Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork

Pulled Pork is one of my husband's favorite dish to order when we go to BBQ joint. I tried to make it at home once but the result was not what I hoped for.

The other day, one of my friend got huge piece of pork shoulder and gave me some of it since they can not eat them all by themselves so I decided to try making pulled pork again.

I think I didn't cook enough last time so I decided to cook as long as it need this time.

And this time, I used this recipe which I had been very curious about.

Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork. Here is the link to her recipe. 

I love Dr. Pepper. I try not to drink it normally since sodas are not good for you but if you ask me what kind of soda I like, the answer will be Dr. Pepper. And, I drink them occasionally. Especially in summer when it is really hot and you are super thirsty, cold glass of Dr. Pepper with lots of ice taste super delicious!

Anyways, so I was curious about this pork recipe using Chipotle Chili and Dr. Pepper.

I like Chipotle Chili in Adobo Sauce but I know it is quite spicy for me so I decided to use half of what recipe called for.

And, I used my Le Creuset for this dish. After 4 hours in the oven, the pork was already fork tender.

After shredding the pork, put them back in the cooking liquid.

This pulled pork came out really good. The first night, we ate it with cole slaw and hamberger buns and the next day we ate with corn tortilla with salsa and chopped cilantro.

Since this recipe has Chipotle Chili with Adobo sauce in it, I tasted better when I ate with tortilla and cilantro. It was super good.

Since it is quite a big portion, I froze some of them. Now, I have pulled pork in my freezer anytime I want it!

Ellie Krieger's Broiled Buffalo Wings & Broccoli Cheddar Soup

I borrowed another cookbook from the library and made these two dishes from the book I borrowed.

The book is called "Comfort Food Fix" by Ellie Krieger

She used to have a show on Food Network. She always cook something healthy and good for you. I think she is a nutritionist and have a few cook book published. 

I normally don't look at cook books which are focused on healthy food but this one is called Comfort Food Fix and she tried to recreate all the comfort food in a healthier way. I was interested so I borrowed it and I found quite a few things which I wanted to try out. 

One of them was Broiled Buffalo Wings. I love Buffalo chicken flavor but I don't normally make Buffalo wings at home since I don't want to fry them. But this is broiled and you don't have to fry them. I was a bit skeptical but wanted to give it a try. 

First, she ask you to boil the chicken. I liked this idea. Actually, one of my friend did this for BBQ and I really liked the idea of boiling chicken (especially skin on and bone in ) before broiling them. It will take some of the excess fat and also you don't have to worry about the chicken being undercooked inside. 

Anyway, then broil the chicken in broiler until crisp and brown. 

I liked this and my husband also liked this. It is not greasy since it is just broiled and still very tasty. I also made Blue Cheese Dip from the book. I need Blue Cheese Dip when I eat Buffalo Chicken! 

Since I wanted to eat some vegetables also. I made Broccoli Cheddar Soup from the book. 

This was also great. In the recipe, it asked to use low-fat milk but I didn't have low-fat milk at home so I just used regular milk. Also I didn't have enough Cheddar Cheese so I used a lot less Cheddar Cheese than the recipe required but it came out great! 

I pour this Broccoli Cheddar Soup over rice and gave it to my son and he loved it also. I think he eats a lot more Broccoli this way. 

If you are interested in cooking healthier but still want to eat those comfort foods, this is a book to go. I was quite impressed how she made them very tasty yet more healthy. I am planning to try her Sesame Chicken recipe tonight. I will let you guys know how it turned out! 

Weekend BBQ with friends

On the weekend, our friend couple came to visit to our place to have BBQ with us. It was raining on and off but it was cool and felt nice.

We BBQ the steak which they brought. Just simple salt and pepper.

Then, this is something I wanted to do for a while. Grilling eggplant and zucchini. I love the grill mark on eggplants.

They also brought Feta cheese. We sprinkled some herbs with olive oil and wrap with aluminum foil then put on the grill. I never had Feta cheese this way but it was really good!

This is the steak and the one in aluminum foil is some asparagus.

Eggplants and zucchini also were grilled perfectly. I add some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil and salt and pepper. This dish was so good. I love it. Even my husband (who is not too fond of eggplant) loved them.

Also some salad.

Our friends brought home made cheese cake. This was really really good. I hadn't had sweets for a while so this cheese cake was extra special. I think when you don't eat sweets for a while and you eat them, you enjoy them more. (does it make sense??) Anyhow, isn't it also pretty with some raspberry and black berry?

We had a lot of fun and spend great time together. This couple has been really nice to us and we did many things together. They are moving to Canada soon so this was kind of a farewell BBQ before they leave. I am so sad that they are leaving because I thought we became such a good friends and I liked hanging out with them. But, I really wish great things for them in Canada and maybe I will come visit them sometimes. (Definitely in summer, not in winter :-)

Juicy & Super Tender Baby Back Ribs

Lately, I am blaming the heat for not cooking hot food. On the weekend, we had Baby Back Ribs in order to enjoy summer with fresh corn. Normally, I can only find big size ribs so I don't cook ribs too often at home so I try to eat them when we eat out sometimes however like anything else, cooking ribs at home is much economical and it is fresh and taste good.

When I make ribs, I use this recipe which I found at All Recipes while back. I tried it once and fell in love with this method so I use this recipe every time I make ribs at home. Only thing I changed is that I grill the ribs for a few minuets each side at the end to make a nice crust.

Here is the recipe I used from All Recipes. Click here to go to the recipe.

It takes a long time to cook but you just put them in the oven and you don't really have to do anything. The result is tender and juicy meat which fall off the bones. It is well worth the time.

Also, we boiled some fresh corn. These corn was incredibly sweet. We were so suprised how sweet this corn was. And it was only 50 cents each! I have to get more of these corns since I use corn for my salad all the time. It is a huge different from the canned corn.

Since we had been eating cold food a lot lately, it was nice to eat some hot food. My husband loved it also. It is already August so we should enjoy BBQ as much as we can!

I hope you guys try this ribs. I used store bought BBQ sauce so it is super easy but super delicious. I am sure your family or friends would love it if they live ribs. Enjoy!

It is still quite hot and sticky here in NY. I have a feeling that we will be eating cold food again for a while :-)

Grilled Lamb Kofte & Safran Pilaf

Last weekend was three days weekend for Independence day. We did lots of fun activities but one of the thing we have to do during Independence weekend is BBQ.  Instead of regular hamburger and hot dog, we decided to have Middle Eastern BBQ with Lamb Kofte (Ground Lamb kebab). I mixed lots of cilantro, mint, garlic, onion and ginger with ground lamb and add some kebab spice mix. Also, corn is cheap in summer so we grilled corn. 

I love this ground lamb kebab. Ever time I go to Middle Eastern restaurant, I order this dish. I thought I didn't like lamb too much but with herbs and spices, I realized that I love Lamb. I think normally, you add parsley instead of cilantro but I had a bunch of cilantro in my fridge so I used that. It came out really good. The only thing is that it is quite difficult to grill. When we try to flip it over, some of the meat fall off the skewers. I wonder if there is any good way to avoid this. 

When it is done grilling, I sprinkle more cilantro on top with some sumac. I love sprinkle sumac on some meat. It has some lemony taste to it. 

I also made some rice to eat with. This is called "Zarda Pulao" from India. I made this rice before and loved it so I decided to make it again. (Click here for the previous post about Zarda Pulao.)

This pilaf has nuts, dried currant, Cinnamon, cardamon, saffron and some other spices and it is very very tasty. It was supposed to be really sweet but I didn't want to make it too sweet so I cut the sugar amount to 1/3 of what it required in the recipe. 

I made Lamb Kofte a bit spicy so this sweet rice was perfect with the spicy Lamb. Also, the corn was really sweet and crisp. The meal was so good, it was so difficult to stop eating.

After the dinner, we went to our neighbour's place and watched Independence day fireworks on TV. There are some people doing fireworks in neighborhood also. I thought fireworks are illegal here in NY. I wonder how people get fireworks. Do they go all the way to different state to buy them? Anyway, fireworks on TV was beautiful and we had a great time. 

By the way, did anyone watched World Cup on Saturday? Germany did pretty well on that game. My husband and I went to a local pub to cheer Germany with some other Germans. It was very exciting and lot of fun! I hope they will do well again on Wednesday.

BBQ at our Landlord's Place

On the weekend, my husband and I were invited for a BBQ at our landlord's place. It was a beautiful day and they have a nice back yard so it was a wonderful BBQ.

First, we had chips and dip as an appetizer. The dip was chili cheese dip and it tasted really good! I definitely would like to try making this at home sometimes. (I forgot to take picture of this dip, though..)

Then, we had salmon with avocado tomato salsa. The salmon was perfectly cooked and the salsa goes really well with the salmon and it looks pretty. I think this is a perfect summer dish! I lover it.

Then, of course you have to have hamburger and hotdog for BBQ.

We also had two different kinds of salad and corn. My plate was so colorful!

After BBQ, we enjoyed talking and had dessert. I brought banana pudding and they liked it so I was very pleased. They made apple cake and this apple cake was the best apple cake I ever had. It is very moist inside but outside was little crunchy and was perfect. They told me that this is a family recipe. They let us bring some of the cake home so I had it again for next morning. It was delicious! I have to ask her for the recipe of this apple cake.

After dessert, I was so full and they brought out this liquor called Sambuca. It is a liquor from Italy and they say that drinking this help you to digest. So I tried. It was little bit like liquorice but very sweet so it is easy to drink. I ended up having three glasses. (It was a small glass!!)

It has been four and half years since we started to rent the house we live right now. When we moved to NY, we went to see many apartments in the area but didn't find anything we liked. However, when walked into this house, we just fell in love with it  and we immediately liked the landlords from the first time we met them. We are lucky to live in this house and have such a nice landlord. We have our get together a few times a year and every time we have meal together, it is always great time.

They are such a great story teller and we just can't stop laughing with their stories. Especially, we like when we talk about their childhood memories growing up in Brooklyn and Queens. It is very interesting and always very funny. I am happy that we have a good relationship and I look forward keeping this great relationship with them :-)

Memorial Day Weekend BBQ Party

Memorial day weekend is the beginning of summer. Summer means BBQ. Everybody in the U.S. celebrate this beginning of summer three day weekend with BBQ. I also celebrated summer with BBQ on Saturday inviting some friends.

About 20 adults and 5 kids came to visit and it was a great and fun BBQ.

Some of our friends brought beautiful flowers. I love having flowers in my house. It brighten the house up.

Since it is BBQ, we asked everybody to bring whatever they want to BBQ. We didn't have to prepare much but I made two different kinds of appetizer and one dessert.

One of the appetizer was mini smokes salmon wrap. I made this salmon wrap before but I thought it will be a great appetizer if I made this into bite size pieces.

It came out great! It looks pretty and everybody liked it. I think this is a perfect appetizer for a summer party. (Click here to go to previous post for the recipe)

I also made cheese roll using phyllo sheet and feta cheese. For dessert, I made banana pudding which was a great success. I made this banana pudding once before and everybody loved it then so I decided to make it again. I will write about them tomorrow.

For the BBQ, we grilled different kinds of stuff. You don't see them in the photo but we also had shrimp and salmon etc.

The huge sausage in the middle is a special sausage from Poland. Our friend from Brooklyn went to a Polish store and bought it. It was really good.

I also made caramelized onion for hamburger. This is five onions. Can you believe it? It is crazy how small they get when you caramelize them but it tasted great with hamburger.

This is my hamburger.

I had a great time. It was so much fun! I think we should make this as a tradition. I love having BBQ. It is nice to have a cold drink and eat something delicious under the sun. All of our neighbors are also having BBQ and everybody was having fun. I love Memorial day weekend. Summer is finally here!!!

Weekend BBQ! Skirt Stake marinated in Chimichurri sauce

On the weekend, we had a visitor and the weather was pretty nice so we decided to have BBQ! I love BBQ!

The main dish was skirt stake marinated in Chimichurri sauce. Skirt stake is one of my favorite cut of beef. I think they use this a lot in Mexican food also. I remember that when I went to Anthony Bourdain's restaurant "Les Halles" in Jan, I had skirt stake there also. 

Chimichurri sauce is from somewhere in South America (Argentine, maybe?) It is oil and vinegar base sauce with lots of parsley and garlic. When I went to a Cuban restaurant (I guess they use this sauce in Cuba also) I had stake with Chimichurri sacue. (Click here for that post) Then, when I made roasted pork, I made chimichurri sauce. (click here for that post) Then, a few days later, I was using leftover chimichurri sauce for mashed potato. (click here for that post)

Looking back at those entries, I think you can tell that I like this chimichurri sauce. Yes, I love it. It is really good and you can pour them over to many things. If you are interested in chimichurri sauce recipe, here is the recipe on Food Network website from Tyler Florence (of course!). 

I believe you are supposed to make chimichurri sauce with parsley but I had cilantro in my fridge so I used cilantro this time instead. I wanted to make it really green but since I used food processor to mix everything, the oil got milky and it was not the green I wanted. Oh well. Next time, I will use hand to mix all the ingredients.

I marinade stake in this sauce for 2 hours and them BBQed. I also took half of the sauce on the side before marinating the meat for pour them over the cooked meat.

On the side, we had arugula salad with maple syrup dressing. (please click here for maple syrup dressing recipe ) 

Garlic bread which I posted recipe yesterday. (Well, it is too easy to call it a recipe but click here for how to make it) 

American classic, Tater Tots!!!

The meat was grilled perfectly.

We also made hot dog!

And, we also ended up buying this huge coconut cream pie from Costco. It has lots of cream and very rich. Our friend said that he feels dizzy after he ate this cake. You can see how big this cream pie is when you compare it with my hand. Of course we couldn't eat them all so my husband brought it to his office next day :-)

Oh, we ate good! Did I tell you that I am trying to eat light to loose weight? Oh well. My weight is back to where I was before I go to Germany so I guess now it is OK to eat heavy food sometimes. I will eat less lunch. Does it work? Yeah, why not!

I love marinated meat. They are so juicy and tender. I am going to make perfect chimichurri sauce next time. BBQ season is here. I hope everybody is enjoying BBQ!

Spring has come! First BBQ of this year!!

I have been waiting for this! After a long cold winter, it seems like spring is finally here! The weather was so nice on Sunday and also yesterday, it made me feel so happy! I can smell the spring in the air. Everybody looked so happy and walking around everywhere. It was like "Where were all there people during the winter? " On such a wonderful day, I really appreciate that I am alive and healthy.

I think there is a strong correlation between the weather ( also temperature) and people's mood. At least, it affect me a lot. Just smelling the spring in the air makes my body and soul jumpy :-)

When the weather is nice and warm, what would you do? Yes, you guessed it. "BBQ!!!" Since we bought a new propane the other day, we decided to enjoy the first BBQ of the year.

BBQ is something very luxurious for me because I did not get to do BBQ much when I was in Japan. In Japan, many people lives in a tiny apartment (especially Tokyo) so many people don't have back yard or BBQ set. If you want to BBQ, you have to go the rivers or mountains which has space. As much as it is nice to have BBQ by the river or in the mountain, it is also great to have the convenience of doing BBQ right at your home. I think many people take BBQ for granted because they grew up with it but for me, this is great luxury to have.

Anyway, so BBQ make me very happy. Normally, we BBQ hotdog and hamburger and stuff like that but this time we had Chicken Kebab and Ground Beef Kebab since I am into Middle Eastern Food lately. I made Chicken Kebab using this recipe book which I borrowed from a library.




It seems like Chicken Kebab is called Shish Taouk. It was simple marinade with lemon, garlic and olive oil but it was really delicious!

I think this will be a regular for our BBQ from now on.







For Ground Beef Kebab, I used this Kabab mix which I had at home.

It got lots of different kind of spices in this mix. As directed, I added some chopped onion and green chilies.

Then I shaped small meat balls.

The other day, I have purchased this kebab skewers so I gave it a try. These are huge skewers and it looks almost like a sword. It is flat so that makes easy to stick meat around.

Put the meat around the skewers like this and ready to BBQ!

The photo is a big blur but it looks very good with flames and all.

BBQ completed.

I sprinkled something called "smack" on half of the chicken. This is something I bought in a Middle Eastern grocery store. It has some lemony flavor and it goes great with chicken. I am not sure what kind of plant this was made of...

I also made Basmati rice. I added some saffron but I think it was too little so the color did not come out well.

Pita bread is store bought.

My husband made his favorite cilantro sauce. This time, it tasted a bit too green but it was good. We make it differently every time so you never know how it will come out.

Our Arabian night was a success. I love making these flavorful BBQ. Well, the ground beef kebab kind of fall off the grill (some of them) and it was a bit dry so I need to improve this. Probably because I forgot to add Ghee and did not rest it for three hours as directions suggested. I will make it right next time. The weather will be better and better from now on and I have a whole spring and summer to make it right!

I think it will be nice to invite some friends over and have this kind of BBQ again. I would love to try making some Falafel and Hummus when we have get together :-) Oh, I love summer! (/spring)