Pulled Pork Sandwiches

The crock pot that I bought several months ago has gotten incredible use over the winter, and now Spring is back and busy times come with yard and garden work. I haven't gone and put that slow cooker away for the summer, though! It will be kept just as busy as during the wintertime!  Case in point, today's dinner and tomorrow's leftovers ... pulled pork.

Two Words ... Short Ribs

 

 

Storm Clouds

 

 

 

 

Short Ribs

 

 

 

 

 

Portabellas ... Onions

 

The Butcher's Sauce - Random Recipes

 

 

an ode to orange ... 

 

What's at 'the back of  beyond' in your cupboard  (or freezer, in my case) ? This month's Random Recipe challenge was to reach into the back of your pantry and bring out a box, can, bag, packet, what ever! Next, go to a cookbook and find a recipe that uses that 'forgotten' ingredient. Well, that's clever, Dom!

Sweet Peppers Stuffed with Turkey, Prosciutto, and Cheese

We're having work done on the kitchen this week ... a new floor is will be taking the place of the age-old linoleum with cracks and spots. There will be ceramic tile to replace it! Kitchen construction, however changes my cooking routine. No puttering around out there! Any cooking that gets done is done during the hour that the guys take in the middle of the day for their lunch break ... so I plot during the morning and dash out and around their gear as soon as the truck leaves the dooryard. I mop the counter and pull things out of the cupboards, search for counter top staples among the boxes and bins and put together crockpot meals. The crockpot goes on the dining room table for the  afternoon ... out of the way of tools and elbows and dust.

The guys come back after their lunch and bang and saw and rip and tear and while they do, a nice smell starts to fill the air... something other than wood chips.

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

Indian curry is just what the doctor ordered. It's been much slower around the grey cottage the past couple weeks, as I have been laid up with a severely sprained ankle. My leg up with an ice pack and ankle wrap securely wound snug, I've used the time to research and browse for slow cookers. There is a pork butt and some short ribs that are in need of a slooow braising. But first, I require a chicken curry ... my favorite crockpot dinner.

Ella Brennan Inspired ...

Sometimes you just have to go to a place where the food and the atmosphere pull you in, wrap around you, and make you settle back in total comfort - a place of happy people, happy food, and happy music.  Ella Brennan has played her game on that premise for many, many years! She has been a signature presence in the restaurant business for most of her life, starting young in her brother's New Orleans restaurant as a kitchen grunt and working her way up to menu development and front house management. When his restaurant ran into financial trouble, she took over and as they say, ''the rest is history". She has spent her years creating just the kinds of places of which I speak!

                                                                                                               photo by Steven Forster of the Times-Picayune

Okay, so that's the back story ... let's come forward. She is considered the grande dame of New Orleans haute creole/cajun, has worked with the likes of Prudhomme and Lagasse, has a chain of successful restaurants that the family runs, has stepped back because of age and family factors but still keeps a presence in the New Orleans Restaurant, Commander's Palace. Her awards are many, but when all is said and done, she is really just an excellent hostess with impeccable taste in food and style ... and a great business sense! What a lady!

Venison Sloppy Joes

If you went to public school, you KNOW the Sloppy Joe shuffle. My elementary school had Sloppy Joes on Mondays ... surely a way to use up any burger that had languished in the fridges over the weekend and the burger buns from Friday's hamburger and hotdog lunch ... it was also such an easy recipe that it got the lunch ladies back into their work week with minimal effort.  The Sloppy Joe lunch always had carrot and celery sticks alongside and some sort of canned fruit in those sad-looking plastic dishes behind the glass shelf shields. A carton of milk, napkin, straw, and there you have it ... public school lunch fare!

Crock Pot Mushrooms & Meatballs

Look at this relic! This throwback to the Brady Bunch years was a wedding gift to Silent Bob and I over thirty years ago ... it's been the starting spot for stews, soups, sauces, and boozed up wine and cider, but this weekend, it's getting ready for some football ... and church.