Asian Wrap

I made Asian wraps for dinner last night and they were so good!  A little sweet, a little tang, soft meat, crunchy cabbage...YUM!  I placed some raw pork chops in my electric pressure cooker on the meat rack, added 2 cups of water and sealed her up.  Set on high pressure for 20 minutes and let her go.  After the pork was done, I placed the chops on a cutting board and shredded them.  Poured most of the liquid out of the pressure cooker, then added the meat back in with some Wegmans Stir Fry Sauce.  Added lid to the pressure cooker and set on Warm.

The hubs sautéed some sliced onions and once they were soft and golden, he added them to the pork and sauce mixture.  Then he shredded and quickly sautéed some cabbage.  I didn't want the cabbage cooked or limp, just softened a little so you didn't feel like you were fighting it in the wrap.  Homemade tortilla, shredded pork/onion/stir fry sauce mixture and the quick sauté of cabbage on top.  Dinner DONE.  I wanted to add some shredded, raw carrot, too, but the hubs "poo-pooed" that idea.  They were so good, we're having the leftovers for dinner again tonight!

If you don't have a pressure cooker, no worries.  You can cook the meat up anyway you like, chop it up and add some sauce.  Great way to use leftover pork.  If you're tired of BBQ sauce in your pulled pork sammies, give this Asian version a try.  And, please, let me know if you do!

Easy-Peasy Pork Tenderloin in a Pressure Cooker

I had a 2.5 lb pork roast to cook for dinner and I really want to utilize my Nesco pressure cooker more often so I brought it out.  This one is great because of all the cooking methods it can do: steam, brown, slow cook and pressure cook.  I love that I can brown my meat in the pressure cooker so I don't have to dirty another pot.  I wish I had thought ahead and taken pix all throughout the preparation of this meal, but I didn't.  I actually didn't even think to take a nice picture of the final product until the hubs was about to take his 1st bite and snapped the top-left one, but it's a little fuzzy.  The top-right one is my plate with seconds on it.  :o)  The tenderloin in the picture is a 2nd one I have (they were a BOGO deal).  Anywho, let me tell you how easy this was!

Ingredients
2.5 lb pork temderloin, quartered
1 onion, quartered
2 small apples, peeled and quartered
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 C beef stock (if you don't have, use wine, chicken or vegetable stock or even water)
Salt and pepper
If you want to make gravy
3 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp flour (you could use cornstarch and water, instead of butter and flour)

When I unwrapped the tenderloin, it was actually in two, long pieces.  I cut both pieces in half, giving me 4 even pieces that fit in the pressure cooker.  Add a tbsp of your choice of oil to the bottom of the pressure cooker and set it to "brown".  Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper and brown all sides of the pork, two pieces at a time, in the cooker.

Remove the browned pork, place the meat trivet inside the cooker, then set the 4 pork pieces on the trivet.  Drop the onion, apple and garlic cloves on top (don't worry if some fall  through the trivet to the bottom).  Pour beef stock in and seal cooker.  Cook pork for 25 minutes.  If you have a manual pressure cooker, start your timer after it starts to jiggle.  In my electric pressure cooker, I can set the timer and then it won't start counting down until it's reached full pressure.

When timer is up, release pressure and remove pork and trivet; cover pork to keep it warm.  (I tasted the liquid in the pot and the onions and apple had flavored the stock nicely, so I removed them with a mesh strainer.  You could leave them in and use an immersion blender to puree them into your stock, thus thickening it into a gravy.)  Turn cooker back to "brown" and blend melted butter with flour (or water and cornstarch).  Once stock is boiling, whisk in butter/flour mixture and continue to cook until desired thickness.  Add salt and pepper, if necessary.

The pork fell apart nicely and was so tender!  I served it with green beans and potatoes - baked for the hubs and mashed for me and B.  If you try this recipe, let me know how you like it!

My Chicken Noodle Soup Dump Recipe For Kathy

• Dice up half an onion, 2 carrots, a couple of garlic cloves, and grate at least 1 tsp of fresh ginger. If I have shallots on hand, I'll dice up one of those, too.
•  Salt and pepper 1/2 of a chicken breast and cook it in a pan with the fat of your choice.  Set aside on a cutting board.
• Add a little more fat to pan you cooked chicken breast in and then add your onion, carrot, garlic ginger and shallot.  Saute until onions are translucent.  If I have leftover cooked veggies from dinners in the fridge, I add them now and then saute for another minute or two.
• If you have any spices or herbs you'd like to add for extra flavor, this is the time to do it!  Drop them in with your sauteed veggies and stir to coat and heat them up, releasing their flavors.  I find I get more flavor out of herbs and spices when I add them before liquids then I get when adding them at the end.  Salt and pepper, however, should be added at the end.
• Add 3 - 4 cups of Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Cooking Stock and bring up to a boil.
• Once stock and veggies are boiling, add a handful or 2, at the most, of your choice of pasta, turn the flame down so that stock just simmers and cook until the pasta is al dente.  I pick a small pasta, like ditalini, alphabets, mini shells, mini farfalle, orecchiette, or elbows if that's the smallest I have.  You can even break up spaghetti into small pieces.  Add a pasta too big or too much pasta and it will absorb all or most of your stock.
• While pasta cooks, dice up your chicken breast.
• When pasta is al dente, turn off the heat, add in your diced chicken breast to warm it back up and taste your broth.  Do you want to add salt and or pepper?  I add both, to my taste.

Depending on how much I serve myself, I get 3 - 4 bowls from this.  If I have a chicken or turkey carcass around, I'll make a pot of stock from that, make a big pot of soup without the pasta, and freeze in quart-size, zip-top bags.  Take out when you are ready to eat, thaw, bring up to boil, toss in your pasta and then simmer until al dente.  Or freeze in gallon-size bags and use when you want to take a family a meal.

B Taking on a Bigger Role in the Kitchen

This past weekend, the hubs decided that B should take a bigger role in the kitchen and help us cook dinner every night.  We started last night, Meatless Monday.  We made Creamy Portobello Pasta, my version of Food & Wine's Ziti with Portobello Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese. Once again, I just used what I had on hand and our finished product tasted fabulous but looked gross.  SMH  I don't know how Food & Wine get such a light colored finished product!  Portobellos release their liquid and it's dark, so it colors my pasta.  Oh, well.  Onto B cooking.

I wasn't ready for B to be using a knife, so I sliced up the onions.  But B turned on the heat under the pan and added the butter and oil.  This is him adding the sugar.

 Stirring the onions so they all get nice and caramelized.

The hubs said B should start learning to cut (my heart stopped) so he sliced up the portobellos.  And did a darn good job at it, too!