Meatballs

I love meatballs, and these are my favorite.  Not only are they tender, flavorful and delicious, but they are versatile as well.  So far I have five different ways to serve them, but there will probably be more in the future.  The mix of meats is what makes these meatballs so delicious.  I find meatballs made only with beef to be a little dry and tough.  Adding ground pork and veal makes all the difference. I multiply this recipe by six, so I'll have plenty of meatballs for all these different applications

Difficulty: Moderate
Category: Simple Side
Column: EG & EH
Adapted from: Smitten Kitchen

So Much Fried Chicken

Chicken Milanese is one of the first meals I posted to this blog, and it's one that we have continued to enjoy.  Over the past couple years I've come to realize that I can do much more with a breaded chicken cutlet than just this one delicious meal.

It started when I ran across this recipe for  Korean Fried Chicken.  It looked incredible, and I had to try it.  Looking at the recipe I noticed that it started out very similar to the Chicken Milanese above with breaded chicken, although there were some minor differences in the breading mixtures.  After the chicken is breaded and fried it is dipped in a sweet and spicy sauce.

Then I visited Nashville, TN and tried its amazing hot chicken (spicy fried chicken).  I was sad that this deliciousness was only available in Nashville.  I resolved that I had to learn to make it.  When I looked into recipes for it I learned that chicken was breaded, fried and dipped in a spicy oil afterwards.  I realized I could make a generic, breaded chicken cutlet and use it in a variety of ways.

Pork Tacos

Tacos are one of my favorite meals.  There's a restaurant near us that sells awesome tacos al pastor, which I crave occasionally.  Unfortunately the last time I ordered takeout from there, dinner cost $40 for our family.  They were delicious but too expensive to have regularly until I realized that pre-cooked, shredded pork could make delicious tacos at home for a fraction of the price.  Plus they're super easy when you have the pork already cooked.  Now I just need to find a good source for horchata.

Serves: 4

6 cups cooked pork or about 1 1/2 pounds
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp chili
1 tbsp lime juice
chopped cilantro
chopped onion
warm corn tortillas
green salsa - I really like 505 tomatillo salsa

Heat a frying pan over medium heat.  Add the spices and toast for just a few seconds.  Add the pork and lime juice.  Heat the pork gently over low heat.  Cover when you're not stirring it to make the pork heat faster.  Serve the pork on corn tortillas with onions, cilantro and salsa.

Pork Noodle Bowls

This is seriously one of my favorite meals ever.  The combination of the pork with sweet, juicy mango and mint is simply amazing.  I have served it a number of times to guests and while some have been skeptical about such unusual flavor combinations, it has always been incredibly popular.  I make this using pre-cooked, shredded, frozen pork.

Adapted from: Smitten Kitchen
Difficulty: Easy
Category: Some Assembly Required

BBQ Pulled Pork

I wrote previously about cooking, shredding and freezing pork butt.  One of our easiest and most classic ways to use it is to serve pulled pork with BBQ sauce.  We sometimes have this as a sandwich and sometimes by itself.  Either way I always serve it with coleslaw.  I love fresh coleslaw on BBQ pork, and it's easy to make if you get a bag of pre-shredded cabbage from the produce aisle.  I really like this coleslaw, but sometimes I'm not in the mood to measure stuff.  In that case I just take a bag of the shredded cabbage, add a dash of apple cider vinegar, a squeeze of mustard, a spoonful of mayonnaise and salt, pepper and celery seed to taste.  It's fast, easy and delicious.

For the BBQ sauce you can, of course, use a store bought sauce.  I like the Stubb's brand personally.  For pulled pork though, I prefer to make my own mustard sauce.  My favorite is this recipe from Amazing Ribs, although I like to run it through the blender after making because I prefer it smooth.  I make a large batch of sauce when I make the pulled pork.  Then I divide it into containers and freeze as well. It's ready to go when I serve the pork.  You can serve the pork by heating the sauce, adding the pork and gently simmering until the meat is heated through.  If you would like to serve the sauce on the side, gently heat the pork in the microwave.

Freezer Meal Component: Smoked Pork

I posted previously about how I smoke, shred and freeze chickens to use in a variety of summer meals.  Another meat I love to cook in my smoker is pulled pork.  However, I didn't make pulled pork to freeze because I thought it wouldn't be as versatile as the chicken.  And maybe it's not as versatile as chicken, after all I wouldn't throw pulled pork on any old salad like I do with the chicken.  It was mistake to put off freezing pulled pork.  I have been missing out on deliciousness and what turned out to be some of my favorite meals.

We had guests for the Fourth of July and smoked two pork butts and served them with barbecue sauce and coleslaw.  Two pork butts make a lot.  I made so much with the intention of freezing it, thinking that we would have plenty for the freezer.  I did freeze a lot of pulled pork, but it did not last nearly as long as I had hoped.  A week later we had more guests over and served pork noodle bowls.  We enjoyed the pork so much we kept serving it every time we had guests over, and before I knew it, it was all gone.  I hadn't done everything I wanted with the frozen pulled pork, so a scant two months after freezing pork for the first time, I had to make another big batch.

Cooking the pork:

Pork butt is a very budget-friendly meat.  It is a tough cut though, so you will need to cook it in such a way to make it tender and delicious, generally either low and slow roasting or by braising.  Use your favorite method.  I have a Pit Barrel Cooker that I use to smoke my meats and I love it.  I highly recommend it if you are in the market for a smoker.  It's easy to use, affordable and makes delicious meat.

If you don't have or want a smoker, Amazing Ribs has excellent instructions about smoking meat in a gas or charcoal grill.  It's a super informative website for smoking meats.  Before I bought my smoker I used a gas grill to smoke pork butts using Amazing Ribs instructions with great success.  It is a project though and takes all day.  So if you want to do something easier, you can use a crockpot or roast in the oven.  I haven't tried either of those links, but they look promising (although I would leave out the liquid smoke).  Or if you have a favorite tried and true way to cook pork butt, use that.

Freezing the pork

After your pork is cooked, shred it and divide it into dinner sized portions.  The main difficulty with freezing cooked meat is that it gets freezer burn easily.  If this is something you do regularly, I recommend getting a vacuum sealer.  If you're not ready for that, then I recommend putting the meat in freezer Ziploc bags and squeezing out as much air as you can.

Serving the pork

Thaw the pork in the fridge overnight.  If you are serving the meat in a sauce, bring that sauce to a simmer and add the meat.  Simmer gently until the meat is heated through.  Otherwise you can reheat in the microwave.  Spread the meat out on a microwave-safe plate.  Reheat in two minute bursts at 60 to 70% power until heated through.  Don't overheat.  That will make the pork tough.

Pork spread out on a plate for heating in the microwave.

Ways to use the pork:

 Pork Noodle Bowls - One of my all time favorite meals!

 Bahn Mi - A delicious Vietnamese sandwich.

Pork Tacos - Another personal favorite.  And super fast and easy to boot.

 BBQ Pulled Pork with coleslaw - Classic and delicious.

Burritos - Fast and easy.

Chicken Fajitas or Tacos

It's summertime which means once again I have smoked,shredded and frozen several chickens for convenient summer meals.  When I started doing once a month cooking a couple years ago, these chicken fajitas were one of the very first meals I tried as evidenced by its location in column L of the 'Recipes' tab. They turned out all right.  

I combined the marinade with the sliced, raw chicken in one bag and froze it.  In another bag I combined the pepper and onion slices and froze them separately.  I thawed the chicken, cooked it and then cooked the peppers and onions from their frozen state. The fajitas tasted pretty good, but the vegetables were a little mushy. If I were to try to it again I might consider using a frozen veggie mix from the grocery store as the flash frozen vegetables may not be as mushy.  Or I would just go with fresh vegetables like I did for this newer rendition.

I realized with my frozen, pre-cooked chicken I can make fajitas or tacos fairly easily and this replaced having dedicated fajita meat in the freezer.  It is fairly easy although it does require prepping the peppers and onions on the day of.  You may be able to save some time with pre-cut peppers and onions from the produce section or salad bar at your grocery store.

Chicken Soup Three Ways

These chicken soups are warm and comforting on a cold day  They would be particularly nice to have when sick.  I plan to keep one batch in my freezer on a regular basis just to have for that reason. It's nice to make a very large batch of this that can be divided into meal-sized portions.  Then we can have it with dumplings, noodles or matzo balls depending on which we want that day or how much time we have.

This recipe turned into quite the project.  My initial plan was simply to create a freezer meal for chicken and dumplings, which we have always enjoyed and eaten regularly.  The chicken and dumplings freezer meal turned out well.  It consisted of two parts, the chicken soup and the dumpling dough that were frozen separately.  I realized the chicken soup part could be used to make other kinds of chicken soup like chicken noodle soup and matzo ball soup.  I decided to wait on posting the chicken and dumplings until I could post all three variations of the soup together.  This took a while as I needed to try all the variations and we didn't want to be eating chicken soup all the time.  There is often a long development process in creating freezer meals.

Peanut Chicken Noodle Bowls

I wrote previously about smoking, shredding and freezing whole chickens.  These noodle bowls are one of our favorite ways to utilize our pre-cooked chicken.  They're delicious and very refreshing for hot summer days.  We have these regularly when we have guests as they are always a big hit and each person assembles their own bowl and can customize it to their specific tastes.  The peanut sauce is easy to make and freezes well, so you can make up a big batch and freeze it in smaller portions to save you the work the day of or you can easily whip it up when you're getting your bowls ready. This is a "Some Assembly Required" meal, but it is very easy to throw together.

Adapted from: Smitten Ktichen
Difficulty: Easy
Category: Some Assembly Required
Column: BN

Component: Smoked Chicken

At the beginning of the summer I watched my grocery store flyers until whole chickens went on sale.  I then went out and bought seven chickens, smoked them, shredded them, bagged them in dinner-sized portions, and froze them.  I ended up with fifteen meals worth of chicken and now spend the summer coming up with ways to use them.

I generally prefer to make freezer meals that require little work on the day of to serve.  I find they're more likely to be used this way.  Plain shredded chicken requires that I do something more with it than take it out of the freezer and sticking it in the oven.  It is more work to serve than many of the other freezer meals I make, but it has advantages too.  Precooked chicken allows me to make a large variety of meals with less effort than having to cook everything the day of and makes for tasty and easy summer meals.  I prefer lighter food during the summer and a lot of  heat and eat freezer meals are heavier and more suitable for winter.  Plus this allows me to take advantage of the wonderful fresh produce available during the summer to round out the chicken out into a full meal.