Slow cooked Pulled Pork Sandwiches (David via Roberta Gilbert)

Ingredients
Pork Loin, pork shoulder, or pork rump as big as fits into your crock pot
1 can beer - I prefer something dark and tasty, but the polls are still out
1 jar good barbecue sauce - recommend "Dinosaur" brand
(4-6) Exquisite buns cut in half - warmed in oven just before eating

Directions
Put thawed pork into slow cooking crock pot
Pour 1 can beer over meat
Activate crock pot for 3 hours on "Hi"

Drain pork, discard liquid
pull pork apart with two forks
discard bone if meat had one
put pull meat back into crock pot
pour in 1 jar barbecue sauce

Continue to cook on high for 1 more hour
turn to low and keep warm until served

Implements
Slow cooker - crock pot

Comments
Start this meal on a cold morning before heading out for the snow. Finish it up after returning from the slopes as everyone is showering and doing afternoon Yoga.

Serve hot and steaming over oven warmed buns

Serve with crisp salad and cold beer

This recipe serves a varying number of people from 3-8 depending on size of pork cut and appetite of eaters.

Octopus (Edgar)

Ingredients
½ pound octopus/person
2 Tbs tomato paste
1 medium potato /person
½ medium onion/person
Garlic
Capers ½ teaspoon /person
1/8 cup red wine/person
parsley flakes
Bay Leaf
Pepper


Directions
Precook the octopus with a bay leaf and garlic. Cover with water. Bring to a boil
and simmer till soft. The water will take a brownish cast. Test for softness with a
sharp knife. Check by cutting off a piece and tasting it. This could be done a day or
two ahead of time. Store in a refrigerator with the liquid in which it was cooked.
However, you can achieve an excellent result without storing ahead of time.

When the octopus is mostly cooked, peel potatoes – one medium size/person, cut
in chunks and fry in a non-stick frying pan with olive oil till the potatoes are nicely
brown & crisp on all sides. When the potatoes are almost done add an onion & garlic
and continue frying until the onion is softened

Drain the octopus in a colander saving the liquid. Cut the octopus in bite size chunks.
And place these in the pan in which you were frying the potatoes. Add parsley,
more garlic, a small tomato or tomato paste, capers, red wine, and pepper to taste.
Use your imagination. I used the above ingredients because I found some of them
mentioned in other octopus recipes. I think plum sauce may also be a good additive.

Add enough of the reserved liquid to cover all the ingredients in the frying pan.
Cook a bit more till the amount of liquid is somewhat reduced. Taste and cook until
you achieve the consistency that pleases you.

Serve piping hot.



Comments

This dish goes well with a salad with oil & vinegar dressing.
Mark Bittman writes that this is one of the last undiscovered seafood’s in this
country. Most is caught off our shores and then shipped frozen to Europe where
they have the graciousness to send some of it back. The best meal on our last trip
to the Adriatic was octopus and that is what inspired me to cook this as a surprise
dinner for Eva.

If you purchase the octopus frozen, defrost it in the refrigerator or cold water. Octopus freezes
well.

Whiskey-Apple Crumble Pie, Jessie

Ingredients
Pastry for a 9-inch single-crust pie, crimped and chilled in pie plate
(eg, David's Cuisinart recipe, standard flaky pastry crust from Joy of Cooking, or one premade bought from dairy section)

Crumble
¾ cup all-purpose flour
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter
¼ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ cup chopped pecans

Filling
2 pounds tart, crisp apples
3 tbsp unsalted butter
½ cup packed light brown sugar
2 tbsp whiskey or bourbon
½ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
pinch ground nutmeg
pinch salt

To make the crumble:
Combine flour, butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the pecans and refrigerate the crumble until needed. (Oops I added the pecans to the food processor… that came out just fine, too.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 450 F.

Peel, core, and slice the apples about ¼ inch thick. In a large sauté pan over low heat, melt the butter and sauté the apples for 5 minutes, until the outer edges get slightly soft.

In the pan off the heat, measure the sugar, whiskey, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt on top of the apples and toss gently until the apples are evenly coated. Scrape the filling into the bottom crust. Sprinkle the crumble evenly on top.

Bake the pie on a lipped baking sheet for 10 minutes, or until the crust looks dry, blistered, and blonde. Turn the oven down to 350 F and bake for about an hour, until the crumble browns, the apples yield when pierced with a knife, and the juice is bubbling thickly at the edges of the pie.

Cool the pie completely before cutting, at least a few hours. Serve it up at room temperature. Store the pie uncovered at room temperature, up to 3 days.

Implements

Comments

We had a pie contest at work and this was my favorite! It's from Bubby’s Homemade Pies.

Fish Tajine Moroccan Style, From Betsy

Ingredients
Marinade:
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
Juice of one lemon
½ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup fresh parsley
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp. paprika
¼ tsp cumin
cayenne
¾ tsp salt

1 lb. fish
Chez Piggy suggested Monk cut into ¾” chunks, which was not available – I used cod and kept the pieces large so, when they broke up in the “stew” they ended up as bite size.
1 lb. shrimp
2 med onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
2 sweet potatoes, cut into small chunks

2-3 tomatoes, diced
1 green bell pepper
1 red pepper
Pinch of saffron
1 tsp cumin
Juice of one lime
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
More salt, if desired


Directions
Blend marinade into a paste, rub onto fish and shrimp and let sit for half hour while preparing the vegetables.

In a pot that fits all this food, saute the the slow-cooking vegetables (don’t add the fish yet!) about 10 minutes – until par cooked. Then add tomatoes, peppers, spices, lime and tomato paste.

Cook five more minutes. Then, add the fish and cook another 15 minutes or until fish is done, stir once.


Implements

Comments
This recipe is based on a recipe from, “The Chez Piggy Cookbook”, winner of the 1999 cuisine canada. A tajine is a north African clay cooking vessel which has a flat circular base with low sides, and a large dome-shaped cover. Tajine recipes are usually slow cooked. Due to lack of time, and the type of fish I used, slow was not an option, but never the less, mightily delicious! Other differences are that the original recipe calls for 4 lbs of fish and only 1 ½ tsp lemon juice added to Fish – I used juice of one lime. Serve with couscous!