Sauce(s)

Instructions:

Preheat Oven to 375

Put Pork in Oven and Bake for 30m Per Pound (was about 50m for me)

At ~5min Left, Begin Adding a Thin Spread of the Dip on the Wheat Thins

Remove Loin from Oven

Cut into thick slices

Cut slices into chunks of Wheat Thin comparable size

Add pork to Wheat Thins

Add a dab of hot sauce to the top if so desired

This turned out better than expected.  Though, I s'pose I wasn't really expecting much out of it since I basically threw it all together at the last minute.  The flavors worked well with each other.  I really enjoy the flavor of the MOJ dip (I'd been eating it on carrots while the pork was in the oven), but it's main purpose in this recipe was to act as a binding agent between the wheat thin and the pork.  To that end, it can be replaced with another suitably thick dip, or spread if you either can't find it or would prefer something different.  The hot sauce is another area that can be left to personal taste.  It is by no means necessary, so if you'd rather go milder it works just fine.  As for the hot sauce to use, I tried it with Tapatio, Frank's, and Sriracha, and of the three, I felt that Franks worked the best.

There are a few things that I would do differently.  First, while this is delicious, it's a terrible meal.  It doesn't come close to being anywhere near balanced, and it isn't super filling either.  So, while I'd definitely make these again, it wouldn't be for a snack, but probably for either a snack or a party offering.  Second, I would give the pork an opportunity to dry.  While the fact that it turned out juicy would have been great had I been eating it on it's own, I was eating it on crackers.  While the dip provides a seal against the juices, it isn't perfect and some of the crackers were less crisp than I'd have liked.  The last thing I'd change is to use thinner slices of pork.  While it worked out the way I'd cut it, the bites were a bit on the larger side.  To this end, I might be looking to acquire a mandolin in the near future, because over the course of this blog I'm beginning to realize that I cut overly thick slices.

Craburritos

This is an idea which I had apparently come up with at some point in the past while I was out shopping and had apparently forgotten about somewhere down the line.  I say this because the other day I was gathering up the bags that had accumulated at my door (I tend to set down the bags at my door, then unload the bags from there instead of moving them into the kitchen first, I'm not sure why) and I discovered that one of them wasn't actually empty and in fact contained three cans.  Remembering why I had bought these I made an unplanned trip to the store for tortillas and cheese (and chips, salsa, and hot sauce).

Ingredients:

1 6oz can of crab meat

1 10oz can of diced tomatoes with green chiles

1 15oz can of frijoles cubanos

1/2 cup rice

tortillas

shredded cheese

hot sauce

Instructions:

Add the contents of all the cans to a pan

Stir in rice

Simmer over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally

When enough liquid has evaporated/been absorbed into the rice, reduce heat

Heat an additional 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the liquid is gone

Remove from heat

Spread a thin layer of cheese over a tortilla and microwave for 11 seconds

Open the microwave to discover this was not nearly enough time

Microwave for an additional 11 seconds

Scoop a spoonful of the mixture onto the tortilla

Top with hot sauce and wrap

This is a fairly standard burrito recipe.  Meat+tomatoes+beans+rice is a fairly easy burrito filling recipe that I've been eating for years.  This is the first time I've had it with crab though.  In fact, this is the first time that I've cooked with crab.  I've learned that cans of crab meat contain a paper cup thing to contain the crab meat.  I'm not entirely sure why this is a thing, but apparently it is.  

Overall, this worked out fairly well.  The crab was less noticeable than I'd been hoping, so if I try this again I think I'll go with 2 cans of it to see how that goes.  Also, as is apparently my trend with carbs, the rice was a bit harder than I'd been hoping.  I wasn't sure initially if I'd go with it, but when I realized how much liquid there was I realized that need to either add something to wick some of the liquid, cook it longer than I'd normally do in order to evaporate some of the liquid, or drain some of the liquid.  I do think that in the future I'd cook the rice for a bit before starting the main spiel.  One other option I'm considering, that is something that I've had before, is to switch the rice out with Zatarain's Spanish Rice, or something similar.

Buffalo Turkey Alfredo

If you remember back to the previous post, you might recall that I wound up with an extra potato and onion, as well as a gigantic pan I had forgotten to use for cooking large amounts of food.  This post will tell the tale of how I decided to cook the excess in the excessively large pan.

This is also the first post of a recipe that I refer to as "Fridge Podge".  You might be asking what fridge podge is, which is reasonable, because I'm pretty sure it isn't actually a word.  A fridge podge is a hodge podge of food thrown together from whatever you happen to have in your fridge.  Or, as my mother prefers to call it, "cooking with what you already have".  This recipe isn't technically a pure fridge podge, since I wound up picking up an onion and a pepper specifically for this while I was buying light bulbs, but the overall idea, and the majority of the ingredients were already owned and waiting for a good usage.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1 onion

1 bell pepper

2 potatoes

8(ish) oz buffalo wing sauce

1 jar Ragu Roasted Garlic Parmesan Cheese Creation sauce

Instructions:

Dice onion

Begin browning turkey and onion

Forget about the pepper that is half the reason for the recipe

Chop potatoes and add to pan

Continue browning

Stir in buffalo wing sauce

Begin adding the "Alfredo" sauce to the pan

Remember the pepper

Finish stirring the sauce into the mix

Hastily cut the pepper and stir it into the pan

Simmer, covered, for several minutes

This mostly turned out really well.  The buffalo sauce and the pasta sauce combined considerably better than I'd been expecting them to.  The buffalo complements the creamier sauce without overpowering it, resulting in a sauce that is more than the sum of it's parts.  I suspect that this will work with any cream based pasta sauces, and I suspect I'll be experimenting with this in the future.  Unfortunately, I'd put the onions on too late in the process, so they wound up being a bit firmer than I'd intended.

There are a few things I'd do differently in the future.  First I'd begin cooking the potatoes at the same time as I started the onions and ground meat.  The potatoes being a bit softer would help the overall quality of the recipe.  The other thing I'd do is use a green pepper rather than an orange one.  This has nothing to do with the relative flavor of the peppers in respect to each other and everything to do with the aesthetics of the dish.  I'm not usually one to care for such things, but since the buffalo sauce causes everything else in the dish to be uniformly orange, a smidge of contrasting colors could really give the dish some extra pop.

In addition to the more important changes listed above, the ground turkey could be substituted with any other ground meat, or even chunks of meat.  The Roasted Garlic Parmesan sauce could also be replaced with virtually any cream based pasta sauce depending on availability and personal preference.  I'm sure I'll be experimenting with the possibilities in the days to come.