Slow-roasted pork shoulder

Yesterday's all-day cooking adventure was the slow roasted pork shoulder, with a deboned and trussed 8+ lb pork shoulder!  I followed the recipe fairly faithfully, with the exception of slightly reducing the amount of fennel since I'm not a huge fan. (More fennel was requested for the next iteration, however.)  In my oven it took almost exactly 8 hours to get to an internal temperature of 195 degrees, the temperature for pull-apart pork according to the internet.  I think next time I might take it up to 200 or so--parts of it were meltingly tender and shreddable, while a few other areas were a little more solid.  The fat of course was delicious, melting into the meat and making it moist and very flavorful!  There wasn't much orange or onion flavor, however, unless you were eating a piece that had sat on top of the fruit during the cooking.  I didn't mind much, but maybe next time I'll experiment with getting a little more in there?

Leftovers--of which there were many--were delicious for lunch today.

Short rib ragu

I made the short rib ragu yesterday while puttering around the house, and wow.  It came out delicious!  The meat is incredibly meltingly tender, and the sauce is thick and fatty without feeling greasy or heavy.

I made a few modifications out of necessity: my grocery store didn't have porcini mushrooms this time, so I substituted 0.75 oz of assorted dried mushrooms.  I also didn't have Worcestershire sauce, so I added a dash of tamari soy sauce and probably about a teaspoon of anchovy paste.  And I skipped the gremolata (out of laziness).

For the meat, I used about 5.5 lbs of bone-in short ribs.  I would have liked to put in more to increase the final amount of meat, but that's all that would fit in my pot!  Lacking an immersion blender I pureed the sauce in my food processor in two batches.  Finally, I ended up simmering it very gently for about 2 more hours to reduce it, in large part because that's just how long it was until we ate it.

The final product doesn't look like the picture of the recipe; mine is much more like a thick stew.  I can imagine it would be delicious served over some sort of floppy pasta (like bowties) so I'm trying to figure out a good paleo substitution.  Maybe thin blanched zucchini slices next time?  It's delicious in a bowl by itself though so I'm not thinking too hard about it!

Crockpot jambalaya

A fairly quick crockpot soup/stew, from the CFSCC blog...

1. Chop 1 large onion and 1 bell pepper, and saute them with 3 minced cloves of garlic. Put this mixture in your crockpot.
2. Brown 2 chicken breasts, chop into chomp-sized bits, and add to the pot.  You'll also need to cook and chop up some sausage to add--this time, I used half a bag of the loose sausage from our pig.  I think it was about 2 sausages worth. (This sausage is so salty that I didn't add any other salt to the recipe! You may need to if your sausage is more...sedate.)
3. Add 4 c chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes (I drained some of the liquid), and a tablespoon or so of Cajun seasoning (cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika).
4. Cook this on low for 4 hours.
5. Finally, add 1 lb of cooked shrimp (I bought raw ones and sauteed them), 1 c of spinach, and 1 head's worth of cauliflower rice.  Cook it long enough for the spinach to be droopy and everything to be hot--I think I did another hour or so, but you could put it on high instead.

It came out good!  Again I think I skimped on the seasonings and I feel like it needs one more flavor... I'm not sure what.  I'm going to have to compare some other jambalaya recipes.  Also, next time I'll use chicken thighs instead of breasts since I think they'll dry out less in the crockpot.

Beef braised in coconut milk

I made this beef braised in coconut milk and was thoroughly impressed!  It came out tender and flavorful, although I think next time I might actually increase the seasonings some.  It mostly tasted like coconut and beef--delicious, but the other flavors didn't really come through.

1. Preheat the oven to 275, and cut a ~3 lb beef chuck roast into six or so pieces.  Rub them with salt and brown them well in coconut oil in a big (oven safe) Dutch oven.  You'll want to do them in batches, and reserve them on a plate to the side.  I also took a lime out of the fridge now so it would be at room temperature for later juicing.
2. Drop the heat on the Dutch oven to medium and add a chopped onion, 2 minced cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, the zest of one lime, and 2 tablespoons of curry paste.  Saute this for a few minutes to partially cook the onion, scraping the beefy bits off the bottom of the pan.  Then, add a can of coconut milk, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of Thai fish sauce.  Now, you put all your beef (and any juices) back in the pot, cover it up, and put it in the oven.  It took mine 3 hours to get to falling-apart tender.
3. Pull the pieces of beef out and put them on a cutting board to cool slightly.  Meanwhile, put the pot over medium heat and add a chopped bell pepper; simmer for a few minutes to cook it.  Add the juice of that lime, 2 chopped scallions, and 1/4 c of basil cut into thin ribbons.  Chop or shred the beef into bite size pieces and add them back in!

We made cauliflower rice and served it over that--it was perfect.  I''ll definitely be making this again!

Thanksgiving 2010 menu

We usually have a few friends over for Thanksgiving and cook a big meal.  This year, we did it all paleo with dairy!  The menu was:

Appetizers:
* Marinated olives
* Crudite and shrimp with green goddess dip
* Parrano cheese with grape jam (really good!)

Main course:
* Brined turkey
* Mixed mushroom and tarragon gravy

Sides:
* Bourbon walnut sweet potatoes
* Cranberry sauce in port wine with cinnamon
* Smoked paprika broccolini with almonds
* Cauliflower and mushroom stuffing

Dessert:
* Pumpkin pie
* Flourless chocolate cake

Everything came out really good!  We ended up with very few leftovers, and lots of people went back for seconds, which made me happy. :)  It was definitely the best turkey we've ever done--brining is the way to go.  I even had one guest tell me it was the best Thanksgiving food he'd ever had.