Caribbean Hot Sauce via Hot Sauce!

     One can never have too much hot sauce available. I was excited to try my hand at a Carribean-style recipe in my Hot Sauce! cookbook. I even went out and bought a mango just for the purpose of using it to make hot sauce. The book and several people said that this style of sauce can turn plain old scrambled eggs into a transcendental experience. I'll let you know when I try it! I can tell you this sauce packs a wallop up front. There's a blast of heat followed by the sweet fruitiness of the mango. Just underneath all of that is a tiny hint of mustard. It's a tremendous combination that makes the heat totally worth it. This recipe will yield a bit over a pint of sauce. As always, any changes or notes are in blue.

Caribbean Hot Sauce
via Hot Sauce!

Ingredients

• 5 fresh Scotch bonnet or habanero chiles (preferably yellow, red, or orange), stemmed and seeded (I used 6 red habaneros that I froze whole last season)
• 1 ripe papaya or mango, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped (I went with mango)
• 1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 (1-inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 tablespoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Pinch of ground cumin
• Pinch of ground coriander

Directions

1. Add all of the ingredients into a blender and puree until just smooth, taking care not to aerate the mixture too much. 

   

   Fire in the hole!

2. Pour into a nonreactive saucepan, bring to a boil, and then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
3. Let cool and pour into bottles. Refrigerated, the sauce will keep for 6 weeks. (If you're planning on canning it, you will need two half-pint jars. Fill them to about 1/4" inch from the top and seal them. I process mine in a boiling water bath for about 10-12 minutes. As always, if you're not familiar with water-bath canning, please go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation and read up on canning before you accidentally give yourself food poisoning and I disavow any knowledge of posting this recipe)

Good times!

Slow Cooker Pork Loin and Hominy

     The school year is in full swing, which means the slow-cooker has been brought out for heavy use. Generally we throw together a few things in our cookers on Sunday and eat on them for lunches and dinners during the work week. I started this week with an idea that had been knocking around in my head for a couple of days. Pork and hominy seemed like a good mix, so I decided to use those as key ingredients and give it a generally Southwest feel. I used my own home-canned chili tomatoes. Any canned chili tomato will do. The recipe below is written assuming you're using plain old canned tomatoes. If you find pre-seasoned chili tomatoes, omit the chili powder, cumin and paprika. If you drain the liquid, this makes a decent taco filling. It's also good over rice. It doesn't have a ton of heat, so you can fine tune it as you need.

Slow Cooker Pork Loin with Hominy

Ingredients

• Pork loin, about 3 pounds
• 1 can white or yellow hominy, drained
• 1 can black eye peas or bean of your choice
• 1 quart canned tomatoes, undrained.
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 3 cayenne peppers
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 1 can cream of celery soup

Directions

1. Heat some oil in a large pan. Cook loin about 3 minutes on each side, until just starting to brown.
2. Pour tomatoes and spices into slow cooker. Lay the loin, fat side up, on top of the tomatoes. 
3. Spread remaining ingredients over top of loin.
4. Cook 4-5 hours on HIGH or until meat breaks apart easily with a fork.

UPDATE: I have added a YouTube video of the actual cooking process! How exciting! Or not. Depends on how low you set the bar.

Good times!

Product Review: Wise Company Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini

     Given the weather lately, the idea of keeping emergency rations in your home is not a terrible idea. The area where I live is prone to some violent outbursts of weather, most of which will knock the power out. If you don't have the luxury of a Generac system to back-up the power to your home, eventually you're going to lose the food in your refrigerator and freezer. Your options become a bit limited at this point.

Well, yes. Technically this is always a possibility. 

     You could go with canned goods, but they are bulky, heavy and won't keep for a super-long time. The cans could rust. You could lose your can opener. What I'm talking about is honest-to-goodness survival rations. There's always the old standby of military MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Or as my military friends would call them: Meals, Rarely Edible). I'm going to take a look at the emergency rations from Wise Company. Why? They sent me a free sample, to be quite honest. If you check the site you can request a sample, too (fair warning, it's going to require you to talk to a live sales person). The two advantages to Wise Company food that I saw was that they only require water to make and they have a 25 year shelf-life. Let us get started with the review.

Well, the packaging is nice. That's a good start. Made in the USA, too!

     They sent me Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini. First off, the title is both redundant an incorrect. Rotini pasta is redundant. The alternative is there was vegetable rotini in the bag. There was not. I'm going to overlook this goof since if I were starving to death, I wouldn't even care if it was spelled phonetically. Theoretically, this bag is supposed to feed four adults. Let's flip the bag over and take a look at the back for some nutritional information!

Seems legit.

     210 calories a serving isn't too bad. This isn't really a calorie powerhouse unless you eat the whole bag and you're still 1200 calories shy of average daily intake. However, remember you're just looking to survive. You won't do that if you eat the whole bag because one serving is 800mg of sodium, 33% of your suggested daily allowance. For the most part the ingredients aren't too horrifying.  Let's tear open the bag and see what it looks like.

I thought the silica packet would add a nice bit of flavor but the wife made me take it out.

     The wife and I took a whiff of the contents and both reached the same conclusion that it smelled quite a bit like Ramen noodles. That's not a bad thing at all. There seemed to be a goodly amount of carrots and peas in there and the noodles looked decent. So far so good. Next we needed to prepare it. This couldn't be easier. All you need is a pot and 4 cups of boiling water.

You more than likely won't have access to an electric kettle to boil your water in an emergency.
In that case all you need is a pot, water and fire.

     We boiled up the water, dumped it in and gave it all a stir. The initial impression was that we had just created soup. However, we needed to put a lid on it and let it sit for 15 minutes, presumably to soak up all the water.

Theoretically, this will become creamy in around 15-20 minutes.

     After 15 minutes we took the lid off, and as per instructions, let the pasta sit for a couple more minutes. Creaminess was not achieved. We had vegetable soup. Now, if you're looking for survival, this may not be a bad thing. The broth will certainly fill you up. As it was not an emergency, we drained off the excess water and were left with the Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini.

4 servings, my ass. Somebody is going to have to starve to death.

     If you drain the water, there's no way this is four servings. We were able to put together two shallow bowls. In fairness, this is for survival, not for luxury dining and we did drain the water. The final test remained. We needed to eat it. The carrots still had a bit of snap. The peas were a bit mushy but that was to be expected. The pasta held up well and wasn't too mushy. The flavor? Not bad. Kind of like high end Ramen with a thin cream sauce. If this was the only food we had available, I wouldn't be put out at all to eat it for a few days. It looked and tasted real. This is not something that can be said for many emergency rations or MREs. If you've ever had the tuna MRE you know what I'm talking about.

Final Review

Product: Wise Company emergency ration 

Cost: A bucket of 60 entrees (enough for 1 person for a month) is $134.99. If you're splitting this two ways, it's only about $1.13 per person per meal. That's reasonable enough considering the type of food you're dealing with.

Flavor: Not what you would call "flavor-packed," but not too bad.

Appearance: This is actually some good looking emergency food. 

Would I Buy It?: I can't justify buying the year package, no matter how cool that would be. However, for under $150 I could have 1 month of emergency food that will keep 25 years. That's not terrible. The wife and I are strongly considering getting a single case for the next weather-related calamity. I'd certainly be happy to throw these in my pack if I were camping.

Good times!

Penne with Veggies and Black Beans from the Wonderful Wife

NOTE: This is another guest post from my lovely wife. She's been on a roll using up garden vegetables. This is just a great recipe. I love what she did with it.

     The husband started back to work last week, and I wanted to make a big batch of something he could take to school for lunches. I vaguely remembered making a cold veggie pasta salad last summer that he really liked. I was positive it was in the Everyday Light Meals cookbook, but after going through it page by page, I wasn't able to find it. Huh… So, I went through it again – page by page. And there it was. Why couldn't I find it the first time, you ask? Simple. I made so many alterations to it the first time I made it that I didn't recognize it in the cookbook. I will give you the recipe as it was intended to be made and also my changes. Don’t worry. If it’s delicious my way, it’s probably more delicious when made properly.

Penne with Veggies 'n Black Beans
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 10 ounces uncooked penne pasta (Let the substitutions begin! I make this with elbow macaroni. Maybe we were out of penne when I made it the first time, or maybe I felt a veggie pasta salad could only be made with macaroni. Heck, use bow-ties if you want. It’s pasta. It all tastes the same.)
• 1 cup sliced zucchini (I did a combo of zucchini and squash.)
• 1 cup sliced carrots (The first time I made this, I believe I grated the carrots. Worked fine. This time, I didn’t have regular carrots – just baby. So I cut them lengthwise down the middle and then did it again, effectively quartering them.)
• ½ cup fresh mushrooms (No fresh mushrooms in the house. I just omitted them entirely and made up the difference with other veggies. I’ve also used canned mushrooms, but I didn’t sauté them with the other veggies.)
• ½ cup julienned green or sweet red pepper (I used green.)
• 1 garlic clove, minced (I used 1 teaspoon of minced garlic from the jar.)
• 1 tablespoon each minced fresh basil, oregano, and thyme or 1 teaspoon each dried basil, oregano, and thyme (We don’t grown thyme in the herb garden, but we did have fresh basil and oregano, so I used a tablespoon of each, and a teaspoon of dried thyme.)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2/3 cup chopped seeded tomatoes (I prefer to use halved cherry tomatoes.)
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (I used 4 oz of cubed mozzarella cheese.)
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

The aforementioned ingredients in no particular order.

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, sauté the zucchini, carrots, mushrooms (omitted), green pepper, onion, garlic, and seasonings in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until crisp-tender. Stir in the beans.
3. Add drained pasta to vegetable mixture. Add tomatoes and remaining olive oil; toss gently. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and parsley. (Here’s where I really deviate from the recipe. This dish is supposed to be served hot, but my husband said it was even better cold. So, after tossing the tomatoes and olive oil into the pasta mixture, I put the whole thing in the refrigerator for a few hours. In the meantime, I cube up the mozzarella cheese. After the pasta has had time to cool, I take it out and toss in the mozzarella and parsley.)

One serving (1 1/3 cup) equals 315 calories.

Good times!

Too Damned Easy Chocolate Pudding Macaroon Pie

     Now that the school year is in full swing, time is of the essence during the week. When I get home, I need dinner to come together in less than an hour if at all possible. I need all the time I can get to focus on unwinding, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in preparation for the next day. It is this time-consciousness that has caused me to start writing these "Too Damned Easy" recipes. Some of these recipes may seem ridiculous in their simplicity, but you'll thank me when you are able to put together a decent meal after work that doesn't take much time or effort. These are recipes that you should have all the ingredients for at any given time. Okay, maybe you won't have macaroons on hand. Get creative. Bust up whatever cookies are laying around. Throw some Cap'n Crunch in there. Get crazy. As always, any notes are in blue.

Too Damned Easy
Chocolate Pudding Macaroon Pie

Ingredients

• 9" graham cracker pie crust (store bought. If you're making it from scratch here, you're missing the point of this recipe)
• 10-12 macaroons of your favorite flavor, broken up into small bits (for whatever reason, I had a can of cappuccino macaroons, so that's what I used)
•  1 box instant chocolate pudding
• Milk for instant pudding
• Whipped topping, optional (I had better not find out you made it from scratch. You'd better be busting out a container of Cool Whip. I would have used it, but I didn't have any in the house and I sure as hell wasn't making a special trip to the store for a throw-together dessert)

Directions

1. Take broken-up macaroons and lay them in an even layer in the pie crust. 

   

   Like so.
   I assure you, no matter how much that looks like ground beef, it is actually cappuccino macaroons in there.

2. Make the chocolate pudding according to the instructions on the box (this is where you double check that you're using INSTANT pudding or you're going to be sorely disappointed later when you have a bowl of chocolate macaroon soup)
3. Pour the pudding into the pie crust, making sure to completely cover the macaroons.
4. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Top with whipped topping when serving.

Good times!

Caribbean-Style Pork, Zucchini and Apples

     I was a bit surprised at how positive the response was to this when I posted it to my Facebook page. This recipe came about simply because we were looking for a quick and easy way to burn through some more zucchini. I found the original in Pol Martin's Supreme Cuisine. The recipe was simple, but seemed like it would be lacking in the taste department. It struck me that the sweetness of the apples would play well with the She Simmers sauce I posted recently. I got a little aggressive with the sauce and used 3 tablespoons of it in the recipe. It was right on the edge of too hot for the wife, but she powered through it. The play of the spices in the sauce with the sweetness of the apples is great. The zucchini basically just sits in there and soaks up flavor. This would do well over a bed of rice or with some crusty bread. I imagine a nice bottle of Red Stripe beer would work well, too! As always, the original recipe is posted in its entirety with any changes or notes in blue.

Caribbean-Style Pork, Zucchini and Apples
formerly Pork Sauteed with Zucchini
via Pol Martin's Supreme Cuisine

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced (I cut those pieces in half again. I like smaller pieces of zucchini)
• 2 celery stalks, sliced 
• 2 apples, cored, peeled and sliced in wedges (the recipe doesn't specifically mention the type of apple, but I think sweeter is better for what we're doing here)
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
• 8 pork cutlets, trimmed of fat and cut in strips (we used 5 boneless chops; about 1.5 pounds. Sliced pork loin would work and a pack of pork tenderloins would be good, too)
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
• salt, pepper, paprika
• 2-3 tablespoons She Simmers or other Carribean-style hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water

Directions

1. Heat half of oil in frying pan over high heat. Add vegetables, apples and garlic; season well (nothing like a vague recipe instruction. "Season well?" Do they mean don't make a mess? I don't cook that way, so I assumed they meant use a heavy hand. I don't do that with salt, so I used maybe 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper and 1/2 teaspoon paprika) Cook 3 minutes.

   

   One of these days I'll remember to not overfill the pan.

2. Turn vegetables over and continue cooking 3 minutes over medium heat. Remove vegetables and apples from pan and set aside.
3. Heat remaining oil in pan over medium heat. Add meat and cook 2 minutes on each side (I may have gone a little longer since I like a bit of a sear on my meat). Season with salt and pepper (I didn't put any salt in with the meat, but I did add a little more cracked pepper and another 1/2 teaspoon paprika.)
4. Return vegetables and apples to pan with pork. Add parsley, season lightly with paprika (here's where I changed things up. I left out this last bit of paprika and dropped in 3 tablespoons of the hot sauce. You may want to use less if you are feeble. Also, this recipe produces a fair amount of water from the apples and veggies. I made a corn starch slurry and mixed it in at the end. It thickened the water into a nice sauce). Cook 2 minutes to reheat, serve.
5. Accompany with boiled new potatoes (I did no such thing) 

No new potatoes were available, but I did have a couple old ones I baked!
Good Times!

She Simmers Caribbean-Style Sauce via Hot Sauce!

     Apparently I need to visit the Caribbean at some point. So many wonderful sauces come out of that area! This particular riff on the style is out of the Hot Sauce! cookbook. I love this sauce so much. There is so much going on here, flavor-wise. It is reminiscent of a jerk sauce, but to me has a fun mix of flavors. The best way I can explain it is everything in here is fighting to get noticed. Imagine a bar-room brawl and all the spices are slapping each other around. Then the habanero busts in the front door and starts breaking chairs over everyone and throwing them out windows. It's just like that, but in your mouth. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

She Simmers
via Hot Sauce!

Ingredients

• 6 fresh red, yellow, or orange habanero chiles (I used mostly red and one orange. They were also frozen from last season. As long as they were fresh at one time you should be fine)
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (for all of the freshly squeezed juices, you can more than likely get away with bottled, but the flavor will not be quite the same. The main reason I did the freshly squeezed was because my aunt Ruthie bought us an electric reamer for our wedding. As much as that sounds like a marital aid, it's not. Just Google "orange reamer" and settle down, you pervert)
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper (I will tell you right now, grinding them by hand is a Colossal Pain In The Ass. Next time I'll just use the coffee bean grinder. I just have to remember to clean it out or the wife will be Righteously Pissed when she goes to make coffee)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg (I went with the ground)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Stem and seed the habaneros, reserving the seeds. Combine the chiles and all of the remaining ingredients in a blender and puree until silky. Taste and add a sprinkling of the seeds if you want to ratchet up the heat (be careful when you're doing this. It doesn't take too many seeds to change the heat level from "pleasant burn" to "OH MY GOD, THIS WILL EVENTUALLY REACH MY SPHINCTER.")
2. Pour into bottles. (I processed mine in a half pint jar for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath for long term storage. As always, please read up on canning at the National Center for Home Food Preservation before attempting canning. This sauce can tear up your insides just fine without the help of harmful bacteria.)

Good times!