Crock pot Smoked Green Chile Pork

Man, this was good.  We ate 4 pounds of pork roast in 2 days.  I'd like to say I'm a genius, but alas, I'm really not.  Smoking in a crock pot?  Stole that idea from one of my favorite food bloggers, the civilized caveman (check out his crock pot meals!). 

Warning:  a little bit of advanced work is needed here (the night before and the morning of), but it is so worth it.  Trust me here.  We could barely contain ourselves, the house smelled so good.  

(Oh, yeah, don't know my pictures are so fuzzy these days.  Maybe I was shaking with excitement to chow down after smelling this all afternoon?  Don't know.  Sorry.  The food is good, really, even if my pictures are not.)

Ingredients:

• 1 pork butt roast, about 4 pounds
• Emeril's Creole Seasoning 
• 13 oz New Mexico roasted chopped green chile (I cannot vouch for the results if you are forced to use canned green chile...)
• Wood chips
• Waxed paper
• 1/2 cup water

Directions:

The night before... 

1. Rub the pork roast with Creole Seasoning.  Make sure you get all sides.
2. Place pork in a large plastic bag (I had one of those turkey oven roasting bags left over for some point in the past) and add green chile.  Turn the pork and make sure all sides get covered with green chile.  
3. Close and secure bag and put in the fridge to marinate overnight (I put my bag in a pan so that nothing would leak all over my fridge).  In a perfect world, you'd probably rotate the bag and make sure all side get some good time with the green chile; in a realistic world, you never get there, and things still turn out great!

In the morning...

1. 30 minutes before you want to start cooking, soak your woodchips.  
2. Come back, remove your chips from water, and place them on the wax paper.  Make yourself a little pocket and put the pocket in the bottom of your crock pot.  EDIT:  poke some holes in your pocket to allow chip flavor to escape.
3. Dump 1/2 cup of water in the bottom of your pot.
4. Place marinated pork on top.
5. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.
6. Eat and enjoy.

Adovada Enchiladas

I had two different food-related thoughts that came together this weekend.  First, I wanted to use the Carne Adovada (one of my favorite New Mexican recipes) sauce developed by Use Real Butter, but I wanted to make it with ground beef (I was originally thinking Adovada burgers or something).  Then, my library hold of Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint Cookbook finally came in (hooray!) and I was intrigued by his use of egg white crepes to make the enchiladas.  Aha, I thought (in what I like to think was a rare moment of brilliance), adovada enchiladas could be something really good. 

I thought about making coconut flour tortillas, but eggs are generally used to tame down heat here in New Mexico (and since I don't eat dairy...these kind of things help:)), and frankly Mark's crepes looked pretty easy (I subbed coconut milk for the cream).  I found it took me a bit to make the perfect crepes, but once I got the hang of it, life was good.  [You cannot taste the coconut milk in the crepes once you are done.]

Anyway, this recipe is a bit, er, time intensive?  But, for a special weekend meal, I think well worth it.  Also, I added veggies to my sauce mixture - you can change them up or omit them as you prefer (I figured since I was doing so much work, I wasn't going to take the time to make another side dish...).

Served above with fresh mango and avocado to tame the heat and add a lovely bit of sweetness!

Ingredients:

• 20 dried, red New Mexico chiles (to tone down the heat, remove the seeds)
• 3-4 tsp sea salt
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp oregano (original calls for 2 tsp, but I'm not a real fan of oregano, and I can totally taste when there are 2 tsp)
• 3-4 cups beef broth/stock (you can use water, but I think the beef broth adds a needed depth/body)
• 1 pound ground meat (I used a mixture of pork and beef - pork (carne) adovada is a very traditional New Mexican dish)
• 2 yellow squash
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 1 bunch spinach
• 8 egg whites (save the yummy yolks for something else)
• 1/3 cup coconut milk (if you let the can sit in the 'fridge, the "cream" separates from the water -- I used the cream part)
• Oil (to grease the crepe pan)
• Sliced mango (optional)
• Sliced avocado (optional)

Directions:

Begin by making the sauce

1. Preheat oven to 325 degree (F).  Place dried chiles on a baking sheet and cook until blackened and blistered, about 8-10 minutes (keep the door open a crack...also, be careful of the fumes...and be VERY careful to handle the peppers and their seeds).
2. Meanwhile, bring beef broth to a boil.
3. Remove from the oven and cover peppers with beef broth.  Cover and let steam for about 30 minutes.
4. Remove pepper from broth, reserving liquid.
5. In a food processor (or blender), mix together peppers, salt, oregano, and about 2 cups of the broth.  Blend until pureed.  You may need to add a little broth/water to get the desired "sauciness".

Make the filling [you can start this while sauce is being prepared}

1. Begin to brown meat. 
2. Chop veggies (if using). 
3. Once meat begins to release a little of its fat, add veggies (except spinach) and let begin to soften.
4. Add sauce and spinach and cook until thickened and spinach is wilted.

Make the crepes

1. Whisk together egg whites and coconut milk.
2. Meanwhile, heat a pan or griddle, add oil, and pour just a little bit of the egg white mixture.  The key here - you want it to be THIN.  Mark suggests about 1/6 cup.  I don't have a cup that is 1/6 cup, so I just eye-balled it.  Once the crepes begin to form little bubbles all the way through (like pancakes), flip.  It doesn't take too long on the other side.
3. Set aside on a plate until all the crepes are cooked.

Assemble the enchiladas

1. If you turned your oven off, turn it back on to 325 degrees.
2. Put a crepe on a plate, stuff with filling, roll, and place into pan.  Do this until you are done (whether because you ran out of food or no more will fit in your pan).
3. Cover with foil and place in an over for about 20 minutes (this helps the flavors meld together...we tried it both with and without baking, and I prefer the end result after baking).
4. Plate.  Serve with diced mango (this is really good, and really helps tame the heat) and/or avocado slices.  Enjoy your Paleo enchiladas! 

Curried Ground Meat (Keema, Part 2)

Sorry about the title, inspiration left me.  Anyway, my real inspiration came from one of the recipes in Robb Wolf's new book The Paleo Solution.  As an aside, if you haven't read Robb's new book, you really should.  It's good.  He's funny.  It's a nice blend of the science from the Paleo Diet and the fun writing style of The Primal Blueprint.  Even if you're a Paleo expert, I think you could gain something from the book.  Anyway, back to the recipe.  As I looked at the recipe for Curried Pork, I thought, wow, that looks like a simplified version of Keema, with an added can of coconut milk and some fresh spinach.  But that's one thing I love about making Paleo foods -- the possibilities are endless, and the recipes can be as simple or complex as your little heart desires.  [I made a "double" batch so we'd have leftovers, but you can easily cut this recipe in half.]

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbs coconut oil
• 1 onion, diced (optional)
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork (use any combination of ground meat that you want)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can diced tomatoes (get the no salt added kind) or 2 firm tomatoes, diced (optional)
• 1 Tbs ginger (optional)
• 2-4 Tbs curry powder
• 1 tsp minced hot pepper (optional)
• 1 can coconut milk (get the full-fat variety)
• Spinach (I had a big tub)

Preparation:

Heat oil over medium heat until hot.  Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the meat and cook until no longer pink.  Add the garlic, tomatoes, ginger, curry powder, hot peppers, coconut milk, and spinach.  Cook for a few minutes until blended together (maybe about another 5 minutes).  Cook about another 10 or 15 minutes until sauce has boiled down.  Taste and add more curry powder if needed.

Sweet & Sour Paleo Pork

What to do with a pork loin, rhubarb, and pineapple?  Answer - sweet & sour pork - paleo style!  I like the rhubarb because it both offers a sour flavor and acts as a thickening agent (thus, eliminating the need for cornstarch).

For the sauce:

• 1 to 1 1/2 cup rhubarb, chopped (1 cup was about 1 stalk)
• 1 cup mango, chopped (I used frozen mango)
• 1 cup pineapple, chopped (I used fresh, but canned would work as well (drained))
• 1 Tbs coconut aminos
• 1 Tbs clam sauce (other fish sauce would work as well, but this is the only thing I've been able to find without undesirable ingredients like sugar)
• 1 cup homemade chicken stock

For the stirfry:

• Coconut oil
• 1.5 pounds pork loin, cubed
• 3 Tbs Chinese 5-spice powder
• 1 onion, sliced or chopped
• 3 bell peppers (I had yellow and orange on hand), cubed
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp or so ginger, minced (I keep mine in the freezer and grate it as needed)
• 1/4 cup pineapple, chopped

1. Cut rhubarb, mango, and pineapple.  Add to a saucepan with coconut aminos, clam sauce, and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil and then simmer until rhubarb is melted.  [Note:  mine was still a little chunky, mostly from the mango, but I didn't want to go through the effort of making a puree (and dirtying more dishes).  Once it was mixed with the pork and veggies, you couldn't tell the difference.]
2. Meanwhile, cut pork into cubes.
3. Heat wok or other large pan on medium to medium-high heat.  Add coconut oil.  Once heated, add pork loin.  Season with 5-spice powder.  Saute until just cooked through (you don't want to overcook the meat).  
4. Chop other veggies.
5. Once pork is cooked, remove from the pan. Add onions  to the pan and cook until translucent (you don't want to brown them). 
6. Add peppers, garlic, and ginger to the pan.  Cook until peppers are crisp-tender.
7. Add back cooked pork.
8. Mix in sauce and coat pork and veggies.  Sitr in pineapple.  Allow to cook for another minute or two.
9. Serve and enjoy.  We ate this over a bed of fresh spinach and cauliflower rice.