Delicious & Easy Pulled Pork

Having been married to a Tennessee boy for almost 7 years (next Monday!), learning how to make a good pulled pork has been essential.  I'm not gonna lie -- I enjoy it too!  I recently learned that I have an "allergy" to beef (this has flabbergasted me!), so I've been pulling together all my non-beef recipes I have to make sure good protein recipes are in the rotation.  This is definitely one of our favorites and I give ALL credit for the delicious dry rub mixture from Kevin & Amanda's Perfect Pulled Pork recipe.

Delicious & Easy Pulled Pork

Ingredients:

4-7lb Boston Butt OR Pork Shoulder Roast (with OR without bones is fine)

1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground pepper
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 cup brown sugar (optional)

Mix the dry rub all together in a small bowl, rub it generously all over the pork shoulder/boston butt, even into the creases. Any dry rub that is left over can be used to season the pork after it's cooked.

After you massage in the dry rub, refrigerate the pork for 4 hours up to overnight.  (Sometimes when I am in a hurry I skip this! Still turns out fine!)

Then, toss pork with the layer of fat on TOP in the slow-cooker on high for 8 hours.  After 8 hours, shred with two forks, and if necessary, add more of the remaining dry rub to season.  Used reserved juices to moisten the meat.  

Enjoy!

Grain-Free Dairy-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Right now I'm trying my best to avoid dairy for our youngest.  I have a hunch he might have a sensitivity to dairy, so as sad as that is, I'm doing my best to avoid (although I might have a few indulgences at Thanksgiving).

Here is one of my favorite and super easy cookie recipes that you can easily make without butter or any grains!  Recipe is courtesy of my good friend Lindsay, although you may find very similar versions elsewhere on the internet.  Enjoy!

Image by joythebaker.com

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 C peanut butter (or other nut butter)

3/4 C sucanat or other crystalized sweetener

1 tsp baking powder

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and put small spoonfuls on baking sheet. Do the "fork thing" that you do with peanut butter cookies.

Bake at 350°, check at 7 minutes or so.

Santa Fe Chili - real foodified

One of our favorite chili recipes was introduced to us by our friend Jenn M. on the very day we moved into our house almost 4 years ago! It was so yummy, I immediately asked her for the recipe the next day and shared it with my mom as well.  We enjoy making this every year, but the more I have learned about food and additives, the less I have wanted to use the taco seasoning and ranch seasoning packets it calls for.  Thanks to Pinterest, google, and the interwebs, it fortunately hasn't taken me long to find easy homemade substitutes that DO NOT contain the abominable MSG or maltodextrin.  *Phew!  So now we can consume this chili guilt-free and without the neurotoxic side effect.  I sure hate getting headaches when I eat, don't you!?

photo credit: tasteofhome.com

Here's the recipe, which I found is originally from TasteofHome.com:

• 2 pounds ground beef (grass-fed if possible)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• the equivalent of 2 - 15oz cans of kidney beans, soaked (*rinsed & drained)
• the equivalent of 2 - 15oz cans of black beans, soaked*
• 3 cans (7 oz each) white shoepeg corn
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can diced tomatoes & green chilies (e.g., Rotel)
• 2 servings of homemade ranch seasoning
• 2 servings of homemade taco seasoning
• 2 cups water (or homemade chicken stock)
• Optional garnishes:
• sour cream, non-GMO corn chips, shredded cheddar cheese

Brown the ground beef, drain.  Add in chopped onion and cook until the onion is soft.  Add in the beans, corn, tomatoes, chilies, seasonings, and water/stock.  Cover & cook on high for about 2 hours.  Serve in bowls with additional garnishes if desired.   

*I soaked and cooked dry kidney beans and black beans to include in this recipe.  I used 1.5 cups of soaked beans to substitute for 1 can of beans.  So therefore, I used 3 cups of each type of soaked beans. That's a lot of beans!!!

The general rule of thumb is: 

1 15-ounce can of beans equals

• 1/2 cup dry beans, before cooking

• 1 1/2 cups beans, after cooking 

Read more at Dried to Canned Beans conversion.

Enjoy!

Pass the salad, please

Source

Me & Salads.

If I'm honest, we don't go back very far.  I never really developed a strong penchant for salads until my 20s, and even then, calling it a "penchant" might be one vocab word too far.  I enjoy them on occasion -- usually when someone else makes them -- and I had some cravings for salad during my last pregnancy.  Methinks it was partially the salad dressings I craved as well!

It turns out, much of the goodness of salads can come from the dressings themselves; that is, if you make them yourselves using good quality ingredients.

Wait, back that train up.  Did I just say the dressing could be good?? As in, good for YOU?  Yes, yes I did.  You no longer have to feel guilty about using too much dressing as long as you take the time to carefully control the ingredients when you're making these guys.  The good guys.

I just made a great salad from Publix Apron's Simple Meals, and a great Italian dressing via Penniless Parenting.

Here's the Salad, straight from Publix's website (from the meal grilled fish with gremolata and spring salad with parmesan):

Spring Salad with Parmesan
Ingredients
1 bag spring mix salad blend (4–6 oz)
1 1/2 cups shaved Parmesan cheese
1 cup pine nuts (or slivered almonds)
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup Italian salad dressing 

Steps

1. Place salad blend, cheese, and pine nuts in salad bowl. Cut tomatoes in half; add to salad.
2. Add dressing; toss and serve.

And as for the salad dressing, hop on over to Penniless Parenting - Zesty Italian Dressing.  Use this in place of store-bought dressing and you can avoid all the preservatives and vegetables or soybean oil commonly used in store-bought salad dressings.

Then, consume - GUILT-free!

We enjoyed this next to some spaghetti with meat sauce the other night. Yum!

What's your favorite salad or salad dressing combination? Do you make your own dressings, and if so, how?

Food you can USE // White Chili Recipe

One of our favorite meals around here is White Chili. It doesn't matter if it's the "dead of winter" (a laughable phrase here in Florida), or the intense heat of summer, we tend to enjoy it all year long. It is easy to enjoy it too, as it has some pretty simple ingredients.  I used to make this all from canned and premixed ingredients, but now I've upped my game and I use homemade or from-scratch ingredients when I can.

If you've tinkered in real food for a while, then you know that roasting a chicken and making stock from the bones renders several benefits.  The collagen in the broth (from the bone stock) helps several systems and functions in your body, and the broth helps your digestive tract. Not only is it good for helping you when you're sick, it's also great for keeping you from getting sick. Win-Win.

You might also know that soaking and cooking dry beans is also highly encouraged in traditional food prep, for lots of reasons. If you soak and cook your own white beans, then they will be ready to use in this recipe (instead of using canned).

And if you still have leftover chicken from roasting a chicken, you can throw it in this chili!  I love using something from the beginning to the end and feeling like I really got some use out of it.  Sometimes food bloggers say things like, "Roast a chicken for dinner, make stock overnight with the bones, then throw the leftover chicken in enchiladas or a chicken pot pie," as if it were really intuitive.  That intuition for me is gradually growing, but for a newbie, I could see how that would not be intuitive. But in this recipe, all you really need is your leftover chicken, diced up (and estimate at what 1lb is).

Here's the recipe, courtesy of my friend Angie (my notes are italicized):

White Chili

1 lb chicken, cubed
1 medium onion, chopped
1 ½ tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp vegetable oil - I omit this or sub coconut oil
2 cans (15 ½ oz) northern white beans, drained - or 2-3 cups of soaked, cooked white beans
1 can chicken broth - 14-15oz homemade chicken stock
2 (4 oz) cans chopped green chilies - canned food is usually not recommended because of BPA, but I haven't found a better substitute - has anyone else?
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
½ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
8 oz sour cream - I use Daisy brand, available at most grocery stores
½ cup whipping cream - I use fresh, raw/low-temp pasteurized cream if available

Cook chicken with onion, garlic powder and oil until chicken is cooked
thoroughly. Combine the rest of the ingredients (which includes the chicken) except the
creams in a medium stock pot. Bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to a simmer. Continue
to simmer for 30 minutes. Add the creams. Stir all together. Serve with tortilla chips
and sprinkle with cheese.
Serves: 6


Enjoy!