Slow-Cooked Green Chile Stew

As you know if you've read my blog for a while, we are a pork family. I have been successful with changing a lot of food habits in my family. I have started using honey and sorghum instead of granulated sugar, olive oil instead of butter and brown rice flour instead of wheat flour. As for proteins I like a varied diet. I think eating anything in large amounts isn't great, but I also don't think that eating pork and beef aren't bad for you either. According to my doctor I have some of the best cholesterol levels he has seen and I eat red meat 2-3 times a week. However, I also prepare a large amount of turkey, fish and chicken. Pork is a meat that my husband loves. In any form be it bacon, tenderloin or roast he devours it. So do my two boys. Cooking as many things from scratch as I can is important to me and one of my favorite meals to make is stew. A great stew can make even a poor cut of meat delicious and can feed my family for multiple meals. This week I tried a new recipe for Green Chile Stew from the January/February 2013 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 14 ingredients. It takes 2 hours and 55 minutes of total time, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 8 servings. I did make a number of changes to this recipe. First I made my own chicken broth which I do not salt. Instead I salt the dish once it's done to reduce the total amount of sodium in my dishes. Second I cubed my pork instead of dicing it. I was unable to find a 3 pound roast, so I bought two smaller roasts and cut them into small cubes. I find dicing meat to be a nuisance and I prefer my meat to have larger pieces in soups and stews. Finally, I changed the overall cooking time. The recipe only cooks the pork for slightly over an hour. To me that isn't long enough to produce a great flavor. Instead I added 8 cups of chicken broth to the pork and allowed it to cook for an hour, then added the hominy and let it cook for another hour. Then I added the potatoes and let it cook for a final 40 minutes. The end result was flavorful and perfect. Since I eat gluten free I served the stew with corn tortillas instead of flour.

If I had made this just for adults I would have made it spicier by leaving in the seeds on the peppers. Since I was cooking for my kids I seeded the peppers. My husband's only complaint was that it wasn't spicy enough, but that is normal since I have to keep my kids tastes in mind when I cook for our entire family. Make sure to add salt at the end, especially if you are using low sodium stock or make your own. I would suggest using additional chicken stock instead of the water suggested in the second part of the recipe. The water would make the soup less flavorful.

For the recipe go to Green Chile Stew.

Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja

I made the mistake of going grocery shopping today. Emphasis on the word mistake. I should have known that it would be crazy since it's the weekend before Thanksgiving. To make matters worse the grocery store that I chose to shop at was out of everything and had the genius idea of stocking in the middle of a busy shopping day. Not the brightest idea. Add unpleasant shoppers and two screaming children and I think that I am staying inside my house the rest of the week. Don't get me wrong I love cooking and visiting family during the holidays. What I don't enjoy is the delightful attitude that people seem to acquire during this time of year. The worst seems to come out in particular at the sample stands, a little old lady literally pushed my oldest son out of the way in an attempt to get the last sample. Luckily the shopping part is over and now I can focus on the cooking, which I love. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving this year since my two boys will both be old enough to help me in the kitchen. I'm going to prep a lot of things the day before so I can just enjoy spending time with my children while they are still young enough to want to spend time with me. They are growing up way too fast and before I know it they will be all grown-up. So this year I am going to make sure to enjoy the little things and not stress out about everything being perfect. Cooking with my oldest isn't something that I do just during the holidays. Last week my son and I prepared a new recipe for Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja from the March issue of the Food Network Magazine, which with minimal prep is a great way to have kids help in the kitchen.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 8 hours of cooking plus 15 minutes of prep and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. Obviously my six-year-old is too small to do most cutting, so he had the job of adding everything to the crockpot. I chose to leave all the seeds in the jalapeno, my two boys are currently in stages where they actually like spicy foods so I am enjoying it while it lasts. I am relatively picky about ketchup and will only use brands made with real sugar. The flavor is better and I try to not add a lot of high fructose corn syrup into my family's diet. I don't use flank steak frequently, but I did for this recipe. After making this dish I will definitely buy this cut again, it was so much more tender than the chuck roasts I have been buying. Instead of serving over white rice I served this dish over brown rice. As I have stated previously we rarely eat white rice and my two boys actually now prefer the taste of brown rice. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The flank steak in this recipe turned out delicious. This isn't a cut I normally purchase, but after this recipe I am hooked. It was so tender and much better than the chuck round roasts that most crockpot recipes rely upon. The unseeded jalapeno lent flavor, but wasn't too spicy for my two boys. Overall, a slow cooker recipe that my whole family enjoyed that was easy enough for my six-year-old to help me with.

For the recipe go to Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja.

Barbecue-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Salad

My family loves pork. I'm pretty sure my husband could be a perfect vegetarian, as long as he could eat pork. I think that he needs to invent a term for this, maybe porcinatarian. He would be a perfect poster child for this movement. Given my family's love of everything pork related I have learned to make a large number of pork recipes. Some have turned out great, like any type of pork taco, others such as a curried pork tenderloin recipe I tried last year where pretty horrible. Bacon is always a popular option. If I mention a dish includes bacon my family will come running to the table. There is one other food that my two boys in particular absolutely love, sweet peppers. My oldest has been known to eat an entire red pepper like an apples, he loves them. Recently, as I was looking through the May issue of Woman's Day magazine I came across a recipe for Barbecue-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Salad, which looked delicious and low in fat.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes a total of 30 minutes, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of these ingredients and I made no ingredient modifications. I did run out of ancho chili powder, so I used a combination of ancho and chipotle chili powder. Since I was making this recipe for my children, I made two different salsas. In one I used jalapeno and in the other I did not. I do this with a lot of recipes, make a slight modification for the part of the servings for my kids. That way we are still all eating the same dish, just with a milder version for the younger tastebuds. My tenderloin took exactly 18 minutes to cook and then 5 minutes of rest. I let my salsa sit in the fridge for an hour. I would definitely recommend letting the salsa sit in the fridge and chill, it enhances the flavor. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I was really impressed with this recipe. The combination of sweet and spicy was delicious and even my two boys loved the pineapple salad. I like how the pork is simply seasoned, without a needless amount of extra spices. I would suggest that if you don't like a lot of spice reducing the amount of chili powder. Since my family tried to eat low-fat dinners most of the week, I really like that this recipe only has 8 grams of fat and 37 grams of protein. Overall, a very easy and nutritious dinner recipe.

For the recipe go to Barbecue-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin.

Everyday Food Sauteed Zucchini, Peppers, and Tomatoes

I love really simple recipes. Sometimes the best dishes have few ingredients, letting the flavors shine through. I hate when vegetable dishes are smothered in too much cheese or have 20 ingredients virtually masking the actual taste of the vegetables. My favorite salads are basically vegetables, a little cheese and a light dressing, simple and delicious. This fall when Borders went out of business they had all their magazines on clearance and I picked up a copy of Everyday Food's summer special. I've used a number of the recipes and one that I have particularly liked is the recipe for Sauteed Zucchini, Peppers, and Tomatoes, which is simple, light and delicious.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes approximately 15 minutes to prep and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no recipe substitutions. I used cherry tomatoes since they are always easier to find than grape tomatoes. Instead of serving the vegetables on their own I stirred them into couscous and served it as a side dish. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I really liked the way this recipe tasted when stirred into couscous. By itself it was a little too soggy for my tastes., but it was great with couscous. The exact recipe isn't on-line, but the recipe that is available is almost identical except it lacks fresh oregano. This recipe is a great way to add more fresh vegetables into your diet and very easy to prepare.

For the recipe go to Sauteed Zucchini, Peppers, and Tomatoes.