It takes very little to get a party started at my house. This weekend’s excuse for merriment was “Lizzie bought a pork roast”. And it was on.

Traditional carnitas done Yucatan style means giant hunks of pork slow roasted in a dirt pit and then deep fried. But I am way too lazy to go dig a hole in the back yard. So this recipe isn’t much different from my standard pork roast, just the seasonings are different.

Find the biggest hunk of boneless pork shoulder you can get. Make sure it has a nice layer of fat on the bottom. Throw it in a big crock pot fat side down.

Cover roast in achiote sauce or paste (if you live in a neighborhood with a lot of Latinos- you can probably find this in the grocery store along with yummy yummy apple soda). Add grapefruit or orange juice (a cup or so), chopped garlic and onions, salt, pepper, a little bit of oregano, some red pepper flakes and the juice of a lime or two. Set to low and cook 8 to 10 hours or until the roast is shredding itself in the sauce.

(a quick note- onions and garlic will pickle a bit in the citrus juice. For onions they turn a bit pink, which is fine. The garlic will turn minty green. Do not freak out. It tastes fine)

Now for the ultimate lazy “deep frying” part.

A little while before serving, shred the pork into an oven proof baking dish. I use a pyrex lasagna pan. Pour all the sauce and fat from the crock pot over the shredded bits and throw under the broiler for a while. You want the top bits of pork to get crispy and a little blackened. I know it’s done by how it smells. If it smells like you want to crawl in the oven and die from a pork induced coronary RIGHT NOW, then it’s probably done.

How to serve

Like any taco, this is meal is all about the condiments. We do fried corn tortillas, half assed Spanish rice, pickled onions (when I can remember to set them out), homemade pico de gallo and guacamole, 3 minute refried beans (can of beans, glob of sour cream, generous pile of shredded cheese all mixed together and microwaved for 3 minutes. The sour cream makes the beans fluffy and light.
But pork needs a little something sweet to balance out all the savory and sour flavors.

Normally, you could make a pineapple or mango salsa to go with the pork. But i am lazy and I just made a vat of pico de gallo and I don’t want to touch another onion. So I cubed up some fresh pineapple (DO NOT BUY CANNED! A fresh pineapple is cheap and way way better than metal flavored sugar syrup nastiness)and like our friends to the south I covered it in chili powder. Peeps- if you have not had sticky sweet fruit dusted with chili powder then I feel sorry for you. It will change your life.

Pile everything into the fried tortillas and prepare to eat (with one hand poised to unbutton you pants because you will not be able to stop stuffing your face).

Someday soon I’ll come back and write about non-food things, but for right now I’m so stressed out and freaked out and just plain scared of the future that what’s for dinner is the only question I can answer.

Kid is allergic to wheat. That’s the source of his horrendous dead cat smell. Roomie is allergic to a million things (including wheat and peanuts) so cooking is an adventure in creativity. Enter- rice noodles.

I had sesame noodles at Kid’s b-day sushi dinner and have been thinking about them ever since. So here’s my version for peeps who can’t eat stuff (and for those of us who can)

1 pack of rice noodles (pad thai noodles work great) cooked, rinsed, drained and cooled

chopped scallions

in a bowl mix
6 to 8 tablespoons tamari (wheat free soy sauce)
3 tablespoons sun flower butter (which is awesome because you get whole seeds in it) or peanut butter
4 tablespoons vegetable oil (if you have sesame oil- you can use this in place of some of the veggie oil)
pinch of red pepper flakes
pinch of cayenne (more of either or both of these if you like spicey)
a generous glob of toasted sesame seeds

add noodles and scallions. Keep mixing. It will take a while. Add a wee bit more oil if it’s really too thick.

Taste- seriously. It made need more tamari if (like me) you want it fully of salty goodness.

Whole chickens are cheap. And tasty. Sure, they aren’t THAT much cheaper than getting the already roasted ones from the grocery store, but food stamps won’t buy an already roasted chicken and I can’t brag if I didn’t roast it myself.

If you’re afreared of roasting a whole bird, here’s my surefire recipe that will have you standing over the roasted carcass picking at the meat like some kind of hyena, and only a tiny bit ashamed that it’s sooooo good you couldn’t bother getting a plate.

Preheat oven to 375.

Take one whole roasting chicken. Reach in the cavity and pull out any organs, etc. Rinse the bird inside and out with cool water and then pat dry with a paper towel. Let the bird come up to room temp while you do everything else.

Make an onion rack. Basically you slice rounds of onion so they are the same thickness and cover the bottom of the roasting pan with them. This keeps the bird off the bottom of the pan and makes an awesome gravy later.

Microwave one stick of butter in a bowl till it’s all melty. Season heavily with salt, pepper, sage, or whatever you want your chicken to taste like. You’re basically making a flavored butter rub, so go insane with the spices and the salt.

Take your hand and loosen the skin from the breast meat gently. Grab a handful of the butter mix and rub under the skin as far as you can. If you’re good, you can get all the way down to the legs and thighs without breaking the skin. Then rub the top of the skin and the inside cavity with the butter mix. Place bird on onion rack, breast side up. Don’t worry about tucking wings or tying things up. This doesn’t actually do anything cooking wise but make it take longer.

Take one lightish beer and a piece of cheesecloth. Soak the cheesecloth in the beer and drape over the chicken. Save the rest of the beer for basting. Put the bird in the oven and baste with the beer every 20 minutes to half hour or so. Chicken should take an hour and a half to 2 hours, depending on the bird and the oven. Use a meat thermometer in the thigh (careful not to touch the bones of the side of the pan with the thermometer or your readings will be off).

When the thermometer says 190, pull the chicken out and let it rest for a bit. You can now remove the cheesecloth and you will have perfect crisp brown skin and juicy meat.

And a quick how to for carving.

1. Remove the wings
2. Remove the legs and thighs.
3. Most people at this point start cutting down the breastbone- DON’T DO THIS YET. Instead make a horizontal cut from the outside (where the legs used to be) in as far as you can. Do this to both sides.
4. Then you cut down on each the breast bone. You should be able to remove 2 perfect, skin intact breasts.

It’s the half of the month where dinner becomes “interesting” because we are scraping the bottom of the fridge and the wallet. Last weekend the awesome produce stand down the street had roma tomatoes on sale for 39 cents a pound, so I made a bucket of pico de gallo and we had tacos (2x) and tortilla soup (half assed again cause we had no actual meat to put in it) and casadillas with cheese and avocados.

Last night I was soooo tired of anything Mexican flavored that I bought a cheap pack of pork ribs and we had that and half assed rice pilaf for dinner with a pile of lettuce for something green. Anyways, this recipe comes from the leftover rice (basically white rice made with chicken stock instead of water).

In a large skillet, heat up some oil. Add in finely diced onions and cook till a little blackened. Add half a diced bell pepper and then the leftover chicken rice. Add some minced garlic and turn heat to medium.

Now spices. Generously add some chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. Add a wee bit of cumin if you like (cumin goes a long way). At this point the rice is probably getting a bit crispy. You need to add some liquid.

You can use chicken stock or water, but my creative ass drained the liquid out of the remaining pico and poured that in. Once it was almost all dried out I added the remains of the pico (at this point about half a cup) and cooked till the liquid was gone.

Now I am typing and happily stuffing my gullet with yummy goodness. And pico de gallo week is officially over. Maybe next week will be 18 ways to eat pesto or potatoes.

So last night was Birthday, Battlestar and Dips and I made french onion dip from scratch. No soup packets!

French Onion Goat Cheese Dip

4 medium onions, diced
Olive Oil
1 log (11oz) of goat cheese
1 small container plain goat yogurt (6 oz)
Worcestershire sauce
1 cup strong beef broth (I used Better than Bullion No beef flavor. I used about a teaspoon and a half to one cup of water)
Salt & pepper

Cook onions in olive oil. Depending on how patient you are you can carmelize the onions, though the dip is fine if you just sweat them till they are translucent.

Add beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Cook until the liquid is almost gone. Add yogurt and cheese and continue cooking over low heat to the cheese melts all the way. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerated for at least one hour.

You will never want to eat onion dip made from dried soup again. It’s that good.

I also made a gorgeous fruit salad with Raspberry mint dressing. We had raspberries, blackberries, mango, apples and oranges. To dress them I used the juice of 2 lemons, and equal amount of raspberry vinegar, a couple of teaspoons of honey and dried mint. It keeps the fruit from browning and adds a depth of flavor without being too sweet or thick.

We ( well Ruth mostly) also did a ton of fried stuff like fried pickles and zuccini and homemade potato and sweet potato chips. My left hand is now a mangled bloody mess because using the guard on the mandolin takes too much time. I sliced myself 3 separate times and bled all over, but it was worth it. Homemade chips are good and fried pickles are awesome!

Now about man food. I put out a tray of veggies to go with the dips (we also had Ruth’s famous spinach tofu dip and some dill dip that I whipped up in about a minute). There were the normal things, carrots, celery, cukes, tomatoes and radishes. Towards the end of the night the radishes were the only left on the tray. I walked past and someone asked me if I ate radishes. I said I do, grabbed one and ate it. I was then told that radishes are man food cause only dudes eat them.

I love radishes. I also love steak and bacon and really good hamburgers. And I make some awesome slow cooked ribs. The Kid likes good greek yogurt with honey and just about any vegetable or fruit and bready things like muffins and toast. I am not a dude, yet I love and cook “man food”. The Kid is not a girl, yet he loves and eats “girl food”. How seriously fucked up is our society when food is gendered and the act of eating a radish calls someones gender identification into question?

We don’t actually know what to call this soup. I made it cause we had a bunch of avocados that needed to be used and we were tired of tacos. Hot gazpacho was the best we could think of. But it’s really good and not at all ketchupy like a lot of tomato soups.

You need:
One large can of whole tomatoes
4 cups of chicken stock (we’ve been using Better Than Bullion no Chicken stock- this is the AWESOMEST stuff ever)
1 large onion – roughly chopped
2or 3 carrots- diced (you will be blending the soup so you don’t have to be perfect with the onion, carrot and garlic when chopping)
3 or 4 large garlic cloves diced
veggie oil
basil
oregano
red pepper flakes
salt (use sparingly if you use salty stock)
pepper (I used lemon pepper)
bag of frozen corn
4 avocados (cubes)
cilantro, scallion, tortilla chips, cheese and/ or sour cream for garnish

Heat oil in a large stock pot. Throw in carrots, onions, garlic and sweat for about 10 minutes. Then throw in toms (plus can juice), stock and spices. Bring to boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Blend everything in a food processor of blender till smooth and return to pot.

Add corn and cook for a few minutes till corn is cooked. Add avocados. Serve and garnish.

It’s freezing. We’re broke. It turns out the Kid is allergic to wheat (do you know how many cheap foods contain wheat? Or how difficult it is when you rely on free school meals that are made of wheat covered wheat with a side of fricken wheat?)

So what’s a person to cook? I found a giant lump of top round roast for a mere $5.50 at the store. A couple of onions and some other stuff later and you got goulash.

Contrary to popular belief, goulash is not whatever you scrape out of the bottom of your fridge, cover in tomato sauce and sour cream and call a meal. Mine is traditional(ish) because i throw some Worcestershire sauce in (all beef tastes better with Worcestershire sauce- it’s the fish sauce of Europeans)and I cook it in a crock pot (thanks Tobes!) instead of a dutch oven.

You need:

A good sized roast. (2 pounds or more) I usually don’t care so much what the cut is as long as it’s reasonably priced and has some good fat on it.

A can of tomato paste

a quarter cup of paprika (ish)

3 sliced onions

Worcestershire sauce

beef or veggie stock*****

3 or 4 heads of chopped garlic

salt and pepper

Throw sliced onions into bottom of crock pot. Place roast on top of onions. In a bowl mix tomato paste, paprika, garlic, Worcestershire sauce (I put in a lot, probably a quarter cup or more) and enough stock to make it easy to stir but not liquidy. Also generous sprinkles of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly and pour over the roast.

******Edited after making this like a thousand times. Skip the the stock. All you need is a tablespoon or so of water. The roast will release so much liquid that every drop of extra liquid you put in just makes for runny sauce. Really. I know it looks like a pile of dry stuff with red paste on top at first. That is OK. It won’t when it’s done.

Set crock pot to low, cover and leave for about 8 hours.

Some people use stew meat or cut the meat up before cooking. I prefer to cook it whole and then I know it’s done when it starts to fall apart with a fork.

I serve it over garlic and dill mashed potatoes and skip the sour cream on top (cause it’s in the potatoes). You can also serve it over noodles and rice, but I really like the potatoes.

After reading my little food post from the other day, Ruth went to the grocery store and bought chili makings (I’ve been promising her chili for awhile). Sweet!

Anyways- Ruth has all sorts of food allergies including beef, most legumes, and bell peppers. Which makes chili kinda hard. So this is the non allergic Ruth version.

Half pound to a pound of ground buffalo
1 Anaheim pepper- chopped
1 poblano pepper- chopped
2 large onions- chopped
lots and lots of chopped garlic (I used an entire head)
3 cans of black soy beans, rinsed and drained
2 large cans of chopped tomatoes
salt, pepper, chili powder, cayenne, a tiny bit of cummin
a splash of apple cider vinegar

In a large skillet, sweat onions and garlic
add meat and brown
add peppers and cook for just a few minutes.

Throw everything into a large crock pot (Thanks Tobes!)including beans and undrained tomatoes and splash of cider.

Season as you like (remember that chili powder intensifies as you cook it) Set to low and cover

Leave overnight. No really- I cook this chili on low for up to 24 hours. The longer it cooks the more the flavors marry and deepen.

It also works with ground beef, or black beans, or kidney beans or no meat (where I put in some corn and extra veggies for fun). You can get creative and use some adobo sauce to get a really deep smokey sweet flavor to the chili. Or if you are too lazy to figure out your own spices- throw in a jar of your favorite salsa.

Serve with copious amounts of cheese.I’m also making homemade garlic tortilla chips to go with this.

Ruth wandered off to band practice the other night while I was cooking dinner. When her bandmates asked how the whole having people take over your bedroom and small apartment thing went she said “Oh Elizabeth is at home right now making roasted corn and squash soup.” Now they want to know if they can have someone invade their home and make them food.

I am thinking the kid and I shall become traveling chefs. In exchange for a comfy bed and the cost of ingredients- you too can have me come make you food. I can cook for anyone- vegans, celiacs, every weird food allergy known to humankind, plus meat. Yummy yummy meat. Right now I’m trying to find a recipe for boneless leg of lamb that doesn’t require an oven and gets rid of the slight armpit taste that lamb sometimes has.

Anyone got a bed to spare?

But in the meantime- Roasted corn and squash soup.

This is spicy. Really really spicy. If you want less spice use less chipotle peppers and for god’s sake seed them first. I didn’t.

5 cups good veggie broth
5 cups winter squash or pumpkin (I used frozen winter squash which cut down on cooking time and eliminated the need to blend the soup- I highly recommend this trick)
half a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (if cooking wheat free make sure you check the label)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 or 3 cups unsweetened soy milk
5 cups roasted corn (about 5 ears) or a large bag of frozen corn. We had some lovely leftover corn that had been roasted on the barbque so it was all smokey. I supplemented with frozen corn roasted in the toaster oven.
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream (tofutti sour supreme is fine for the vegans) or a good farmers cheese to garnish

In large stock pot, heat some olive oil and cook onions till transparent, add garlic and ginger. Cook for another minute till fragrant

Add stock, squash and diced chipotles. Cook for 20 minutes (if frozen) or until squash is tender (if fresh). If using fresh squash or pumpkin, use hand blander or blend soup in batches till smooth.

Add soymilk and corn & salt & pepper to taste. Bring back to boil. Let cook till the flavors are happily married and serve with a generous dollop of sour cream or cheese.

It’s that most tomato-y time of the year, and tonight the Kid and I are heading over to Miss J’s to roast up a ton of spaghetti sauce. I like this so much better than your regular stewed sauce. It has a supper summery flavor. It can live in the freezer for months. And it cleans out the veggie bins in the fridge.

So start with a ton of tomatoes. The best sauce comes from a mix of toms, so I will throw grape tomatoes and any heirloom types I can find in with my standard romas. Cut each of the toms in half and place in a large metal baking dish (lasagna pans work best)
Quarter some onions and shallots and add to the mix. If you’ve got celery, chop it roughly and throw that in there too. Pop in whole Parisian mushrooms if you like. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some Worcestershire sauce. Add salt and pepper. And sprinkle generously with your favorite Italian herbs. I usually cover it in basil, but if you’re an oregano fan you can use that too.

Turn the oven on to broil (450 degrees) and place the pan on the bottom most rack.

At the same time, you can roast some garlic and peppers. I usually take 3 heads of garlic in a metal bread pan and brush liberally with olive oil. Place on top rack in broiling oven and turn heads over as each side becomes black. For peppers, just wash and place directly on the rack next to the garlic. Once all sides of the peppers are black, throw them into a paper bag to cool. Then skin, seed and chop.

The garlic and the peppers should finish before the toms. Once everything is done and roasted, peel the garlic and throw everything (including the liquid from the roasting pan) into a food processor. You will have little black chunks in your sauce. That is okay.

Kid likes his with meat- so I usually cook up some Italian sausage and reheat the sauce over the sausage while the noodles cook. Or you can go veg (or vegan if you get vegan Worcestershire sauce). Either way it’s a mouth full of sunny goodness.