Barbecue Ribs & Cabbage in the Slow Cooker – An Easy Dinner That Satisfies!

Tags

barbecue, crockpot, pork, recipe, red cabbage, ribs, sauce, slow cooker

It has been way too long since I’ve posted anything and I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but after posting something on Facebook I had a request to post this recipe. Pork ribs were on sale at my local grocery store, so I picked up a rack. With the cold weather, we haven’t been in barbecue mode, but I have been in slow cooker mode! So slow cooker ribs it is! 

I was looking through one of my cook books and saw a few recipes for ribs with saurkraut. Now that sounds interesting! I didn’t have much saurkraut on hand, but I did have a jar of red cabbage. This sounded even better to me! I must say, it did not disappoint! The ribs were tender and delicious and the cabbage was incredibly tasty!

This meal was super easy to make and was incredibly satisfying! My family loved it! I served it with a side of corn and some fresh baked sourdough bread. I made my own sourdough starter for the first time, but that is another post!

Barbecue Ribs & Cabbage in the Slow Cooker

1 rack of pork ribs (I used loin back ribs), cut to fit in slow cooker, I cut mine in half

1 – 12 oz jar of German red cabbage

2 cups of barbecue sauce (I used 1 cup of Kinder’s Sweet Sriracha BBQ sauce and 1 cup Kinder’s California Gold BBQ sauce) 

2 tsp liquid smoke

Season ribs with salt and pepper and place in slow cooker. Cover ribs with red cabbage,then pour over BBQ sauce and finally, sprinkle on the liquid smoke. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Cook shorter time for on the bone ribs. Cook longer for fall off the bone meat. Mine was somewhere in between and was very nice to eat.

Enjoy!

15 Bean Soup – Keeping it Lean and Low Sodium

Tags

15 Bean Soup, heart healthy, low sodium, low-fat, pork, slow cooker, Slow Cooking

Lately I have taken up the challenge of cooking low sodium meals. My mother-in-law, who has congestive heart failure, just had open heart surgery. She’s not yet well enough to cook for herself, so I’ve been trying to help out. She is supposed to eat less that 2000mg of sodium a day; that’s one teaspoon!!! Eating out or even pre-made food from the store is basically out of the question if you’re going to meet this goal. Making meals that help her meet this goal has definitely been a learning experience! This 15 bean soup has been one of my favorite meals thus far. While keeping the salt level low, it still had lots of flavor, was packed with fiber, was lowfat and was also easy to make. Of course, you can always add more salt, if that is not an issue for you, but in case you are also looking for low sodium, great tasting foods I’ll give the recipe as I made it.

I wanted to add some meat to add to the heartiness of the soup. I looked to see if I could find a low sodium sausage. I was not successful! Even the sausages that said they contained “30% Less Salt”, less than what??? A salt lick??? So I kept scouring the meat section. Ham hocks? Nope! And then I found some unseasoned pork tenderloin that was cut into small pieces, like stew meat. This did the trick! If you can’t find this in your store, you could always buy a tenderloin and cut it up into bite size pieces yourself.

15 Bean Soup

1 pound unseasoned pork tenderloin, cut into bite size pieces

1/2 large onion, diced

1 20 oz bag 15 bean soup mix, found in bean section of grocery store

1/2 of seasoning packet included in bean soup mix (Even with the whole packet the sodium level in the whole recipe was only 70 mg, but I decided to only use half and add some other seasonings)

8 cups water

1 – 14.5 oz can of reduced salt diced tomatoes (luckily most tomato products come in reduced salt versions)

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp garlic and herb Mrs. Dash

Juice of 1 lemon or 3 tbsp of bottled juice

2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

Pepper to taste

Spray a frying pan with non-stick spray and brown pork over medium high heat. When almost browned add the onions and saute until tender and meat is browned. Add meat, onions and all other ingredients to a slow cooker, give a stir and cover. Cook over low heat for 8 hours.

As mentioned above, if you’re not watching your sodium some added salt would be a good add.

Enjoy!

Szechuan Stir Fry – A Healthy Dinner With Loads of Flavor!!!

Tags

Chicken, Dinner, pork, Rice, Stir Fry, Szechuan, vegan, vegetarian

 I had bought packages of boneless pork chops marked down that were on the small side. How am I going to stretch this meat to feed my family??? Rather than serving whole pork chops, I thought I would cut the meat into bite size pieces and make a stir fry. I was faking it, but this meal turned out so delicious! The garlic, ginger and spicy Szechuan  sauce made for a very bold sauce and the variety of fresh, organic vegetables gave it additional bright flavor and wonderful texture.

This is definitely a dish you could play with and use whatever vegetables you have on hand. You could even use a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. I just used what I had on hand and it made for a wonderful dish that we wolfed down!

The great thing about this dish is you can leave the meat out or substitute it with tofu for a vegan/vegetarian dish. Tofu would work well with this sauce! It would absorb that flavor and give you a protein boost with wonderful flavor.

Szechuan Stir Fry

3/4 – 1 pound pork or chicken, cut into bite size cubes
3 carrots, sliced

1/2 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 head brocollini, chopped

4 oz mushrooms, sliced

1/2 pound asparagus, rough chopped

2 cloves garlic, pressed or diced

1 tbsp ginger, finely diced

1/2 cup Chicken broth

1/2 cup Spicy Szechuan sauce

1 1/2 tbsp Cornstarch

1 1/2 tbsp water

Jasmati or Basmati rice

Cook jazmati or basmati rice as instructed by package. I made about 4 servings worth. Spray non-stick wok or large fry pan with non-stick spray, saute pork (or chicken) over medium high heat until browned on all sides. It’s OK if it’s not cooked all the way through. Remove meat from pan to a plate and set aside. If needed, give pan another spray of non-stick spray. Add all veggies and saute until tender, but still crunchy. Add broth, Szechuan sauce, and meat and turn heat down to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes. In a small bowl, stir together corn starch and water and then add to rest of mixture. This will thicken your sauce. Simmer until sauce is thickened and meat is cooked through. Serve over rice.

Tip: For those of you that are less-experienced cooks, the mix of cornstarch and water is called a slurry. If you don’t have cornstarch you can also use flour. You want to mix this together really well and work out any lumps, so when you add this to your sauce, you won’t have lumps, but your sauce will thicken nicely. This is good to have in your bag of tricks as you can use it to thicken almost any sauce that isn’t reducing or thickening the way you would like. Just don’t go overboard with too much as it will affect the flavor of your sauce.

Enjoy!

Pork and Sweet Potatoes

Tags

apple, apples, Cooking, Food, healthy, main dish, pork, recipe, sweet potato

Once again, my organic produce delivery inspired a wonderful dinner! This week’s delivery included organic sweet potatoes, onions and apples. I love to cook apples and onions with pork. I thought the sweet potatoes would be a good add. The apples and sweet potatoes are both pretty sweet, so I wanted to a some savory spices to balance out the dish.
1/2 – 3/4 lb pork chops or pork loin, diced

1/2 – 3/4 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 tbsp canola oil

1 apple, diced

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp ground all spice

1/8 tsp cinnamon

In a dutch oven over medium heat, heat canola oil until beginning to smoke. Add pork, onion and sweet potatoes and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.  Add apple, chicken broth and all seasonings and simmer on medium-low heat for 30 minutes with lid askew, so steam can escape. This will allow everything to cook through, but the broth to reduce.

I served this over brown rice (1 & 1/2 cup instant brown rice, 1 & 3/4 cup water). Making about 4 servings.

Cold Water Brewery and Grill – Great New Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe!

Tags

beer, dining out, Fish Tacos, Food, pork, restaurant, South Lake Tahoe, tostados, travel

  
If you’ve spent much time at South Lake Tahoe, you’ll remember the Swiss Chalet restaurant. It was a very distinctive building and was pretty much an institution. I’m not sure how long it was open, but for most of my 49 years! Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep up with the times and closed a few years ago. On a happy note though, a new, updated restaurant has opened in it’s place. We had the opportunity to visit the new Cold Water Brewery & Grill for lunch and we were pleasantly suprised with this new dining option.

I’m not a beer drinker, but my husband is on occcasion and decided to try their Mr. Toad’s Wild Rye. He really enjoyed it. I had a sip and did as well. He doesn’t like beers that have that overly hoppy taste and this one didn’t have that.

The food was also incredibly enjoyable! I was happy to see a casual menu that you would expect to find in a brewery. I hate brewery restaurants that try to be hoy paloy!!! To me, a brewery menu should include rustic, down home foods; burgers, tacos, fries, great sandwiches, and lots of fried foods! Cold Water did not disappoint! While I didn’t have a burger, I did enjoy their South Lake Fish Tacos filled with beer-battered, fried Alaskan Cod. They also had a generous serving of avocado and this fantastic watermelon, jicama and cucumber slaw. Simply delicious and fresh tasting!!! My husband ordered the BBQ Pork Tostados. These were also served with watermelon. This combination was surprisingly wonderful and one that we decided to try at home this summer!

This is a restaurant that I would recommend. It’s fairly new, but solid. They don’t have it available yet, but they are working on an outdoor patio and we did see significant progrress during our week in Tahoe.

Give this place a shot! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!