Roasting: Cabbage & Pork


Thanks to Pinterest we stumbled upon a new way to cook cabbage: sliced into large chunks and then roasted. If only we'd found this suggestion this time last year! By the end of May our garden had more cabbage then I knew what to do with. (I'll admit that my "know what to do" was limited to kimchi, coleslaw and soup.) This new recipe is simple and evokes a Brussels sprouts flavor. Check it out here: HERE!

Oliver paired the cabbage with chili-roasted pork (he made the chili paste himself by putting a variety of dried peppers into the blender with a lot spices, chicken stock and garlic). Along with the cabbage and pork we also had sides of sauteed spinach and rice. I'm looking forward to eating it all again tonight! YUM! But before that... I must be heading to the gym before it gets too late.

Weekend Eats

The leftover pork from last week's lettuce wraps was used in two more dinners. Once on a bed of homegrown lettuce with poached eggs. Another time as part of a stir fry with a side of aparagus and half a sweet potato. 


Sunday morning we walked down to the Grant Park Farmer's Market for a loaf of sourdough. Oliver needed it to make his extra amazing breakfast sandwich. Fried egg, homemade mayo, chili sauce (made for the lettuce wraps), homegrown spinach, bacon from YDFM and a few slices tomato (not quite in season yet). I ate every bite! YUM!


Korean inspired dinner from the garden


For dinner tonight we enjoyed homegrown lettuce filled with dry brined, oven roasted, pork topped with Oliver's homemade sauces (sweet chili and ginger scallion). We ate in the backyard because it's quite hot in the house but it's also too early in the year to turn on the AC. Side note: On Facebook I keep seeing these photos of my Chicago and Boston friends bundled up in gloves and hoodies. It's hard to believe it's not already summertime all over the USA. To those people, enjoy the rest of your winter gardens! I believe this is the very last of ours. Onwards to summertime foods! 

Good Eats: Monday & Tuesday

Monday
Breakfast: oatmeal with bananas, coconut & walnuts
Lunch: red beans with a tablespoon of goat cheese
Snack: clementine
Dinner: spinach salad with poached eggs
no gym, no alcohol
Tuesday
Breakfast: oatmeal with bananas, coconut & walnuts
Lunch: broccoli salad (mostly made up by me - so it was a fairly experimental salad)
Snack: half a cup Friendship brand California style cottage cheese
Dinner: Bo ssam lettuce wraps (inspired by this New York Times magazine article*)
500 calories burned on the elliptical, no alcohol


*Oliver is not usually one to follow recipes (especially not recipes from celebrity chefs) but something about this bo ssam from David Chang prompted him to make an exception. Everything was made from scratch except the kimchi. The other two sauces are scallion ginger and spicy bean. The spicy bean was improvised from pureed beans (from lunch), Worchestire and siracha; the recipe called for spicy bean paste - something we did not have on hand. We'll definitely be enjoying this meal for several more nights of dinner! BO SSAM = DELICIOUS!


 

What's for dinner? Stuffed, roasted polano peppers











One bone-in, shoulder roast from YDFM plus ten hours in the slow cooker. Then combine with two poblano peppers, roasted in the oven. Fill said peppers with aforementioned shoulder roast, a bit of rice and little shredded cheese. Top with a homemade chipotle sauce, pair with this week's big pot of (lunch) beans and wall-la! A real food, real healthy, REAL delicious dinner. With leftover meat to boot! 

Crockpot pork butt = tacos & enchiladas

This week was full of south of the border favorites. Oliver slow cooked a shoulder roast overnight and then used the pulled pork to make enchiladas and tacos that kept us fed Monday through Friday. (Don't worry, in the photo to the left I ate two for dinner and saved the remaining two for lunch). For dessert on Thursday we shared a bomber of Great Divide's oak aged chocolate stout.

I've been busy trying to add more items to the etsy shop before black Friday while simultaneously preparing the house for six guests on Thanksgiving (two of them overnight). When not at home I can think of million things I need to do; once home I can only remember a few them. Sigh... oh well, I'm sure it will all get done somehow.


Even though at times I feel overwhelmed by my to do list, I still have not cut corners on the exercise. Tuesday I spent 25 minutes doing an intense work out on the elliptical machine and then followed it up with ten minutes of weights. Thursday I spent only ten minutes on elliptical but made sure to set the machine at  my top pace for the entire duration. After the short blast of cardio I focused on weights for 25 minutes: chest press, dips, bicep curls, squats with 60lbs added to the bar, several triceps exercises and more.

Oliver's Big Pig Butt - it's whats for dinner!

We picked up 4.4lbs of pork butt (butt is actually shoulder - go figure) at YDFM on Tuesday. Last night Oliver coated it in homemade seasoning, wrapped it in plastic wrap and left it overnight in the fridge. This morning he dropped it into our crockpot with a sliced onion. After ten hours of roasting he peeled away the (admittedly giant) chunk of fat and pulled the pork into tender and delicious pieces. $17 of pork sounds like a lot for two people but it will feed us for the rest of the week and into the weekend.

Tonight we ate it as a main dish with sides of yucca con mojo and toasted kale. This weekend it will be stuffed into poblano peppers for dinner, topped with BBQ sauce for lunch and mixed into omelettes for breakfast. Not all in the same day! Today is Thursday; knowing our eating habits my guess is that we'll enjoy this cut of pork once a day for four more days. Seventeen dollars divided by ten individual meals equals $1.70 per meal. That is less then a taco at Moes (read: unbeatable) with the added benefit of knowing where the meat came from and how it was cooked. Hooray for another Chez Oliver dinner time homerun!