A Very Large Bowl

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Roasted Chicken Tikka

Life has been crazy busy for us lately. In October my husband learned that his company would be closing down in December and began job hunting. A new job for him meant a move would be likely for our family. We started packing, and I stopped adding freezer meals to our freezer. He received a job offer and left for New York shortly before Christmas. We already had plans to go on a cruise for Christmas, so he flew back to join us for that. After the cruise we drove back to Mississippi to get the rest of our stuff and then drove on to New York. We had a month of relaxed packing followed by a month of frantic packing followed by an awesome and relaxing cruise and ended it all with 4 days of driving through 9 different states.

As soon as I learned about his company closing I stopped adding meals to my freezer and switched to a focus on eating what we had. It was great to not need to cook on top of everything else we had going on. We didn't quite make it through all the meals we had in the freezer, and I gave the last of them to a woman I knew who had just had a baby. Now we are in temporary housing while we wait to move into the house we are in the process of buying. That means no freezer meals for us right now. I miss them. Life is much simpler when dinner is ready and in the freezer every day. I do have a couple recipes that I made in my last batch of freezer cooking that I haven't gotten around to posting yet what with all the frantic packing. So I have something to post while I wait to get back to my freezer cooking.

This isn't a chicken tikka like you might be thinking about with chunks of chicken in a creamy tomato sauce that is served over rice, although I do have a freezer version of chicken tikka masala if that is what you are looking for. No, this is chicken marinated in a yogurt marinade and roasted with potatoes and cauliflower. It is delicious. I served this to guests a few months ago and one in particular raved about it continually.

Bahn Mi

Shortly after I had smoked and frozen pork butt for the first time a friend described to me a Vietnamese sandwich called a Bahn Mi. It sounded absolutely delicious, and I knew I had to try it with my frozen pork. Unfortunately we blew through our frozen pork, and I ran out before I got a chance to make this. The desire to try bahn mi definitely contributed to me making a second batch of smoked pork so soon after I had made the first. I usually wait a while before I get around to making a freezer meal again. This was worth it though. It was delicious and we definitely be having it again.

There are a lot of parts here, but they are all easy and can be made in advance.

Adapted from: Epicurious

Difficulty: Easy

Burritos

I learned about Uncle Ben's microwave rice bags pretty recently and realized they'd be a quick and easy way to make burritos with pre-cooked, shredded pork. They're a quick and tasty weeknight meal.

To make burritos, heat a package of Uncle Ben's Spanish rice in the microwave according to package directions and gently reheat your precooked pork in the microwave. Assemble burritos on large tortillas with rice, drained and rinsed canned beans (black or pinto), pork, cheese, lettuce, sour cream and salsa (I like 505 tomatillo salsa).

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.