Hey, guess what? We have another yummy slow cooker recipe today … along with an update on my current life situation.

You may recall the story from three years and eight months ago when I told you all about a knee injury I sustained while driving with my dad from Phoenix to Austin. Well, over the last 3+ years, the injury has only gotten worst. To the point where I need a knee replacement. In early October, I was nearly unable to walk, a cortisone shot helped a bit, but not enough for the long haul, so surgery is scheduled for January 31st. I am to the point that I Can Not Wait! The end of January cannot come soon enough. So that is what’s happening with me.

Caring for Max is honestly a great distraction. Creating Harmony Boards requires a large amount of time standing in one spot and standing for an extended time causes more pain than walking. Luckily, babysitting does not require much standing, so we’re all good here in Chicago. I look forward to watching him again in the spring when I’m able to get down on the floor and play with him without pain!

Slow Cooker Lo Mein

• Sauce
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon chile paste, or more, to taste
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• Lo Mein
• 2 pounds boneless pork shoulder
• 3 cups broccoli florets
• 2 carrots, julienned
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 cup sugar snap peas
• 5-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained and rinsed
• 1 pound spaghetti
• Toasted sesame seeds, garnish

Whisk together soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, chile paste, oyster sauce, ginger, and sesame oil in the slow cooker. Add pork shoulder, then cover and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

Remove pork shoulder from the slow cooker and shred the meat before returning it to the pot with the juices.

I love stir-fry. I love doing all the prep ahead, arranging everything right next to the stove and having it come together in a matter of a couple of minutes in a hot wok. Not that have to own a wok to make stir-fry, you can use a large frying pan, but woks are fun!

These ribs are what I grilled to go along with the salad recipe from the previous post. When I decided on ribs for the entree, I had to look back through the blog to see just how many baby back rib recipes I have on here. The answer is eight, there are eight more baby back rib recipes that I’ve posted. Is nine too many? I don’t think so.

These remind me of Hawaii, so you know they are going to be good!

Luau Baby Back Ribs

Soaking Liquid

• 4 cups water
• 1 ½ cups soy sauce
• 1/4 cup ponzu
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 4 cups ice cubes

Ribs

• 3 to 3 ½ pounds pork baby back rib racks
• 2 bottles of beer of your choice

Dry Rub

• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

Glaze

• 2 cups pineapple and/or mango juice
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha 
• 1 cup reduced soaking liquid

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

– Anthony Bourdain.

Photo courtesy of griffithimaging.com

I want to give you a heads-up; next week I’ll be posting all about the wedding I helped with over Mother’s Day weekend. It’s been nearly 4 weeks since I last mentioned it in THIS post. That is because I was so much “at the moment” and honestly too busy, to take photos of the food or the gorgeous setting and set-up. That’s a good thing in the scheme of it all, but not a good thing when you need photos to blog about!

Thankfully, the wonderful wedding photographer, Jen Griffith of Griffith Imaging, sent me photos to share. So please come back on Monday to see all the beauty that was Cody and Chanté Howard’s wedding weekend.

Today, I want to share a great cooking tip that I thought most people knew about, but realized I might be wrong in that thinking when I found out my own kids didn’t know it … and they used to live with me.

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Along with the Shrimp Creole that Connor requested on his birthday, I made him some classic Red Beans and Rice.

My recipe uses three types of pork; a ham hock, cured salt pork and andouille sausage.

The recipe calls for 12 ounces of cured salt pork. You’ll buy a 12-ounce package and trim off most of the fat. As you can see in the photo above, once you’ve done that, you’ll end up with about 8 ounces of pork to use for the beans. Discard the fat.

These red beans are even better if they are made the day before, refrigerated overnight, and reheated before use. Just be sure to reheat slowly and add water, if needed, to prevent them from drying out.

Oh, and I just use a simple electric rice cooker for my rice. Generally speaking, rice will triple when cooked, so 1 cup of raw rice will yield about 3 cups of cooked rice. I used 1 ½ cups dry rice for this recipe.

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On Sunday morning, I pulled a package of pork tenderloin from the freezer to thaw for dinner. A few hours later I heard from Connor and he decided to stay home instead of coming over as he usually does for Sunday dinner and to do his laundry. I think he’d had enough of me after our trip to Austin.

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Until recently, in Germany and Austria, one was not allowed to call a dish Wiener Schnitzel unless it was made with veal. If the dish was made with pork instead, it needed to be called Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein.

In 2009, they lighted up and a “Wiener Schnitzel” no longer refers exclusively to a veal dish, but instead to a breaded steak in general.

Since I didn’t want to offend or cause confusion, I just called it Pork Schnitzel on the menu skillet at my German-Swiss Dinner Party.

The recipe is an adaptation of a Tyler Florence recipe. From it, I learned a new technique for breading meat. Tyler suggests letting the breaded meat rest in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 10 minutes to allow the coating to dry out and adhere. It worked great! I’ll be doing that on all my breaded recipes from here on out.

Since I was cooking for 20, it was especially important to make this ahead. I cooked all the schnitzel, refrigerated and then reheated it and finished cooking it in the oven. If you are serving immediately, reduce the oven time to about 12 to 15 minutes.

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The first of my two main-course dishes for the 4^th of July Pot-Luck Pool Party is a pulled pork recipe that came from Williams-Sonoma. I altered the recipe to fit my needs.

Need #1 – I did not want to buy a jar of the Williams-Sonoma pulled pork starter. It cost too much and after going online and looking at the list of ingredients, I had all of it on hand anyhow, so I made my own.

Need #2 – I buy my pork shoulder at Costco and a 2.5 pound piece (which is what the Williams-Sonoma recipe called for) would be a joke at Costco. Mine weighed in at a whopping 15 pounds. This meant I needed to quadruple the original recipe, which was more than fine because the original served only 4 to 6 and I had more than 24 mouths to feed. I realize that 15 pounds is 6x as much, but the remaining ingredients only needed to be 4x more.

The big trick to the thing was cooking it in a slow cooker in two batches. It wasn’t difficult and took less time and effort than I expected it would. I thought about calling a neighbor to borrow a second slow cooker, but I was too lazy. That is a good option though.

Another issue was that it never even crossed my mind to take a photo of even one sandwich. I have photos of the pork in the chafing dish and of the slaw on the platter. But no individual sandwiches pics or of the cute setup I had for the little sandwich baskets and paper liners that I worked super hard to get all fixed up. Darn it! As you can see, I had to improvise with those “close-up” images. Sad, but it’s all I got.

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You may think from the title that this post is an update on my dad’s recent shoulder surgery. Or me updating you on the fact that he went down our staircase on his butt. That wasn’t the original intention, but I will give you that update first and then tell you all about the difference between pork shoulder and pork butt.

So … less than 48 hours after his rotator cuff surgery, my dad decided he should attempt coming down the stairs on his own. Not the best idea! While holding the rail with his left hand (not all the strong since his stroke a few decades back) and with his right arm in a sling, he slipped, hit his right side on the stairs, and slid down to the bottom on his behind.

I could wring his neck! We’d talked about the stairs the day before and I told him I didn’t want him on them without me, Dave, or Connor there to assist. Sunday morning, he decided he didn’t want to bother us, so down he went.

Monday, I took him in for x-rays, and thankfully, the shoulder is fine but he does have two broken ribs. Arrrg!!!! So we’ll be tacking on several more days is not weeks to his stay at the Hopkins’ Recuperating Home. OK, enough of that – on to the pork.

There is often confusion about the cuts of pork referred to as pork shoulder and pork butt. Pork shoulders, pork butts, and picnic “hams” are all part of the same front leg and shoulder of a hog.

What is commonly sold as a pork butt and Boston butt are the same cut of meat – the top portion of what is considered the “whole shoulder” of the hog. This cut is very marbled and often sold skinless, with a large portion of fat on top. The “butt” can be sold boneless or bone-in and weighs between 6 and 9 pounds on average for bone-in, or between 4 and 7 pounds if boneless. There is no need to search out the boneless variety. The bone, the blade, is thin and flat and not at all a nuisance, as you’ll see in the photos below.

In comparison, the pork shoulder is the lower portion of the shoulder. It is located below the joint and above the shank (leg). It is smaller than the pork butt and contains more fat, bone, and connective tissue. It is often sold complete with skin and is rarely sold boneless. This smaller roast usually weighs in at between 4 to 5 pounds.

The important thing to know is that no matter which cut you find in your market, all are interchangeable in any recipe (shredded pork or otherwise) that calls for pork shoulder or pork butt.

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For the last two years, I’ve served as the vice-president of our HOA. I decided not to run again so yesterday my term ended. On Monday night, I hosted our annual meeting to vote on new board members.

I love my neighbors and I love my neighborhood, so it’s always a joy to cook for them. These next few days I’ll share the dishes I made for the meeting, beginning with this easy and yummy dip.

Pictured above are the main ingredients, less than one package of the Boursin. Boursin comes in this three-pack at Costco and I made the recipe to use it up before the expiration date. I had bought it back in December, thinking I’d use it in some holiday cooking and entertaining, but no. Any savory flavor of Boursin would be just fine in this recipe.

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