Cooking 101: Carribean Pork Sliders

      Sometimes simple is best, especially when you are talking about making supper on a week night, when one partner is coming home from a hard days work and the other partner leaves for work at 11PM. Those are the nights that simple works best, and if you can throw something in the slow cooker (crockpot for those of us born a LONG time ago), first thing in the morning, and have a hot flavorful supper when you get home, Life is Good !! This meal starts with a pork loin and a marinade I wish I could remember where I bought, most likely Costco's as it's a big honkin bottle. The marinade is;

       Add pork loin (or loins if feeding a crowd or you want leftovers and you WILL want leftovers) to the slow cooker. Add enough marinade and chicken stock, ( I went 50/50) to cover the loins. An optional step, if you are so inclined, would be to get your grill red hot and sear the pork on all sides, this will add an extra dimension of flavor to the dish, but if your in a hurry just chuck em into the cooker. Throw in a few pineapple slices, attach the lid, set on low and walk away. Just a quick aside, if you have the time to sear, I would encourage it, I did this recipe both ways and the nice brown crunchy bits add alot of flavor and texture when you shred the pork. One other tip, they make slow cooker liners, and these have been a GODSEND for all these recipes, they make clean up a breeze, well worth the investment.

      Set your cooker on low and let it go for 3-6 hours. At this point you will have very flavorful pork and some incredible sauce. Remove the pork and start shredding, it will be so tender it shreds easily. Pour the liquid into a heavy duty saucepan and start boiling, keep your eye on it though cuz if it boils too long it will end up being a very thick syrup (we almost made that mistake). Here is a plate of deliciousness;

      And to serve with this delight, well a Tropical Mango smoothie of course. I found some smoothie mixes in the freezer of our local grocery store, one of which became this great drink with the addition of some mango and coconut rums and a bit of mango juice;

      And now to put it all together, you saved some pineapple slices right? Grill the slices and some rolls topped with butter until both form a nice crust. Top the shredded pork with the sauce you reduced and assemble, one roll, one pineapple slice and a big helping of shredded pork. We baked some fries in the oven and VOILA;

      Once again, a relatively easy prep makes a great evening supper. And to top it off this pork is incredible the next day, so PLEASE make extra.

Cooking 101; Beer Braised Short Ribs

   Well, what do you know an actual recipe and not just a product review from Costco's. This recipe calls for a bit of prep but once done you can chuck it into the slow cooker and leave it be for the rest of the day.Beef short ribs are available most anywhere and usually for a very reasonable price. For this recipe I prefer the boneless ones as I really don't like carving around bones. I know experts say bone-in releases more flavor but c'mon look at the marbling in these beauties, how much more flavor do I need?

      The first step is to create a spice rub and let your ribs marinade in the rub for at least an hour, (longer is better, MUCH better). That's why this first step could be done the night before, especially if this is going to be a weeknight supper. Also this may be a good time to tell you , that while I used a slow cooker, the original recipe called for a dutch oven. The first time we tried this recipe, we did go the dutch oven route. The advantage of course, is everything can be prepared in one dish, making clean up relatively easy. The downside, and the reason we went with slow cooker, (I still want to call it a crockpot), is that I don't like having the oven on for 3-4 hours, it really heats the house up.

     Back to the recipe, combine 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, 1 tablespoon each of paprika, cumin, black pepper and salt. Now I veered from the original recipe a bit, as it called for 2 tablespoons of mustard, but as we don't care so much for mustard flavor, we created a paste with basil olive oil, but feel free to use mustard if you like that flavor. Combine all the ingredients and rub the ribs completely, marinate in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight. This would be a good time to roughly chop up an onion, 4-6 carrots, 2 celery stalks and 6-8 peeled and smashed garlic cloves, (I used 8, I LOVE garlic). here is a pic of the spice mixture ready to add;

     Once the ribs are marinated, heat up a pan and add the ribs to brown, if you are using a dutch oven, add some oil first and heat that up before putting in the ribs, we used a non-stick pan instead. Brown all sides of the ribs and remove from the pan, add the onions, carrots and celery and cook until they start becoming soft. At this point, add 2-3 bay leaves, 5-6 sprigs of thyme (and any other fresh herbs you have around, I had basil and some dill) and the garlic. Once they are cooked a bit, move everything over to the slow cooker and here is where things are a bit confusing. The liquid portion will totally depend on the size of your cooker and how many ribs you are making.

      As you can see, we had six ribs (which I cut in half for ease of fitting into the cooker). So in my case I used one cup of beef stock, one 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes and 1 and 1/2 beers (HEY, I was thirsty), and this was enough liquid to cover the meat (VERY important). Then, just put your cooker on low and relax for 5-6 hours.

      After said hours, move the meat and vegetables to a platter. Strain the remaining liquid into a heavy duty saucepan and turn the burner on high. Taste the sauce and season as needed, we felt that the sauce was missing something, a bit of acidity maybe?, some flavor?, so we add a healthy dollop of Balsamic Vinegar.
Bingo, this was the added flavor we needed. Let boil until sauce has reduce to your favorite consistency, we like it a bit thick but not syrupy, so we reduced it about 1/3 of the original amount. Perfect. And the finished dish;

      So there you have it, a perfect fall supper for those cool nights. A nice glass of hearty red wine, I suggest something with some depth and weight to it for this meal, Cabernet Sauvignon for sure, or a California Syrah or maybe a Rioja from Spain, would work. A nice fresh roll to sop up the sauce, and life is grand. And since this is a perfect fall dish, a few pictures of our colorful, but too short, Fall;