Slow cooked, rich, sumptuous and packed with flavor. Braised short ribs are well worth the time and effort to make them. If you’ve had a dish like this before, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, shame on you! Rush down to the store right this minute with a printed copy of this recipe and get cooking!

You’ll be glad you did, I assure you.

Go ahead, I’ll wait…

…

Are you back with the ingredients? Good, I’ll continue.

Meals like this can be cooked on the stove, but I prefer the oven method, mostly because I don’t have to worry about charring the bottom of the dish. The oven gives more control over the process, but this is also a great slow cooker dish. Just sear your ribs first, then deglaze that pan with onions and wine, add everything to the slow cooker and set it to low, forget it for 8 hours and viola! Perfect braised numminess each and every time.

Any way you cook these, just do.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

What does a foodie make for lunch? Perhaps a better way to phrase that question is to ask what a foodie who generally hits the kitchen with no idea what he’s about to make cooks for lunch, because when I threw this together I had absolutely no concept of what I was going to do with what I had, just that I needed lunch on the table in under 30 minutes and I wanted it to be a fairly light meal. The result was, as are most truly inspired culinary moments, sublime. In the end the dish was light, slightly spicy and just enough for two (with the addition of a little bread to sop up the leftover juices).

Why chutney you ask? To be honest, I had no idea that I’d made a chutney until I looked it up this morning. For me the process went more like this:

• Notice the time, blurt out a chosen expletive and run for the kitchen.
• Throw open the fridge to see what’s available for a trip to the stove top, decide on super thin pork chops because they cook quickly.
• Tear open the pantry and rummage, not finding anything that looked good at the moment.
• Switch to the freezer… We haven’t had corn in a while, but what to do with it…
• AHA!

It’s those “AHA” moments that make cooking a joy for me. They are the culmination of the methods I’ve learned, the flavor combinations I’ve tried and the skills acquired in my 20-plus years of cooking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it was a resounding success, and in the process I discovered something.

Chutney isn’t necessarily all that exotic.

That may strike some of my more experienced foodie friends as quite humorous. Chutney, by definition, isn’t complicated stuff at all. The fact is, I’ve always thought of chutney as some exotic concoction that only classically trained chefs whip out on anything like a regular basis. I also never realized that I’ve been putting them together for over a decade without ever knowing that was what I was doing.

To Quote CooksOnline.com, Chutney is simply:

A sauce or relish containing fruits, spices and herbs.

Hmmm. Been there, done that. And they’re good!

So why, you may ask, didn’t I just write this up as an entry on how to make chutney? Well, the simple fact of the matter is that this particular variant requires a pan that’s had pork seared in it. It just wouldn’t be right without it. So I’m suggesting this as a substitute for the apple sauce that so many people seem to slather on their poor lil’ unsuspecting chops.

But enough of this dissertation… On with the food!

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Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s been a while since I mentioned the package that was sent to me by CurrySimple. To be honest, I was on such a curry kick for a while that I burned myself out on the concept of trying any of the three remaining pouches in the box.

When we moved in to the new house, the package went missing for a bit. I ran across it the other day in the “pile of things we haven’t unpacked yet” in my bedroom closet and immediately knew I had to give it another shot. The problem was, I still had three choices and I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted to try first. It took me two days to decide on their Gourmet Yellow Curry Sauce and I’m glad that I did.

This dish is decidedly simple and relies on some pretty simple ingredients and can be whipped up by anyone. It came to be simply because these are the things that I had in my fridge, freezer and pantry. The whole affair took about 30 minutes, including cooking the rice and was happily gobbled down by the adults in the house in near record time.

The cauliflower went incredibly well with the curry, as did the pork. The red, green and yellow bell peppers added just the right combination of sweet, tart and in-betweens to make this a tongue-tingling experience, but to be honest, this curry is only the tiniest bit spicy, and in my mind could have used just a hair more of a bite, even the next day.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Basically, lumpia is the Filipino equivalent of the Chinese egg roll. I first experienced lumpia in my early 20′s, when our Guamanian next door neighbor made them and presented them to us as a housewarming gift, along with a massive platter of kelaguen. It was a nearly religious experience for me, even at the beginnings of my love affair with food. I’ve been hooked ever since and I have no intention of turning back.

When I mentioned this to my wife, she grinned, went to work, and brought home a huge tray of lumpia few days later. It seems that one of her coworkers’ wives was from Guam also, and once again I was carried away on the wings of culinary angels to a place I’ve never been, but that I dream of going to one day. They say the best way to experience the world is through its food, and I agree.

After that couple moved away, I decided we’d try to make this on our own. Unfortunately I never got the recipe from the lovely lady who made them for us, so we were on our own. Off to Google!

I’m really not sure if any of the recipes I found when I was looking this up are actually authentic, but the one we did find seemed to mirror most closely the ingredients we grow in the region and in the spirit of “cook locally”, I adapted it to fit not only what we had around the area, but also what we had around the house. I saw many that called for cabbage, and then there were many that didn’t. We had it on hand but chose not to include it in this recipe, as it’s slated for another wrapped food recipe we’ve been talking about for a few weeks now. (If nothing else, I’ve been dying to try Colcannon, and it will give me the perfect excuse!)

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Popularity: 1% [?]

My wife and I have very different methodologies when it comes to cooking. I go out of my way to keep my ingredients simple, to let the flavor of the food shine as much as possible, with only minor ingredients that highlight the flavors of the key components of a dish. My wife goes recipe searching until she finds something that challenges her baker’s sensibilities, usually with a fairly extensive ingredient list and some fairly complicated steps thrown in the mix for fun. She says she does this because I do such a good job of making simple dishes. I think it’s just because her primary cooking influences are Puerto Rican, a culinary style that’s ingredient and method heavy.

I’m not complaining, my wife is an exceptional cook. I almost always have a problem tearing myself away from her dishes, and this one is no exception. As a matter of fact, I believe this is the best thing she’s ever graced my palate with and is a recipe I’ll be begging her to make often in the future.

This pork loin is oven roasted in a spicy-sweet glaze of herbs, cloves and brown sugar that to me embodies the flavors and aromas of late fall and winter. The house filled with a wonderful and heady perfume long before the dish was done, but I’ll go to my grave insisting that it was well worth the torturous wait to get to the finished product. It really doesn’t come any better than this.

Note: My wife adapted this from a recipe on the Food Network Website that was courtesy Le Central French Restaurant. The original recipe was for Pork Loin with Mushroom Fricassee, and called for a few additional steps, though I doubt these would have made an earth-shattering difference in the dish. The fricassee called for several varieties of mushrooms we didn’t have, and was skipped for this meal.

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Popularity: 39% [?]

Let it never be said that I am the only preparer of sustenance in this home, or that my wife does not make a mean dinner. I was given the day off from everything yesterday, and though that always comes with a little guilt on my part, there was no guilt in eating this sinfully delicious bit of porcine savoriness.

There are degrees of greatness in any pork dish, and this particular entrée deserves the medal of honor in tastiness and tenderness. If you’ve got a bit of time to indulge your craving for ¨the other white meat¨, you could do much, much worse than giving this a go, I’m sure it will be the star of the table, no matter what the occasion.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

For this issue of YPOM we delve into the deep dark world of leftovers! One of the things tat struck me about dew’s pantry list was that she had “Several cooked, half consumed pork roasts” lying around in her freezer that she usually uses for sandwiches.

While pork sammiches are definitely on the good side of wonderful (especially if they’re pulled), I thought perhaps I’d dive in and see if we couldn’t pull a double-duty dinner out of what would otherwise be a porcine sacrifice to whole grain bread and a few lucky condiments.

I’m not sure what variety of pork roast lives in dew’s freezer, but for this exercise I used a pork blade roast that weighed in at just a bit over 6 pounds. (It was the smallest they had at the market that day.) Said piece of meat was roasted with nothing but salt and pepper, served up gleefully for one meal, then retired to the fridge for three days before this experiment began.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

It is with great pride that I present you with Your Pantry or Mine No.1, Part one of 3 highlighting the contents of the Computer Diva’s pantry. I know several of you have been looking forward to this entry, so I’ll dive right in.

When I got Jess’s pantry list for Your Pantry or Mine No.1, a few things jumped off the page at both my wife and I right away. Part of the original plan was to create at least one full meal and what could be more homey than pork chops and green beans. It’s a staple in our neck of the woods, usually made battered and fried. I know that a lot of people are against anything deep fried, so my wife and I whipped up this version, which is considerably lighter.

I’ve made a few slight modifications from the original list, but both the main course and the side can easily be made with the ingredients as listed, and in the case that adjustments need to be made, I’ll detail them.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Before someone slams me for this, please note that I said “Pulled Pork Barbecue”, and not “Barbecued Pulled Pork”  It has sauce, that’s as close to real BBQ as this recipe gets.

Mmmmm, Barbecued Pulled Pork Sammiches. Just typing the words gets me all teary-eyed and makes my heart palpitate a little. And to think, it all came about because of a terrible kitchen mishap!

Sometimes even the most horrific kitchen disasters can be recovered from. At least I like to tell myself that they can, and in this case at least, it worked.

The other night I decided to try using our tabletop oven to cook up a pork blade roast. The idea was that the little oven would use less power, since the roast nearly filled it to capacity and I wouldn’t have to heat a large volume of air. It’s also a convection unit, and should have cooked the roast in less time than our regular ol’ apartment oven.

Yeah, whatever! After three hours (a full hour longer than it would have taken in our regular oven), the roast still wasn’t done. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Apparently the oven manufacturer and I differ on the meaning of 350°.

I set the timer for another hour and laid on the couch to watch some TV…

And fell fast asleep.

My wife tried to wake me up, but to be quite honest, I’d had a few beers while I waited for the bloody roast to finish, and the combination of a pretty stressful day with Mr. Seat of his Diaper and a few Shiner Bock’s on an empty stomach, I was history.

I was apparently just awake enough to tell her to leave the roast right where it was. Being the wonderful person she is, she listened to me and didn’t disturb the still undercooked roast…

And I found it right there in the oven when I got up at 5:00 AM.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

My local market sells Montreal seasoned pork, chicken, veal and beef for next to nothing, and I buy it up whenever I can.

“Oh no! Pre-seasoned food, how could you Jerry!”

Simple, because it’s incredible. But that’s not why were here. We’re here so that I can share their secret with you, and you can make this yourself.

I’ve never seen Montreal seasoned anything for sale at a market other than my local Market Street. Being a military spouse pretty much guarantees that we’re not going to be here forever, and if I’m going to keep enjoying these absolutely wonderful chops, I’d have to learn to make them myself.

And I did.

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Popularity: 1% [?]