1. Perspective. Jessi is convinced she can fly. Remember that ANNOYING song from the mid-late 90's? I mean the girl truly believes she can fly. She spent quality time this summer jumping jumping off of the little playhouse to see if she could ever go up instead of down. Yesterday she was doing a job of straightening the pantry, which like any good job involved the use of the step stool. Once she lost interest in arranging the boxes and cans, she turned around and began making mighty leaps from the pantry to the kitchen. I tried to convince her that people couldn't fly, that if they could, everyone would be flying around. She will have nothing of it, and demonstrated that SHE flaps her wings, err, arms, just perfectly and she CAN fly.
I decided that other than the possible trip to the ER, it was harmless fun and let her continue jumping while I prepared dinner. After one particularly HUGE leap, she picked herself up off the floor and with the brightest eyes, her voice full of faith, exclaimed, "Whoa, I have to be careful, I almost fell!"
You see, in her mind, she WAS flying, that wasn't a long jump ending in a fall, it was a successful flight with a slightly rough landing. It's all about perception.
2. Pork Roast (oh wait... you thought this was going to be a perspective of pork roast?... sorry)
Every so often I just get fed up with bland American food and have to revert back to my childhood (fyi, my dad was Cuban and I grew up in Key West, Florida). One of my all time favorites is Cuban style roast pork. Here are directions.
Uhh... I don't do "recipes" so much as I simply give instructions... and to be honest, it would make a lot more sense if we were in the kitchen together and you were watching me.
Pork Roast (made with easily accessible American ingredients)
3-5 lbs pork roast
head of garlic
lemon juice (if you live where you can get key lime juice you should use that, the lemon/lime juice is for the rest of us)
lime juice
cumin (that's a spice, you should be able to find it at any grocery store)
minced onion
a large enough ziploc bag to fit your roast in (or of course, you can cut your roast in half)
-peel about 6 cloves of garlic and cut them in half
-with a small sharp knife, stab your roast and shove the cloves down into the slits
-put the roast into the ziploc bag and pour in a generous amount (see this is where the whole idea of "recipe" falls apart) of the lemon juice and lime juice in. I suppose you need about a cup total, enough that your roast has plenty to swim in
- add a generous amount of cumin ... maybe two tablespoons... I mean smell it, it's yummy, just pour a lot in
-a tablespoon or two of dried minced onion
- chop up a few more cloves of garlic and throw that in as well. save a little garlic for the beans, but other than that, use it.
seal the bag and let it sit for several hours, the longer the better.
When you are ready to cook it, remove from the bag and put it in a roasting pan,all that juice too! cover it with foil and bake at 350-375 for several hours (depends on how big your roast is). Pork is done at 155 degrees, so about 30 minutes before it's done, remove the foil so that the roast can get all brown and delicious.
Now, since I don't always have a big old pork roast laying around, I do the same thing with chops and it works great!
The only thing I don't do is stab the chops and stuff them with garlic, just marinate them the same way, then bake or broil until done.
Serve with:
steamed white rice (or yellow rice) and black beans.
black beans:
two cans of black beans
one onion
one green pepper
several cloves of garlic
salt
vinegar
olive oil
- cut up your onion, green pepper and cloves of garlic
-in the saucepan that you will use to make your bean soup, heat olive oil over medium to low heat (no, I don't know how much olive oil... cause I don't know how big your sauce pan is! you need enough to cover the bottom and saute all the veggies in)
- put the onions, green pepper, and garlic in and cook them over a slow heat, you are not browning them, you are cooking them until soft and clear (well the onions will turn clear.. I'm not sure how long to cook the green pepper to make it clear!) this is called a "congree" which is spelled wrong but I don't even know what language that is... I just know that's what my mom calls it.
- to this pan, add the black beans, let them simmer over low heat for a while (how long? well, they taste better the second day anyway, so I just let them simmer while I cook everything else), say an hour or so.
- at the end of the cooking time, taste them, add one table spoon of vinegar, stir, taste again. you may wish to add a tiny pinch of salt, but the vinegar will probably do the trick. If you want, add another tablespoon of vinegar, but please, taste in between the spoonfuls! The vinegar is important, if you don't add it, you will have bland beans and blame me. It is also important to wait until the END of the cooking time, or the flavor cooks out, and again, you will have bland beans.
Slice the roast (or plate the chops), spoon some of the juice from the pan over each serving, add rice to the plate, serve the beans over the rice. The juice from the meat will mingle with the bean sauce and you will be wishing for some Cuban bread to sop up the plate juice with.
A word about garlic. Some may read this and think that I have used too much garlic. I don't think there is such a thing. It's sort of like having too much money... people claim that it can happen, but no one ever knows of an actual case. viva la garlic!
* i found this recipe for the marinade i use, mojo criollo:
I decided that other than the possible trip to the ER, it was harmless fun and let her continue jumping while I prepared dinner. After one particularly HUGE leap, she picked herself up off the floor and with the brightest eyes, her voice full of faith, exclaimed, "Whoa, I have to be careful, I almost fell!"
You see, in her mind, she WAS flying, that wasn't a long jump ending in a fall, it was a successful flight with a slightly rough landing. It's all about perception.
2. Pork Roast (oh wait... you thought this was going to be a perspective of pork roast?... sorry)
Every so often I just get fed up with bland American food and have to revert back to my childhood (fyi, my dad was Cuban and I grew up in Key West, Florida). One of my all time favorites is Cuban style roast pork. Here are directions.
Uhh... I don't do "recipes" so much as I simply give instructions... and to be honest, it would make a lot more sense if we were in the kitchen together and you were watching me.
Pork Roast (made with easily accessible American ingredients)
3-5 lbs pork roast
head of garlic
lemon juice (if you live where you can get key lime juice you should use that, the lemon/lime juice is for the rest of us)
lime juice
cumin (that's a spice, you should be able to find it at any grocery store)
minced onion
a large enough ziploc bag to fit your roast in (or of course, you can cut your roast in half)
-peel about 6 cloves of garlic and cut them in half
-with a small sharp knife, stab your roast and shove the cloves down into the slits
-put the roast into the ziploc bag and pour in a generous amount (see this is where the whole idea of "recipe" falls apart) of the lemon juice and lime juice in. I suppose you need about a cup total, enough that your roast has plenty to swim in
- add a generous amount of cumin ... maybe two tablespoons... I mean smell it, it's yummy, just pour a lot in
-a tablespoon or two of dried minced onion
- chop up a few more cloves of garlic and throw that in as well. save a little garlic for the beans, but other than that, use it.
seal the bag and let it sit for several hours, the longer the better.
When you are ready to cook it, remove from the bag and put it in a roasting pan,all that juice too! cover it with foil and bake at 350-375 for several hours (depends on how big your roast is). Pork is done at 155 degrees, so about 30 minutes before it's done, remove the foil so that the roast can get all brown and delicious.
Now, since I don't always have a big old pork roast laying around, I do the same thing with chops and it works great!
The only thing I don't do is stab the chops and stuff them with garlic, just marinate them the same way, then bake or broil until done.
Serve with:
steamed white rice (or yellow rice) and black beans.
black beans:
two cans of black beans
one onion
one green pepper
several cloves of garlic
salt
vinegar
olive oil
- cut up your onion, green pepper and cloves of garlic
-in the saucepan that you will use to make your bean soup, heat olive oil over medium to low heat (no, I don't know how much olive oil... cause I don't know how big your sauce pan is! you need enough to cover the bottom and saute all the veggies in)
- put the onions, green pepper, and garlic in and cook them over a slow heat, you are not browning them, you are cooking them until soft and clear (well the onions will turn clear.. I'm not sure how long to cook the green pepper to make it clear!) this is called a "congree" which is spelled wrong but I don't even know what language that is... I just know that's what my mom calls it.
- to this pan, add the black beans, let them simmer over low heat for a while (how long? well, they taste better the second day anyway, so I just let them simmer while I cook everything else), say an hour or so.
- at the end of the cooking time, taste them, add one table spoon of vinegar, stir, taste again. you may wish to add a tiny pinch of salt, but the vinegar will probably do the trick. If you want, add another tablespoon of vinegar, but please, taste in between the spoonfuls! The vinegar is important, if you don't add it, you will have bland beans and blame me. It is also important to wait until the END of the cooking time, or the flavor cooks out, and again, you will have bland beans.
Slice the roast (or plate the chops), spoon some of the juice from the pan over each serving, add rice to the plate, serve the beans over the rice. The juice from the meat will mingle with the bean sauce and you will be wishing for some Cuban bread to sop up the plate juice with.
A word about garlic. Some may read this and think that I have used too much garlic. I don't think there is such a thing. It's sort of like having too much money... people claim that it can happen, but no one ever knows of an actual case. viva la garlic!
* i found this recipe for the marinade i use, mojo criollo:
- 1⁄4 cup lime juice, fresh squeezed
- 1⁄2 cup orange juice, fresh squeezed
- 1⁄2 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 6 garlic cloves, pressed
- salt, to taste
- black pepper, fresh ground, to taste
Directions
- Add all ingredients to a small jar, cover and shake for 2 minutes.
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
- Use as a marinade for meats and poultry.
2 comments:
YUM! Going to try this pork roast recipe, err, idea :). You are just like me when it comes to cooking. Recipe, shmecipe.
First of all let me say that there is never too much garlic...being from Louisiana where garlic is used in great portions!!! I love black beans and rice and cuban style pork and have gotten my hand on several recipes that are yummo!! I will definitely try these!!! Thanks so much!!
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