forgot the recipe

Pernil

Joe's Pork Shoulder Roast

1 Pork Shoulder

1 can of Coca-cola
2 cans of Sunkist orange

( or 3 cans of Dr. pepper)

6 Garlic cloves (whole)

Rub:

1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Cumin
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 teaspoon lime of lemon zest
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon ground hot red pepper (my dry red peppers require 1/4 teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon Goya Salzon

Mix ingredients for rub

slice the fat portion of the ham, criss-cross down to the meat

Rub in the spice mix with your hands on both sides and place the ham fat side up in a large oven pot.
Place deep random cuts into the pork and push whole garlic cloves into them
Add the Sodas and let the mixture sit overnight.
Take  liquid and rub mixture in the pot and ladle it over the meat.

Begin cooking at 220 for 2 to 3 hours.

Raise temperature to 275 for 5 hours.

Broil for 10 minutes and then remove pot and let rest.

Gift of nieighbors

I live in a very mixed neighborhood and we all talked with each other and look after each other.
We visit and share.
Yesterday a knock on the door brought our neighbor with her 4 month old daughter.
We shared coffee as i was cooking dinner.
(Pork "pernil", my style if you must know, the recipe to follow)
The pork came out before she finished her coffee and we sent some home with her.
Later in the evening was the fiancee, looking for some tools that we have.
They have shared their food with us, Dominican and Peruvian.
A knock on the door this after noon, brought another neighbor from El Salvador with chicken soup and fresh flour torllias..
wonderful, flavorful chicken soup, so full of flavor and chicken which was so tender....
She uses yucca, i know and celery and carrots and onions and it cooks forever,,,
Our Italian neighbor invites over for a cuppa of coffee (espresso, of course) and homemade Italian cookies and treats.
The Jamaican neighbor cooked jerk chicken when ever it warms up.
The Polish neighbor sends over porogies, venison (from her husband) and pickled herring (fresh).
A very good friend, who happens to be Indian, sends over real Indian food for my great pleasure.
so if you ever wonder where my food taste to compare to restaurants in the area, neighbors and friends!

Not a traditionalist

Okay, maybe a bit, but i still do things differently!
I was invited over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving and a always ask what i can bring.
The answer was my corn bread.
My corn bread - why is it the first request?
It is a blending of my Greek heritage and where i grew up (Texas - with the Mexican influence).
It is moist, not crunchy and full of flavor.
Do i dare give out my secrets here?
Not yet, you have to beg, but i will say that the guest requested the remainder of the large pan stay at their house.
The other thing i did was smoke a salmon.
Now i recently heard that at a BBQ cook-off in Westport, the smoked Salmon presented was dry.
Not mine.
I have a special sauce with the base being a hickory off the self sauce, lemon and maple syrup.
The wood i used was maple.
30 minutes at 180 to 225 (the best i could control the fire) and all the other normal "smoking" parameters (indirect fire, moist heat).
My only "i wish i could have" was to crisp the skin, but there was no salmon left to take home.
The guest provided all the other regular Thanksgiving items.

was it the sauce?

i pride myself in the hot sauces i concoct.
I have a Chipotle sauce with tequila, lime, salt and cilantro that i freeze to a slurry and serve that way.
i have an Italian hot sauce with the little green and red Italian peppers with olive oil and garlic
and i did a new one this year from the habanero peppers in my yard with lime and cilantro.
I had our very pregnant neighbor over with her 8 year olsd son for a simple dinner of hot dogs, Sauerkraut and garlic mashed potatoes.  I gave her the hot sauce and that night her water broke and delivered a healthy baby girl that evening.
Was it the sauce or the hot dog?

baby its getting cold outside

No, i do NOT like it, but it gives me opertunity to start doing my indoor cooking thing again.
I love the grill and the smoker,
but some of lifes truely great food comes from a slow cooker.
today i am preparing black beans - these will not be ready till tomorrow,
but i can wait.
The blend of spices mellowed by the black beans takes time.
chilies, cumin, beer, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, lime!
And of course - blacl beans.
A bit spicy, a bit sweet, a bit of acid, a bit of salt (sorry, no real bitter - the beer adds sweet)
Hearty!
Oh, but for tonight - there will be Ox tail soup - something my mom would make!
Usd to be the "peasant meal" because the beef tails were discaredNot any more!
The tail is full of flavor and mixed with the right vegtables - wonderful!
Maybe i will get pictures before it is all gone!

the start of Ox tail soup(stew?)

beggining the black beans

Now i am hungry it is time for breakfast!

Just helping

I was assisting a friend on a school assignment where she track the nutritional value of the food she ate.
She happens to be Asian Indian and uses a lot of spices.  I helped her track down the nutritional value of some of the spices she uses and was very amazed and interested.
I think the one that caught me most by surprise was cilantro: 300+% of the daily allowance of vitamin C in a cup.  Okay more cilantro in my diet...Now!

Labor day cookout

We had the 2 members of the community up from Virginia for this weekend, so of course I got to celebrate by cooking a BBQ.
I know it was a bit cool, but that made it even more important.
I keep wanting all of to get down there and I know it will happen, just as i know that there will be a time that my double vision will become single again.

There are advantages to the current economic problems, Iceland did not buy up the Maine lobsters, so they are at a very reduced price and so that was on the menu.
I wanted scallops for some time and they also happened to be on sale - lucky me.
Cherry tomatoes and then onions.
Store bought zucchini and then a nice eggplant from the garden.
These were cut in half, soaked with olive oil and garlic and salt and put on the grill.
Corn was also on sale.
The corn i buttered first with a mint butter (melt butter with mint, then strain), the grilled with the husks on (should have soaked the husks, but forgot so they caught fire).
I set up skewers with onions, tomatoes and scallops.
The scallops I had marinated in a butter and orange juice (the orange flavor was lost).
For one person who was a shellfish allergy, I pulled out the last 2 pieces of beef tenderloin that I had made something like 4 meals already out of and marinated that in burgundy wine, cayenne pepper and a bit of brown sugar. The cayenne got lost, but showed up when i cooked the mushrooms with the marinate.
I cooked everything not seafood first, so there would be no chance of anaphylaxis (she has had that before).

The peppers from my garden (Hot and sweet)
The last of the lettuce, started a salad.
That was followed with scallion and chives and basil and parsley ( all from the garden).
Finishing with 2 beautiful large tomatoes from the garden.

What a feast!

There were 7 of us and there are left overs to nibble on.

To all the new followers, thank you for stopping by.
My life has been, well, interesting since the operation and any chance I get to celebrate, i do.

This was a great celebration.

Saturday Morning Reflections

I am up early - come what, 7 ish, sitting on the porch. It is quite.
I have to go in at some point to work.
No one else in the lab knows what to do with these samples, or has an interest.
A bird with lots of yellow on it flits among the flowers, I think it is an oriole.
Another, with just a touch of yellow on his breast, flits among the branches of the shrubs, it is a warbler.
There is a child laughing in one of the houses, i reflect.
The children of this neighborhood, play very well together, even the one who has "issues" (his mother and father are in jail and he stays with with grandmother).
They all seem to like me, for what ever reason.
Every so often, friends of the neighborhood children come over and there is a polarization and the "difficult" child is an outcast. I do not like these other children.
They do not come around often, so most of the time all the children play well with each other.

Last night I challenged myself, I went with friends to the St. Leo church fair.
There are a lot of people who go. It is the most well attended church fair in the area.
I have not been in that level of crowds since the operation.
I did fine and ate raw oysters (yes, I know all about them and so what I do is with full knowledge) and steamed shrimp and pizza fritta.

I do one set of the eye exercises using the hybiscus flowers as focal points.


It is a beautiful Saturday morning.

I took a holiday

Rather my brain decided it would be MIA and relax all day Sunday. That happened despite the fact that I went in for some work at the Lab (overtime), but the rest of the day I walked, I rested, I walked, walked to the Dairy Queen and had Ice Cream.
It was wonderful!
I had to bring it back so I could cook dinner and because I was still dealing with the need for something with a Mexican taste (not true Mexican, cause I am from Texas, maybe border Mexican), that is where I went.
First a salsa - finely chopped ripe tomatoes, onions, cilantro and some of my peppers (I grow my own, I have a jalapeno plant that I have over wintered 3 years and the peppers it produces takes away any pain I might have). blend it with some salt and lime to taste.
Then I went after a cilantro sauce - cilantro, my jalapenos, onions, chili powder and some sweet pepper slices. Blend them with a bit of Olive oil (you can use what ever oil floats your boat). Add salt to taste (I was using sea salt today, so I use less than normal salt).
Then the rice - yellow rice with - you guessed it, cilantro, and chicken stock .
The main course - Some Cod (not Mexican, but it is what I had) cooked in some oil with butter and chili powder and a bit of lime on top of the stove.
Plating - important!
one corn tortilla (warmed and I should have used 2) - cilantro sauce on top, place cod on top of that. Salsa on one side, rice on the other.
I have no picture, we ate it too fast!
I think my mind came back, but it wants to go one another vacation - next Sunday!

I forgot! I got a cupcake award from "This Side of Town". Just what I needed! A cupcake to finish the day!

It must have been the strawberries...

For years I have been a sufferer of various allergies, dust, mold, pollen, certain grasses.
Most of those were found when i was a child and they gave me shots to minimize them.
In a different part of the country now, the seasonal allergies have given me a fit, but are fairly well controlled using Allegra!
When i first moved up here, i worked as an analytical chemist in a plastics coating company and they sold their goods to various produce companies including Hersey's chocolate. One day Hersey's wanted us to analyze a taste problem they thought was happening and sent us a 25 pound block of chocolate. We only needed a few micrograms to do the test.
After concluding there was no problem with the chocolate, the rest was left for us to eat and I did enjoy it!
The problem was, after that when i would eat chocolate, i would break out, rapidly.
My first food allergy.
I also loved strawberries and was involved in a food co-op with the community i was part of for the poorer neighborhood that we were living in. Several of us would go down at 3:30 in the morning to New York and purchase food from the distribution markets down there and it would be in bulk and in season we picked up strawberries. And i would sample them and sample them and did i say sample them?
Well it was not long before i would start to choke up on the strawberries and could not eat them anymore. There would also be a strange physiological reaction, I would become despondent, close to depressed for a significant time after. Now, i was not always the cheeriest person, so there was not a lot of difference, but enough for those closest to me to notice. I stopped eating strawberries.
There are other things i need to stay away from in large quantities, eggplant is one. They call them night shades, but not all.
I can eat tomatoes and HOT peppers with no problems, but must limit mild peppers.
After the tumor was removed, there were changes, I no longer break out eating chocolate, but i am cautious not to over do it. Eggplant still causes problems and strawberries seemed not to cause too much of an issue, until last night.
We went to IHOP for dessert and i had a strawberry crepe and soon after that became uncontrollably depressed for about 30 minutes. It left rapidly, but I will be leaving strawberries alone for a while. No long lasting effects, but like i said, strawberries are back on the take in moderation list.
The worst thing was during this time period, I spoke with my mother, who is not the easiest person to talk to as she does exude that it is some how my fault that i am not seeing correctly and that the reason that i do not drive down is because i do not want ot see her. This was not a good conversation, but it will be better another time.