Smothered Mediterranean Pork Chops, Karen’s Salad, And Posting Philosophy Addendum

Our kids, Rhett and Beth, gave us some special Iberico Pork from Spain’s Campo Grande for last years Christmas and we are just eating the first of it. From the web: “Known as the "Wagyu of pork," Ibérico pork is a premium meat from black Iberian pigs native to the Iberian Peninsula."  Renowned for its rich marbling, buttery texture, and nutty flavor, it is sourced from humanely raised animals with a traditional diet of grass and acorns.” For this meal, I selected a four-bone rack of pork chops which I cut into individual chops.  I looked around and found several recipes but smothered meat and pork is always a favorite of ours so I used the recipe for Smothered Mediterranean Pork Chops from the “A Labour Of Life” blog.  

Mashed Potato Pancakes And Oven Baked Ribs

Mashed Potato Pancakes

After our baked steak and gravy meal, we had four cups of mashed potatoes and I decided to turn them into one of my favorite things – mashed potato pancakes.  I looked around the web and found several similar recipes which I combined into the one below.  Since Cindy wanted to cook she took over and followed the recipe.

Beef Bone Broth, Gourmet Scrambled Eggs, And Cuban Sandwiches

As in the past, when our neighbors had their beef processed, I ended up with tail pieces (ox tails) and bones which I like to use to make broth and this was the day.  I had 7½ lbs. of bones and I began by roasting them at 400F for an hour.

Then I added them to my 16 qt. pot and added water to about ¾ full.

I cooked them on very low for 21 hours to get this very rich broth.  I had planned to add onion, carrot, and celery to the pot but forgot until too late.

Then I removed the bones and meat (separated it for the dogs) and let it set until the fat hardened on top and removed it.

Finally, it was strained and water added to get enough for 8 quart plastic bags.  But as we bagged it, two of the bags had a pin hole leak we could see and a third one leaked out in the sheet pan that I was about to freeze them on.  I don’t need this frustration so I’ll be buying beef broth from now on.  Since we cook chicken regularly for the dogs, I may still bag up and freeze these small batches of chicken broth.

Gourmet Scrambled Eggs

Recently, we had Creamy Lemon Garlic Salmon & Shrimp And Creamed Asparagus and we had both of the creamed sauces leftover which I used to top scrambled eggs for a delicious breakfast on two separate mornings.

Cuban Sandwiches

Remember our recent Mojo Pork meal, well we had plenty of leftover pork and opted to invite our neighbors down for Cuban Sandwiches.  I made the sandwiches as I had done previously using my yet-to-be-patented panni press.

We served it with the mojo broth from cooking and we thought they were better than the local Cuban restaurant - the mojo pork made a big difference.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

4/25-5/2/25 event dates

Slow Cooker Mojo Pork, Cuban Black Beans And Rice, And Cindy Flowers

Before I get into the food, Cindy likes to make flower arrangements so she picked the flowers from around our place and made this very pretty one.

Real Deal Carnitas & Delicious Charro Beans

I’ve ordered carnitas in a restaurant a couple of times and was always disappointed with the dry overcooked meat so I’ve not made them at home.  But when daughter, Wende, advised her great success making then, I had to give them a try and used the same recipe that she did.  The recipe for Reverse Carnita’s comes from famous chef Rick Bayless – not sure why they all called Reverse Carnitas but I followed the recipe as written using all of the optional flavorings.

Pork Loin Two Ways - Crispy Fried Cutlets and Baked Parmesan Crusted With Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

I had purchased a whole pork loin and cut it into 6-7 inch roasts with the idea of using some of it for schnitzel-like dishes and I’d saved Pam’s recipe for Crispy Pork Medallions on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog, which I had planned to use as written.  But then I decided to use her recipe but substitute the loin cutlets for the tenderloin medallions.

Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy

I bought a whole pork loin on sale recently and couldn’t resist using part of it to make Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy using the recipe from the “Recipe BY Me” blog.  I changed the cooking method a lot a shown in the recipe below.

A Major Milestone And A Couple Of Meals This Summer

If you have been reading this blog much at all, you know that we are not “Spring Chickens” here in this family so I’ll let you do the ciphering for yourself and not disclose any numbers but SIL, Pat W, just had a very major milestone birthday (which I’ll hopefully be here to have next year).  Since we didn’t want to go out for lunch on the crowded Labor Day (her actual birthday), we waited until this day to go to her requested restaurant for lunch – Tapoco Lodge.  Since I posted about the lodge a few years ago , I won’t do that again and will confine this post to this visit.  Our neighbors Pat L and Steve joined Pat W, Bev, and I for the always adventurous drive up the 11 miles and 318 curves of The Dragon (US-129). 

Italian Pan fried Halibut with Creamy Lemon Caper Sauce Then Greek Sausage

I had some halibut in the freezer that I wanted to use and after searching my blog, I found a recipe that we had made previously but I didn’t have the sauce ingredients so I adapted my normal lemon, butter sauce for this dish.

Easy Pork Pozole Verde And Riley Visits

Visit from Riley

We had a recent long-weekend visit from granddaughter, Riley, who is a student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina where she is majoring in Psychology and Religious Studies.  It’s been about a year since we saw her and it was really nice catching up with her life.  Here she is with her Meme and Aunt Pat engaged in girl talk.

Riley brought her cat and kept it in her bedroom and this is Romeo trying to look under the door the check it out.

Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions And First Fire

When Karen posted this recipe for Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions on her “Backroads Journal” blog, I knew I wanted to make it.  We like kraut and pork anyway, but Karen’s treatment of the kraut especially appealed to me.  I made it per the recipe except for mistakes.

Eliza Christmas, Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup

Eliza and family didn’t make it down until Saturday for us to celebrate Christmas with her and for a meal on a rainy day we opted for a soup to use more of the leftover ham from Christmas dinner.  After looking around the web, I settled on the recipe for Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup from Food.com.  But before we get to the meal lets have a look at Eliza having her second Christmas with Bev’s help.  As a seven year old, she walked in the door, gave me a hug, said Merry Christmas then asked "do you have presents for me." 😊

Christmas Leftovers – Hot Turkey Sandwich And Cheesy Ham & Asparagus Bake

Now that we have made it thru the Christmas meal, we have plenty of leftovers to use up up as you will see on my next couple of posts.

Since I didn’t get to eat as much gravy on Christmas Day as I would have liked, the next evening I made an open-faced hot turkey sandwich.  I added some gravy and sliced turkey to a bowl and nuked it then built the sandwich as follows: slice of homemade bread, turkey, gravy, and chopped bacon.  It was delicious.

Christmas Dinner – 2024

Christmas Dinner attendees for this year were the four of us (Bev, Pat W, Cindy, and me), our neighbors Pat L and Steve and special guest granddaughter Madison (also her birthday) and the one thing I wanted to do for sure was smoke a ham half and a turkey breast on my yet-to-be-used pellet smoker.  As Bev and I discussed menu items many things popped up and the two things we knew we wanted for sure was gravy for the turkey and homemade bread.  Then we considered many side dishes such as dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, etc. until Pat L pointed out it could be simpler and healthier to just make green beans rather than the casserole.  Then Bev and I realized we had plenty to eat without the dressing and our favorite way to cook sweet potatoes was to simply bake them and so a menu was born that was way easier and much healthier - smoked turkey breast and smoked ham, gravy, green beans, baked sweet and Irish potatoes, salad, and homemade bread.

The table is all set.

Spam Lite Three Ways

I’m confident you remember that in April of 2023, I conducted a Spam (Hormel) vs. Treet (Armour) taste test and my conclusion was that they were both way too salty.  Three months later  Big Daddy Dave did a post about Spam Lite which contains 25% less salt so I bought a can of it to try.

Grilled Bourbon and Cherry Pork Tenderloin and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Garlic Butter

I’ve had this pork dish on my list to make for quite a while and it finally made it to the top.  The recipe for Grilled Bourbon and Cherry Pork Chops comes from famous pitmaster and Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q chef Chris Lilly by way of the “Nibble Me This”  blog.  As you can see, the recipe is for pork chops but when I checked the freezer, I couldn’t find those that I thought I had but I did find a couple of pork tenderloins and used them instead.  I increased the sauce ingredients by 50% and didn’t dunk the meat in it while cooking because I wanted plenty to spoon over the meat after slicing and I used a gas grill.

Madison (Granddaughter) Comes For A Visit – Post 2

Even though it was cool and rainy during their visit, Madison and boyfriend, Zach, managed to get in some jet ski riding, a couple of walks around the area, and some time with her Meme.

Madison (Granddaughter) Comes For A Visit

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you likely recall that Madison lived with us for a few years spread over two visits but she hasn’t been here in quite a while so we were excited when she arranged a visit with her boyfriend Zach.  Since she had several food requests, it appears this was primarily a culinary visit and of course we were happy to oblige.  The only challenge was that Zach is gluten intolerant but we are used to cooking for good buddy Joe who has the same issue.

Slow Cooker Mojo Pork And Mississippi Mud Potatoes - Both Delicious

This is a very eclectic meal as the three dishes don’t necessarily go together but I wanted to make the pork and the potatoes, and Bev decided we needed something green so she added slaw.

I love pulled pork, Mojo Sauce is one of my favorite parts of a Cuban sandwich and I love my slow cooker so when Claudia posted the recipe for Slow Cooker Mojo Pork on her “What’s Cooking Italian” blog, I was all in.  Then I decided that with no gluten and having it cook while we do happy hour, it would be perfect for Friday cards.  Bev ended up with an 8¾ lb. pork butt so I doubled the marinade ingredients, I changed some of the ingredients a little, and made it as a pulled vs. sliced pork dish but the original recipe plus Claudia’s pics can be found by clicking on the above link.

Delicious Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole For RV Rally Arrival

We recently attended a rally for our RV travel club (even though we stayed in a motel) in Pensacola, FL and a pot luck supper was on tap for the arrival day meal.  Since we would be driving down in the car and arriving shortly before the meal, I planned our contribution to be something I could make at home and heat up after we got to the rally.  The dish I chose was Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole from the “Mom On Time Out” blog and I followed the recipe as shown below.