Daily Express
As mentioned earlier I decided to prepare some thinly sliced pork chops that we bought on sale last weekend. We also bought half a small pineapple and I was planning to use that too. Here is a look at those very thin chops. Thinly sliced meat is very popular here in Mexico.
Here are those thinly sliced pork chops we ate
I ended up removing the flesh from the pineapple husk and chopping it roughly. I mixed it with some quartered mushrooms, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic glaze, cumin, salt and pepper. I oven-baked the chops in the pineapple mix on a bed made with pieces of pineapple husk. Here is a picture of the dish as it came out of the oven.
The dish coming out of the oven
The dish turned out fantastic and I will post the recipe in the coming weeks. I prepared some sweet potatoes purée to go with it as it had been ages that we had some. All in all a great meal! Now I need to go take a nap…
Here is the plated dish ready to eat
Lucito
I am about to go to the kitchen to prepare the meal and I am starving. I have been working in the office preparing various proposals since early this morning and I have yet to take a 5 minute break, so I feel understandably lightheaded.
When I got up I thawed some of those thinly sliced pork chops we bought on sale last weekend. I plan to bake them with some fresh pineapple we bought at the same time. I am not sure exactly yet how I will do that, and I will let whatever inspiration that hits me when I actually start cooking take over.
If it turns out well I will post the results later this week. Wish me luck…
Lucito
We have been doing house chores since around 7am today and it is now 4pm. We do not have time or the inclination to do anything in the kitchen so it wil be the leftover pizza from Saturday, at least the few slices that the Boyz did not steal from us. We'll see about preparing something interesting tomorrow.
Lucito
As mentioned in yesterday's Daily Express, I prepared some ribs with an oriental-influenced marinade. They turned out incredibly good so I will post the recipe later this week as they are worth sharing. Here is a picture to wet you appetite.
Lucito
As mentioned yesterday we found some great pork meat on sale and bought various cuts enough to make 7-8 meals. What we will have today is deboned pork rib halves that looked very tasty.
Deboned Pork Rib Halves
We only paid around MN$55 a Kg for them (~US$1.90 a pound) and they look and feel very juicy. I am not sure how I will cook them, as I would love cooking them on the barbecue, but around here it is very difficult to plan this ahead of time as it might be raining by the time we are ready to eat, or it might be too windy. We’ll see what happens and depending on the weather or my mood I will either do them outside as planned or in the oven.
The ribs in the marinade.
As it is somewhat hot these days I wanted to prepare them in a lighter way so I prepared a marinade inspired by the high temperature. It is based on tangerine juice, with some “piloncillo” (raw cane sugar cones reconstituted in boiling water to form a heavy syrup reminiscent of molasses), Sambal Olek (oriental chili paste), soy sauce, sesame oil, a roughly pealed piece of fresh ginger, powdered “chile ancho” and citric zests, salt and pepper with lime zest. The result as a somewhat sweetish marinade with a bit of bite to it. Perfect for the weather. The meat is currently marinating in the refrigerator and in a few hours I will just turnover the meat in it so it is well marinated and whenever it is time I will decide how to cook it and what garnishes I will make.
If the results are great I will post the full recipe in the coming weeks…
Lucito
For all of you who were wondering, the pizza from yesterday turned out stunning. We ate about a third of it and the leftovers are in the refrigerator for tomorrows breakfast, that is if the Boyz don’t beg for it for their supper tonight. It is difficult to resist their pleas. Here is a photo of the results…
Homemade Pizza - Normita's half on the left and mine on the right!
As you can see Normita’s half has an hybrid half vegetarian and half salami slice in the middle as I was sure she would want to steal from my side. I was right!
Lucito
We had not been out food shopping for a few weeks as we were very busy working here at the office. This morning we really needed to go as we were running out of everything and even the Boyz were out of doggy treats. After doing our morning chores we went out and we returned with a truck full of stuff and we finally had breakfast around 1:30pm. We were both starving and exhausted and the weather down the hill where we live was very hot with a sun beating on our heads. Luckily up here on the hill it is fresher and more comfortable. Normita is currently taking a nap, and in a few hours I will prepare something simple as I am not in the mood to cook anything complicated.
Luckily I had some frozen balls of pizza dough in the freezer that I made a month or two ago and they are thawing now and later I will prepare some nice homemade pizza. Normita’s half will be vegetarian with a bed of fresh spinach as a base with some red sweet peppers, mushrooms, onions, basil from our potted reserve and whatever other veggies I will find. My half will be simpler with some salami, mushrooms, and sweet pepper.
The next time I prepare some dough I will publish the full pictorial recipe, as it is very simple and yield enough to make 4 medium-sized pizzas. I freeze what I do not use the day I make the dough and it is very useful when you want to prepare something quick and simple. Besides pizza I have also done some “calzones” with it, roll it with some olive oil, garlic, fresh basil and cheese to make a stunning bread, and even made some “empanadas” with my homemade spaghetti sauce and another time with some sauteed fresh “chorizo de Toluca” that Normita bought while visiting Toluca with her parents. It is very versatile and a staple in our kitchen. More on that when I prepare the next batch, which should be in a week or two…
We found some great pork on a great sale this morning and have enough for 6-7 meals. So tomorrow I will prepare something “Porky”, but I have yet to decide what. Stay tuned…
Lucito
Today Normita prepared a “Quick” version of he great “Pozole Rojo de Jalisco”. We will have enough food with this for today and tomorrow and the boyz, our huge Bouvier de Flanders dogs Uriel (Normita’s boy, ~80Kg) and Bacchus (my boy, ~70 Kg), should have enough leftover broth to enjoy some with their dry food tomorrow night.
Since our regular pozole recipe is our all time favorite recipe based on the number of visits here on the site, we documented this quick version that we normally enjoy at least once or twice a month. It is simplified version made with only chicken and it easy to prepare and stunningly tasty. It is one of Normita’s best recipes. We will post the full pictorial and recipe of this version in the coming days, so lookout pozole fans.
Lucito
In this first entry of the “Daily Express” I prepared something very quick. For the past few days we have been frenetically working to give a new look for both this blog and the main site. We were supposed to go food shopping yesterday as we normally do, but with both of us concentrating on finishing this work (Normita on the main site which should be uploading as I write this, and me on the blog) we decided to finish the work instead and leave the shopping for later in the week.
I had a look at what we had in the refrigerator early this morning and found out I had a bit of frozen medium-sized cooked shrimps, and found that we still had half a pot of Mexican-style rice Normita prepared yesterday. She had made it with a bit of frozen veggies (peas, carrots, corn) and used some sushi rice as we had an old bag of it we recently found hidden in the back of the larder, and we want to use it before using fresher stuff. Due to the type of rice it is a bit stickier than normal, but it is very tasty indeed.
Quick and easy stir fry
About an hour before lunch I threw the frozen shrimps in a bowl of water to thaw them and about 10 minutes before we wanted to eat I went to the kitchen. I took out my trusty wok and stir fried the leftover rice in a bit of soy oil. I then added some May Ploy oriental sweet chili sauce, some soy sauce, a big handful of crushed nuts and tossed in the shrimps.
It turned out to be so tasty that we ended up finishing even the portion we were planning to give to the dogs tonight… It’s their lost!
Lucito
As of today we will be launching a new feature. It is called the “Daily Express”. It is not really a post about specific recipes, but more of a log of what we cook here at home on a daily basis. We tend to recycle a lot and do lots of things with leftovers. There are many reasons for this, but it is mainly because I hate throwing anything away, and ever more throwing away food.
In this way we can both record what we do in the kitchen on a daily basis, and also help stimulate and inspire people to create something with what they have at home instead of eating junk food or buying prepared food all the time. During the week I normally spend less that 10-15 minutes to prepare our main meal of the day, which we normally eat at 4pm more or less the customary time (2pm to 4pm) for the main meal here. Besides that meal we normally have breakfast around 10am and have a snack in the evening if we get hungry. On weekends, if times permits, we normally try to prepare something a bit more elaborate. We rarely eat out as we work at home unless we go to town on business and come back too late or too tired to cook.
Enjoy these daily tips and give us some feedback if you have any suggestions.
Lucito