Tag: Fish/shellfish-free

So, here’s the thing.  Most of you will be able to make this recipe without making the bonus recipe for Roasted Green Tomatillo Salsa, because you’ll be able to buy safe canned green tomatillo salsa at the grocery store. With the corn allergy, I can’t because it’ll have citric acid or some other corny evil thing in it. I do have some green tomatillo salsa I canned myself earlier in the summer, but since I would end up using it all up for this one dish, and since my local grocery store had tomatillos this week, I made up a fresh batch for this recipe.  You’ll also need a 4 quart or larger crock pot for this recipe and a food processor or a blender if you’re making the salsa.

Spicy Green Pork Amazing (a.k.a. Pork Chile Verde)

• 3 1/2 – 4 pounds of boneless pork butt, cut into cubed pieces about 1-2″ inches square and trimmed of fat or left whole in one piece (see your options below).
• 2 small onions or 1 medium onion, diced into half inch square pieces
• 4 stalks of celery, cut into half inch pieces
• 1 Italian pepper or 1 green bell pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded and chopped into half inch pieces

  

• 3 cups of green tomatillo salsa, either from the grocery store or using the recipe below
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
• salt to taste when you have finished cooking

If you have safe green tomatillo salsa you can buy, skip past this next part to the ♦ symbol below.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

This recipe is based on the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa from The Barnyard Bistro blog, but I’ve messed with it a bit and altered it for the purposes of this recipe.

• 2 pounds of tomatillos, husked and washed
• 2 medium onions, chopped into about half to one inch pieces
• 2 Serrano chile peppers, de-stemmed and de-seeded and cut into halves or quarters
• 4 cloves of garlic, trimmed of the stem end
• 1/2 cup of tightly packed cilantro, washed and chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/3 of a cup of water.

Place the tomatillos, the onions, the Serranos and the garlic on a large baking sheet or roasting pan that’s safe for the broiler.

Turn your broiler to 500° and broil until the tomatillos are an olive green color and have browned. You may hear some of them pop, it’s okay.

Once the tomatillos are done, put the roasted ingredients in a blender or food processor as well as any juices that have cooked out into your pan, making sure that you’ve de-glazed any of the good tasty browned bits too.  Add the cilantro, the salt and the water, and process. You might have to do this in batches, depending on the size of your blender or food processor.  I did.  I used a large bowl hold the batches and then mixed it altogether at the end.  This makes about 4 cups of salsa, so you’ll have enough for the recipe and some to just eat as well.

 ♦  Now that we have our safe salsa, or you’ve gotten some from the grocery store, it’s time to go onto the pork. Depending on your inclination, you can use the pork all in one piece and shred it later when it’s cooked, or you can cut into pieces about 1-2″ inches square and trim off the extra fat as you go. I cubed and trimmed my pork and removed about half a cup of extra fat. 

On the bottom of your crock pot, place the celery and onions that you’ve cut into half inch pieces. Place either the whole piece or the cubed and trimmed pieces of boneless pork butt in the crock pot on top of the celery and onion. Place the chopped Italian or bell pepper on top of the pork.

In a bowl, add the green tomatillo salsa, the minced garlic, the cumin, the dried oregano, the ground black pepper, and the lemon juice. and mix it thoroughly. Pour the mixture over the pork, making sure to scrape the bowl well, and get every bit into the crock pot. I also use a spatula to push the mixture down through the pork pieces if you have cubed the pork. If you like less sauce, you can cut the salsa back by a cup, but I like mine with a lot.

Put the lid on your crock pot, and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to 5 hours.

You can serve this with safe for you tortillas (there’s a lot of recipes out there) and other fixings, or you can serve it over rice. Also, if you have a dairy free sour cream replacement product you can use, that would be great as a garnish.

Enjoy!

So, if you’ve got leftover cranberries in the freezer from Turkey Day, this is a great way to use them up.  And it doesn’t involve turkey, which you’re probably heartily sick of at this point. I couldn’t resist adding a bit of spice to this recipe, but it’s minimal in the finished product. If spice bothers you, leave the Red Fresno pepper out of the cranberry sauce.  If you like it hotter, use a habanero.

Spicy Red Wine Cranberry Crusted Pork Loin

Serves about 4.

• 1 cup of red wine
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 Red Fresno chile pepper, de-stemmed, seeded, and minced.
• 1 12 ounce bag of cranberries, either fresh or frozen
• 1 1-2 pound pork loin

Preheat your oven to 400°F.  Using an oil mister, or a bit of oil and a paper towel, grease a sheet pan.

Wash the cranberries and pick out the soft, crushed and/or bad ones. In a small non-reactive sauce pan, add the wine, brown sugar, and minced Red Fresno chile pepper, and bring it to a boil.  Once the wine, brown sugar, and chile pepper are boiling, add the cranberries and let it come back to a boil.  Reduce to the heat to medium and boil gently for 10 minutes.  Basically you’re making red wine cranberry sauce with some chile in it.  It’s really good by itself, just saying.

Once you’ve finished the sauce, spread out a little bit of it on the pan, to match the general length and width of your pork loin, so that your pork loin will be resting in a bed of the cranberries.

Place the pork loin on top of the cranberries, so that if there is a fat layer on the pork loin that the layer rests on the bed of cranberries (or remove it), and then cover the pork loin with the remaining cranberries. You’ll note I have a probe thermometer in the pork loin. It’s one of the best kitchen tools I ever bought, no more overcooked meat.

Put the pork loin in the oven.  I set the probe thermometer for an internal temp of 161°F, which is what the FDA says is safe. The actual cooking time was about 45 minutes, but this may vary depending on the size of your pork loin and how well, or not, your oven works.  

Let it rest a couple of minutes and then slice it up and serve with some of the cranberries and drippings.  It’s really yummy!