Ingredients:

Rice:
14oz can of coconut milk
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
1 1/4 c water (more at my altitude)
Juice of one lime
2 tsp salt
chopped cilantro

Kabobs:
1 Pineapple skinned and cored then chopped into 1.5 inch chunks.
1 green and 1 red bell pepper (add an orange and a yellow if you love colour)
2 large red onions chopped into 1.5 inch squares … you know… KABOB STYLE
Skewers (I made 16 of them so I used 16 skewers, I figure 3-4 per person)
Limes for garnish.
About 2lbs of pork tenderloin chopped into 1.5 inch cubes. I had ends and pieces left over from trimming for the tournedos of pork thing I made the other day and I had 1 long thin tenderloin left that was too thin to use for the tournedos. (Backread if you want to see that meal. I’ll post a recipe if you want it.)

Dipping sauce / Marinade:
Soy sauce. I use Eden Foods Shoyu because I think it’s great stuff.
Sriracha Sauce (Cock Sauce).
Red pepper flakes.
Ponzu sauce.
Oyster sauce.
Sesame Oil.
Honey.
Garlic.
Ginger.

Ok, I have no idea on measurements here. I added stuff I thought would be good and I kept tasting it. Here is a basic list of what I added. Obviously Shoyu is the base and then a little bit of sesame oil. A good squirt of Sriracha. Several shakes from the spout end of the pepper flakes. A bit of ponzu to taste, I like this instead of vinegar for “zing” in dipping sauces sometimes. A few small dollops of oyster sauce. A large drizzle of honey. Either garlic powder or freshly grated garlic. I use a microplane grater to grate garlic for sauces, its SO much faster and better than a garlic press (I don’t own one) or mincing by hand. Fresh ginger grated with the same microplane grater.

Now I made this batch of marinade/sauce and then I wanted to thin it out so it wouldn’t be too strong as a marinade. I used beer to thin it out and a bit of water. Why? Because I like beer and I think it makes a great marinade. What kind? Well, I was drinking Dales Pale Ale, but I would think that anything would work so long as it’s light in colour.

Reserve 1/4 of the sauce BEFORE you add the beer for a dipping/drizzling sauce.

I pulled the skewers and set them to soak in a pan of water for 2 hours so they won’t catch fire. Make sure you do this, it’s an easy step to forget.

I put the chopped pork in with the beer/marinade sauce and let it sit until it was time to make kabobs. (I dunno. Maybe 1.25 hours? I’d say don’t let it go longer than that because otherwise all you are going to have is sauce flavored pork cubes. I’d say 45 minutes to an hour is best.)

I chopped all the fruit/veggies. and set them aside.

Then I went and had sex. I made sure to wash my hands afterwords.

Now It’s been a while and I started the grill. I used natural hardwood charcoal and a chimney starter. It was about 25 degrees outside, so I got it lit and let it sit, watching the chimney out the back door until I could see the glowing coals inside. I went out and dumped the coals into the bottom of the Weber grill and poured another chimney worth on top of them. Opened the vents so it would light those up as well.

Start the rice here. Sarah made the rice, but it was just all the liquids and salt in the pan, boil, add rice, boil, simmer until done. Turn off burner and let sit until service.
Chop and add cilantro as a garnish. Squeeze extra lime over rice if you want. You can add the cilantro into the rice and fluff it in, but I had 2 requests for no cilantro, so I put it on top and I think it probably was just as good.

At this point I skewered up the kabobs. I try to put the pineapple next to the pork because… well, I like how it tastes together and I think the juice from the pineapple helps to flavor the pork. Skewer them up and put them in a pan or on a baking sheet.
I checked the grill to make sure it’s hot. It was, so I pulled the kabobs outside and put 1/2 of them on the grill. I would put all of them on but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the space.
While the kabobs were cooking I sliced up limes for garnish and I turned on the oven broiler to high and moved the rack down to the middle.
Once the kabobs were 3/4 done I pulled them to a new clean baking sheet and set them aside. Then I put the rest of the kabobs on the grill.
I cooked this set of kabobs until they were about 3/4 done and then pulled them. Basically you want to see charring on your pineapple/onions/peppers and you don’t want to over cook the pork.
I combine the kabobs on the baking sheet and put them in the oven. They will finish cooking while I’m plating everything, opening the wine and setting the table.

Now I put the rice on plates, add cilantro on top, put limes on the side for garnish, squeeze lime over the rice for fresh lime taste, put out the dipping sauce on the table and…. then I pull out the kabobs, put them on the plates and yell “FOOD, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Tags: coconut, kabobs, lime, pineapple, Pork, rice

Ridiculous name aside, if you want something that that will complete the bacon + sausage + spicy trifecta, these are the turds for you. Under normal circumstances, these are to be cooked low & slow on the smoker, which is fine if you’ve got one. However, I don’t. So I had to adjust. Here’s what you need.
Ingredients:

Thick-sliced bacon
Chorizo sausage
Large jalapeno peppers
Toothpicks

That’s it. It’s pretty much 1 piece of bacon per pepper, and then a couple tablespoons worth of chorizo to stuff in there. Eyeball it. Any leftovers on anything? Any of the above (aside from the toothpicks) works great in meatloaf. Easy-peasy.

First step is to deseed the jalapenos and take the pith out of it, which (to please the spice averse) will remove most of the spice from the peppers. Pack the inside of the pepper with chorizo, and wrap that sucker in bacon. Secure it with a toothpick. It should look a decent amount like this:

It's got bacon, so everyone should love this.

Now, in the interest of science, I tried a couple different things with these. For starters, I figured I’d just stick ‘em under the broiler and rotate them a few times so each side get’s an equal scorch. I gave it about 90 seconds per side, and made a couple passes per side to make sure the sausage would get fully cooked. They came out looking a lot like this:

Mr. Snowman approves.

I thought that was a little too scorched for my taste, so I thought I’d try another version that would emulate the slow-cooking of a smoker a little closer. I set the oven at about 250 degrees, and popped in a few more for about an hour and a half to see what would happen. What happened was this:

The bacon still had a little give to it, the pepper was nice and soft after having all the chorizo fat render into it, and the sausage was fully cooked. But I still missed that little hint of char. Back under the broiler they went! But just for a heartbeat – don’t want to overdo it, just sear it a little bit. That made them come out nice and hot, with all the tastes melded together just how I wanted ‘em.

Char! Softness! Heat! Magic! Bacon!

Enjoy your turds. These will beat the bejesus out of those boring frozen chicken wings that you always see at Superbowl parties and such. It takes a lot more time, but live a little.

If you have an addictive personality, avoid this recipe.
Seriously, its the culinary equivalent of crack.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb pork sausage
1/4 lb ham
1/4 lb bacon
5 cans great northern beans
4 stalks celery, diced
3 carrots, diced
1 med. white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T butter
3 1/2 C chicken stock
salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Start by melting the butter in a 4 quart pot over medium heat.  Once it starts to brown a bit, add the garlic, onion, and bacon.  Cook until the onions start to become translucent, then add the carrots, celery and the sausage.  Mix everything up and put the lid on.  Grab your food processor and put 2 cans of the beans, drained and rinsed, in it.  Set on puree and whirl till – you guessed it – pureed.  Add the machined beans to the pot and mix them in with their new friends. Put the lid back on for a few minutes to let everything get hot.  Next, add the rest of the beans, the ham, and the stock to the pot and replace the lid.  Cook for another 20 minutes on med-high heat.  Check it often, stir each time you check.  Taste it as you go, you’ll probably find that it wont need much seasoning.  If you want to add anything, try some cumin, coriander, and sage.  All three add an earthy tone that works well with the pork.  In the pic above, I topped mine off with a bit of Sriracha.  Makes a ton, so be prepared to take some to work the next day (or 5).

ejnoy,
-E

Tags: bacon, beans, Pork, sausage, Soup

This is one of those “I’ve Never Made This Before” kinds of things. I knew I’d always wanted to give sausage gravy a shot – but I didn’t want to risk the heart attack of having an entire pan to eat. Some family coming in from out of town this weekend provided me the excuse.

Sausage gravy is one of those “the fatter the better” sauces. So don’t imagine that you can buy the reduced-fat sausage and skim milk and have this work out well. It’s gotta be fatty. Work it off later, tons-of-fun. This is good stuff, and I was surprised at how easy it was to make.

Ingredients:

12oz. breakfast sausage (I used Jimmy Dean)
2T all-purpose flour
2C milk (I used 2%, whole milk would be better)
Fresh ground black pepper
Crushed red pepper flakes

Hopefully you have a cast iron skillet. Heat that sucker up and cook your sausage until it’s no longer pink. Make sure the meat breaks down to tiny pieces about the size of a pea or smaller. After that, powder the flour sausage crumbles and stir until the flour is incorporated with the meat. Do not skim the fat from the pan.

Add your milk and simmer. Add pepper to taste – I like it nice and hot. Other hot sauce will work as well – Texas Pete’s or Cholula would be a great addition. In approximately 5 minutes, you should have the consistency of gravy about correct – you should be able to “paint” a line down the center of the pan when you pull your spatula or tool of choice through the skillet.

Serve over biscuits, or the real overachievers will love this gravy over hash browned potatoes with cheese and eggs, skillet style. Or just pour it into a bag, attach an IV and gravy your way into congestive heart failure. (Not recommended.)

Tags: biscuits, breakfast, flour, gravy, Hot Sauce, sausage, skillet

I love meatloaf. Done poorly, it’s dry, tasteless, and as boring as it looks. Done well, it’s rich, moist, and full of flavor – and still completely boring looking. No matter, though – even though it’s not going to win any beauty contests, this meatloaf is a good change of pace from your normal meat mound and has that magical ingredient that makes everything better. Bacon.

1.5 lbs ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1/2 lb fresh chorizo, casing removed (preferably not the pre-packaged kind)
4-5 slices of medium-thickness bacon
Various meatloaf spices/sauces to taste

Under normal circumstances, my meatloaf is a mixture of ground beef and pork, with random spices and sauces thrown into the mix. This value-added meatloaf was a one-off, a challenge if you will, to see if I could up the ante. It was upped, believe you me. In a large bowl, mix together the beef, pork and chorizo. Chances are it’ll take on a reddish hue, the color of the chorizo dominating over the other two meats. That’s cool.

From there, I add my stable of meatloaf must-haves, those being a palmful of breadcrumbs, a healthy amount of worcestershire sauce, some steak sauce, maybe a little ketchup. Follow with S&P and a little seasoning salts and combine. All of this is completely up to personal taste, so don’t feel obligated to stick with any of my choices here.

After mounding your meat, I like to cook my mound to reduce cleanup. A sheetpan covered with tinfoil is one good way to keep clean, but putting a cooling rack above the pan lets the meat cook out a good amount of fat without wallowing in it. This helps it be about as healthy as a meatloaf can be. Mound your loaf on the rack, and drape your bacon slices over the loaf. I usually use a ketchup glaze but bacon is just…well, bacon. What doesn’t it help?

After an hour or so in the oven at 350 degrees, make sure the internal temperature of your mound is up to about 160 degrees before serving. Plate with roasted red potatoes and green beans, and enjoy. Rachael Ray fans and detractors know that Ms. Ray always calls nutmeg “that thing that makes you go ‘hmmmm,’” but here, that chorizo will make you wonder what the hell is up with this meatloaf – it’s different, but good.

Tags: bacon, Beef, chorizo, meatloaf, meatmound, Pork