Pork Tacos with Slaw and Spicy Pepitas

Wow. I just don't have the energy to type a whole lot about this recipe. But I do love it. It was published in Cooking Light in October 2008.

First, the recipe for the pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds):

Ingredients
1 cup unsalted pumpkinseed kernels
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground ancho or chipotle chile pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Preparation
1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Heat a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add kernels to pan; cook 10 minutes [Carrina's note: 10 minutes was waaaaay too long - more like 4] or until browned, stirring frequently [rule of thumb for how long to toast (while stirring constantly): once 4 or 5 seeds have popped - you'll hear it and they'll look flat and burned - the rest will be nicely puffed]. Remove from pan; cool completely. Makes 1 cup.
So here's a picture of the pumpkin seeds before they've puffed up:

And here they are after they've been puffed! They crunch really nicely. It's a really quick process, and just requires being vigilant for about 4 minutes (especially since the spice coating makes it hard to see if they're burning - you just have go by how puffed they are).

Now, the recipe for the tacos:

Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ancho or chipotle chile pepper
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 pound boneless center-cut loin pork chops (about 1/2 inch thick)
Cooking spray
1/4 cup fresh lime juice, divided
1/2 cup sliced red bell pepper
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions
1 tablespoon minced jalapeño pepper
1/2 (16-ounce) package coleslaw (about 3 cups)
12 (6-inch) white or yellow corn tortillas
6 tablespoons light sour cream
6 tablespoons Spicy Pepitas

Preparation
1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a small bowl. Lightly coat pork with cooking spray; rub spice mixture over both sides of pork. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.
2. Preheat grill [Carrina's note: or broiler. If broiler, move the rack up close, but not so close that it almost touches. For my oven, this means the second notch from the top].
3. Place pork on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 1 minute on each side or until done. Cut pork into 1/4-inch slices. Combine pork and 2 tablespoons juice in a medium bowl, tossing to coat.
4. Combine the remaining 2 tablespoons juice, bell pepper, onions, jalapeño, and coleslaw in a large bowl, tossing well.

5. Heat a nonstick griddle over medium heat. Coat griddle with cooking spray. Arrange 6 tortillas in a single layer; cook 1 minute on each side or until lightly browned. Repeat procedure with cooking spray and remaining 6 tortillas. Divide pork mixture evenly among tortillas; top each tortilla with 2 tablespoons coleslaw mixture, 1 1/2 teaspoons sour cream, and 1 1/2 teaspoons Spicy Pepitas.

The picture below is from when we used up the leftover coleslaw mixture for lunch the next day. We added some avocado (in retrospect, really not necessary since the coleslaw and sour cream provide more than enough creamy texture), and I added spicy peanut sauce from Fire on the Mountain (left) to my taco.

Rhubarb Chutney

I made this recipe last summer. I remember it well because it was the weekend in July when I had just purchased an ice cream maker and was preparing to freeze the canister so I could get started with this cherry gelato recipe - and my freezer failed. It turned out that it had been melting down for a while, and the hot-as-heck weather that weekend just accelerated the liquification process. All this is just to say that I didn't trust my frozen rhubarb chutney, because it had been sitting in the door shelf of the freezer and sat there, never really freezing, for a couple of weeks. We had it once on the day I made it, but I ended up throwing the rest out.

I'm determined that this year will be different! We had this stuff over lamb last summer. Last night, I made it again and we had it over chicken breasts. I've got some lamb shanks in the fridge, and we will put the chutney to good use again with them tonight.

This recipe makes me think of Easter eggs, for two reasons: the color (bright pink - no lamb accompaniment has the right to exhibit such a flashy hue) and the smell (hot vinegar - you just don't smell that except when dyeing eggs at Easter).

I will say that although the recipe tells you to cook the rhubarb, green onions, and currants for only 4 minutes (before the rhubarb falls apart), you will also get fine results if you choose to just have the stuff simmer on the stove forever while you do other things, treating the chutney as more of a jam. That's what I did last summer, and I remember us saying, "Ooh, this is good." However, you do end up with a more beautiful and chunky mixture if you stop cooking when the recipe tells you to - that's how I did it this time.

I got the recipe from Epicurious - originally published in Bon Appetit in April 2003. A couple of modifications:
-It calls for 1 3/4 pounds rhubarb. This year, I only had three (long and slender) stalks, totalling about a pound, so I cut back on all the other ingredients a bit. The measurements seem very flexible.
- It calls for 1/2 teaspoon "(scant) ground cardamom." I love cardamom, and I had smoky black cardamom pods (further discussed in this posting) just burning a hole in my spice cabinet, so I threw a black cardamom pod into the mixture and discarded it when I took out the cinnamon stick. Here's a picture of the black cardamom. Just imagine a lovely smoky smell.


-Oh, also - you might notice in the picture below that my cinnamon stick is an Andre the Giant among its peers. I got it from one of those bags in the Hispanic foods section at the grocery store. They are very economical and seem to work well for savory foods that call for a little cinnamon flavor. Normally they have a heavenly scent of Mexican cinnamon, although this one seemed a little dried out at the beginning.

So, the recipe.

Ingredients:
-1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
-1/2 cup red wine vinegar (you could also use apple cider vinegar - I looked at another recipe, very similar to this one, that uses apple cider vinegar instead)
-1 1/2 cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon (scant) ground cardamom
4 1/2 cups coarsely chopped rhubarb (from 1 3/4 pounds rhubarb)
3/4 cup dried currants
4 green onions, chopped

Stir first 6 ingredients in heavy large saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture boils.

Add rhubarb, currants, and green onions; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until rhubarb is tender but not falling apart, about 4 minutes.

Cool to room temperature. Discard cinnamon. Cover and refrigerate chutney until cold, at least 1 hour. [Carrina's note: or if you are impatient, just spoon out whatever portion you are going to use right away into a separate container, and stick it into the freezer until it is sufficiently jelly-fied for your taste. I think I put ours - about 1 cup's worth - in the freezer for about 15 minutes. It was fine.]

(Can be made up to 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.) Bring to room temperature before serving.

The chicken is slightly overexposed here, but you can still see the beautiful pink of the chutney.

Spumoni! (from Staccato Gelato)

Now granted, the only spumoni experience I have for comparison is that sweet spumoni that comes in the metal mini-goblet thing at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I even found a picture through Google Images confirming that my fond childhood memories of the "metal mini-goblet thing" are accurate. Behold:

"Old Spaghetti Factory: We treat you like mafia royalty."

Photo from blogtown.portlandmercury.com, 3/2008 review of the Old Spaghetti Factory's lunch menu - direct link to the review was taking five minutes to pull up, so I have given up on it. I will try back later to see if I can cite my source properly.

Anyway, I always loved the Spaghetti Factory's spumoni, and I still do. I'm so glad that my parents never told me (or that I never listened when they told me) that the three members of that alluring tri-color swirl were chocolate, cherry, and pistachios. Pistachios - most definitely a member of the nut family, and I declared war on that family around age 12 (Mom?) Pistachios got a brief early childhood exemption from this war because my cool aunt and uncle always had them hanging around, but eventually I lumped them in with all the other nuts I hated. Even now, I won't seek them out although I have no problem with them. But in spumoni, they're another story...

We used our Staccato Gelato 2-for-1 Chinook Book coupon yesterday. I can think of many sweets that I prefer to ice cream/gelato/sorbet, simply because ice cream is cold and hurts my teeth unless I eat it sideways. Staccato Gelato, however, has different flavors every time we go there, which means that while Mike goes to get his ice cream fix, I go to try out new flavors (past winners: Honey Lavender, Mojito, Rose Petal, Thai Iced Tea - yes, I am partial to the girlie foodie flavors. Check out their full list of flavors here, although you'll notice Spumoni isn't even listed, which implies that there may be other sleeper flavors that don't make it onto the official list).

We each got the second-smallest size, which still gets you up to three flavors if you so choose. Mike got Cherry Chocolate Chip, Creamsicle (tasted exactly like an Orange Julius if you ask me - not that I'm complaining), and something else. I got Spumoni, Spumoni, and Spumoni. And since I am writing this post about it, you already know that I loved it. The chocolate - oh so chocolatey - and not too sweet. The cherry - sweet and light, with little candied cherries mixed in every so often. And the pistachio - meaty and delicious.

The picture below is all melty, since we drove home with our gelato. Next time, I'll try to bring the camera along.

YUM! That is all.

Noodle Bowl #4 - brown sugar-roasted green beans and celery

I don't feel like I've been in the kitchen any less than usual, but it seems like every time I reach for the camera to record the haps, it's either out of juice or MIA. Nevertheless, I've accumulated some acceptable pictures over month since my last posting, so here's my plan for hopping back on the weblog-wagon: immediately post 4 or 5 things that I made back in April, then rest on my laurels for another week until I feel like posting again (unless my camera is magically within reach and charged when I make this rhubarb chutney tomorrow - mmm... so good on lamb!)

So, here's another episode of "Pimp My Ramen" (hey, I kind of like that...). This time around, I had some old leathery green beans and just a teensy bit of baby celery, from the very inside of the group of stalks.

I smashed the heck out of some ginger, as is my routine... (mainly sharing this picture because my Ikea meat mallet looks like something out of one of my husband's role-playing games):

I tossed the celery and green beans in some vegetable oil, brown sugar, salt, and five-spice powder... (green beans not shown here)

...and roasted them at 450 for a few minutes - until I could tell that they'd been roasted, but they weren't blackened or anything.

...Stuck them in with the already-simmering water/chicken broth combo (the smashed garlic, ginger, and a star anise have already made it into the broth at this point as well)

...And from here, it's just a matter of following the instructions of Maruchan or Top Ramen, depending on who was on sale last time I stocked up: Boil noodles for three minutes, and serve!

No, we don't actually eat on the windowsill. It's just the only place in the apartment with good light.

Rosemary lemonade. I mean it.

It's exactly what it sounds like. And it was good. Now I just have to think of how to get it tasting even rosemerrier. Maybe if I let the rosemary steep in lemon juice for quite a while? I could even heat it up, then cool it back down. We'll see. But even on the first try, this stuff was goo-oo-ood. I piled up some rosemary, salt, and sugar on a piece of lemon, and crushed it all into the lemon as best I could. Then, I poured in a little Sierra Mist, let it bubble, and filled the glass with lemonade.

It was flipping good!

Noodle Bowl #3 - Mustard Greens

Can I just say that I don't think I'll ever get sick of noodle bowls? They're the only thing I'm in the mood for on Saturday afternoons, and this week I realized that they also have the side benefit of helping me use up unruly produce that is just threatening to get slimey before I get to it.

That said, I don't really expect anyone else to share my interest in the whole thing. But since I've started taking pictures of them, I think I'll just keep doing it. I'll try to title the posts appropriately, so that anyone reading knows it's not an actual recipe.

I had some turkey lemongrass broth, left over from this recipe, sitting in my freezer for the last 4 months. Honestly, I had forgotten to label it and so wasn't sure if it was chicken broth, or turkey lemongrass. When its thawed scent revealed it to be the latter, I used it for a noodle bowl. Yay!

I used:
-2 cups broth
-1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
-dash soy sauce
-a few drops Sriracha or some other spicy ingredient
-a few drops dark sesame oil
-1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin diagonally
-about 2 cups chopped mustard greens
-1 green onion, chopped
-1 wedge lime, squeezed (or dash seasoned rice vinegar)

Instructions:
Bring broth to a boil. Add five-spice powder, sesame oil, Sriracha, soy sauce, and carrots, and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Return to a non-spilling-over boil, and ramen, and cook for two minutes. Stir in mustard greens and cook for another minute or until wilted. Pour into deep bowl. Squeeze lime into bowl (or splash with rice vinegar). Sprinkle with green onion.

Basil, Melon, and Prosciutto (or Bacon!) Salad with Cayenne

There are a zillion variations on this recipe on the Interwebs, and since I remembered the three main ingredients from when my mom made this several years ago, I don't feel obligated to cite any particular source. Plus, I might have added the cayenne pepper part myself - not sure.

As long as you have enough melon (and it can be canteloupe, honeydew, whatever - I happen to like honeydew better) to serve the number of people you want to serve, the amount of basil and prosciutto/bacon is totally flexible. If you need to use up a strip of bacon from breakfast, use that. You can use as little as one or two large leaves of basil for a few people, and it would still be fine. Or, if you love basil, you can use much, much more.

I tossed the ingredients in a little lime because I had a leftover wedge, but it's not necessary.

Half of a small honeydew melon, combined with the other ingredients (which don't add much volume) yielded us two 6-oz mugs full of salad. Scroll down to the very last picture to see what I consider a "serving."

Hooray honeydew! I was so excited that New Seasons had delicious-looking (and tasting), ripe honeydew halves on sale by the pound, and that I only had to buy half of a teeny one. I know myself, and I know that there is no way I would properly preserve and then use the other half before it went bad. Below is the honeydew shredded up with my new melonballer (I started out trying to make actual melon balls, then decided scraping was the way to go). In the picture, it looks kind of like celery, doesn't it? Weird...

Okay, so the recipe. Like I said, any way you make it, it will taste good. But as a guideline, you will need:

Ingredients

- 1/2 canteloupe or honeydew melon, cut into balls or ribbons with a melonballer, or chopped into 1/2 inch-ish pieces

-1/8 cup chopped prosciutto, or 1/8 cup cooked bacon (cooked/broiled with brown sugar for extra pizazz!)

- 4 or 5 medium fresh basil leaves, ripped into small pieces

-Squeeze of lime juice

-dash of cayenne pepper

-2 shakes of salt

-1/2 teaspoon sugar or 1/2 brown sugar (unless you used bacon with brown sugar already)

Instructions

1. Combine prosciutto or bacon with basil in a bowl or in the melon shell.

2. Combine lime juice, cayenne, salt, and sugar (omit sugar if using bacon cooked with brown sugar) in small bowl. Stir to combine. Toss prosciutto-basil mixture with lime mixture.

3. Add melon pieces and toss to combine.

4. Serve immediately or let sit for awhile if the rest of the meal isn't ready yet. If you're not serving the salad until much later, wait until closer to mealtime to rip up the basil and add it.

Here's the prosciutto. I bought two little slices from the deli counter - it was prosciutto di parma and cost $23.99 a pound, and I paid 57 cents, so... not very much. It looks like it came to about 1/8th of a cup, chopped up.

Note: When my mom made this, she used bacon, and she says that it was broiled with brown sugar on top. If you have bacon at home, you should TOTALLY do that instead. The deli prosciutto was tasty, but the kind in the bag at Safeway (which I used the second time around) can't hold a candle to good ol' bacon.

This next picture is completely irrelevant to the recipe, except that I ended up mixing the salad up in the hollowed-out honeydew, and the shell looked kind of cool in the sunlight. It reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the West's crystal ball!

Here's the salad. We had it with lentil soup. Disclaimer: Unlike his pad kee mao-obsessed wife, Mike is not a fan of the sweet-salty-sour flavor profile. And true to form, he wasn't crazy about this dish. Soooo... not everyone will like it. Only those with good taste. BURN!

Last note: I think the salt drew out a little more honeydew liquid from the honeydew shell - so if your melon is on the not-so-ripe side, you might want to consider lightly salting the melon shell, letting it sit for a while, and then harvesting any juice that gathers up.