Any Guy's Food Blog

I decided the other day to have my Facebook friends tell me what they wanted me to make. I then picked something and cooked it up with my own flare.

Ingredients:

2-4 pork chops, approximately 3/4 inch thick (I recommend boneless)
Fresh spinach
Mozzarella cheese
2-4 strips/slices or bacon or ham (I used my smoke pork shoulder)
2 eggs
1 1/2 - 2 cups white flour

Directions:

If using bacon, I suggest cooking it first until almost crispy. If using premade ham, your fine.

Slice a pocket into each pork chop. Cut slices of mozzarella small enough to fit into the pocket that you cut into each pork chop. Wrap a leaf or two of fresh spinach around a slice of cheese. Then wrap a slice of ham or two strips of bacon around the spinach-wrapped cheese. Stuff the wrapped cheese into a pork chop. Continue this process until all of your pork chops are stuffed.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Beat eggs in a bowl and pour flour into another bowl. Carefully place a pork chop in the white flour bowl and coat thoroughly. Move the flour-covered pork chop to the egg bowl and thoroughly coat. Return pork chop to the flour bowl and coat again. Once coated, place pork chop on a well-oiled baking sheet. Continue this process with the rest of the pork chops.

Place baking sheet in the over and bake pork chops at 375 degrees F until crispy and light brown (approximately 20 - 25 minutes).

The other day I wanted to cook something and nothing immediately came to mind. I decided to go to Facebook and post a status update asking my friends to suggest some ideas. How I came to smoked pork shoulder from this status update requires a little explaining. The suggestion that I eventually decided to use was pork chops cordon bleu. My main reason for this was that it was something that I have never made before and that I generally don't like pork much, especially pork chops. I figured if I could please myself with pork chops (look past the innuendo, please) then that would be a pretty decent accomplishment. I didn't want to use ham in the pork chops though, at least not store-bought. That seemed like a cop out and too basic. Bacon crossed my mind, and if I make pork chops cordon bleu in the future, I will use bacon for sure. But I really wanted to just kill it this time. Making my own ham wasn't entirely out of the question, but I didn't really want to do my own entire ham. This is what lead me to pork shoulder. I figured I could smoke a pork shoulder and make it "ham-like". The results weren't perfectly ham-like, but they were definitely good enough to post here.

Ingredients:

1 pork shoulder roast (preferably boneless, about 4 lb.)
1/4 cp salt
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 tsp lemon zest (freshly grated)

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients except for the pork and mix well. This will be a rub for the pork. After mixing the rub, thoroughly and generously rub into the pork shoulder. After all sides have been thoroughly rubbed, place the pork shoulder in a bag and let "cure" over night.

The next day, smoke the roast in a smoker at about 200 degrees F for 60 - 75 minutes per pound. Any temperature between 180 and 225 is reasonable, but a lower temperature will require more time and may make the meat too tender so that it shreds when slicing.

First I want to point out that I KNOW that I've been neglecting this blog for far too long. I don't have any good excuses. After the holidays I was involved in a long dialogue with my depression and then became infatuated with laziness and video games. There's really no excuse for me not writing due to either of those, but there you have it.

Hopefully I will be able to make up for some of it with the fact that I HAVE been working with Brad discussing ideas for 30-day challenges and I have been working out some ideas for specific blog posts even though they haven't been written. So that's better than my normal hiatuses.

To the point at hand. I made pastrami yesterday. I guess, to be more accurate, I should say that I made pastrami over the past 2 weeks. I just wanted to talk about some of the things I learned.

There were good and bad things about this first attempt at pastrami. Firstly, it was another test to my patience as I have never made pastrami and was excited and didn't want to wait for it. So you know, pastrami involves a LOT of wait. Some things didn't turn out so well, but I was very happy with the flavor itself. Let's get to a list of the things I learned.

1. You don't need to over-brine the beef.

Most recipes call for corning the beef brisket for 3 weeks. This really depends on your personal taste. I brined my beef for 2 weeks. In the future I plan to do it for only a week and that should be sufficient. If you really want to brine it for 3 weeks to let the flavors soak in, but don't want it to be super salty, let it soak for a couple minutes in cold water after you rinse it to leech out some of the excess salt.

2. Don't skimp on the brisket.

Brisket has been tough to find in this town lately, so for most of my brisket recipes, I have been just grabbing whatever I can find available at local supermarkets. From now on I will ONLY use brisket fresh from the butcher. The cut that I got was incorrectly butchered to start. This caused issues with the brining AND smoking processes. The brisket needs to be cut and trimmed specifically as described in most recipes. Secondly, the meat quality itself wasn't up to snuff. I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of the meat. I'll explain in my next bullet point another issue that was my own fault, but the meat really wasn't as tender as I would have liked for something I was going to use on sandwiches and part of the reason was low-quality meat.

3. Don't under cook the brisket.

This can be a little tricky if you're concerned about the amount of smoke you want on your pastrami. If your philosophy is, "the smokier, the better," then just make sure that you keep that brisket smoking as long as possible at an appropriately high temperature. You want to make sure ever last bit of gristle and connective tissue break down. If you are concerned about the amount of smoke flavor taken in by the brisket, you have to be careful about what coals / wood chips and how much you use in the process. You may even need to oven-finish your roast.

So there you have my notes from my first pastrami. Really it was incredibly easy. The challenge comes in getting it "just right". I hope to have, at the very least, brine and rub recipes up here when I make my next pastrami. And I hope to make my next one very soon.

I decided to post one of my one-day cleanse menus on my fitness page (found here) and since it's food, I'm going to post it here as well.

My Previous Post

I'm using this blog post to organize my one-day cleanse the I will be doing later this week. Feel free to steal from it. No, I'm not a nutritionist and no, I'm not making any guarantees about any effects. It's just what I'm doing and I've been happy with the results. Many of my cleanses that I use also avoid caffeine, this one does not. Mainly this is because I have just been on a green tea kick lately and felt like including it for it's antioxidant and other health benefits.

It is important that you remember to have at least a snack every two hours at the very least. This will maintain your metabolism so that your body continues to work at peak efficiency while cleaning itself out. I eat more than that because of my regular activity. You should eat pretty much whenever you're hungry (but not just whenever you're bored). This isn't a weight-loss diet. It's about helping your body to remain clean and work its best. If your body is telling you that it's hungry, then eat more (essential fats, proteins and natural sugars) so that it has the energy to keep working. I also like to make sure that I consume at least 64 oz of fluids (that's about 2 liters) throughout the course of the day.

I would also like to note that I do not discontinue my regular supplement regime on cleanse days. I will still take all of my normal vitamins and other supplements so that my body has everything it needs. I've read some that some studies suggest that many cleanses also lead to quick, small weight loss, but I would like to repeat that this is not the point of a cleanse. So don't starve yourself.

Beverages

Sea Salt Water

Sea salt contains more minerals than regular table salt. Lemon juice also contains added cleansing value.

Ingredients:
1-2 pinches sea salt (to taste)
Lemon wedge
2 cups warm water
Red chili powder (cayenne, optional)

Warm the water. Squeeze in the juice from the lemon wedge. Add the salt and stir. I have read that some people like to add a small sprinkling of cayenne pepper to taste. I don't really care too much for it.

Green Tea

Just buy bagged green tea bags from the store and brew it fresh. Bottled or canned green tea is likely to contain extra crap in it that you are trying to clean out of your body right now.

Pomegranate Juice

Either buy fresh pomegranates and juice them yourself or make sure that you buy pure pomegranate juice with no preservatives, sweeteners or additives. Honestly, this is too pricy for me right now, so I'll be sticking with the tea and salt water.

Breakfast/Snack Options

Fruit Salad - Makes 2-3 Servings

Ingredients:
2 apples (cored, chopped)
2 peaches or nectarines (pitted, chopped)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 bananas
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (shelled)

Toss all the ingredients in a bowl and eat.

Fruit and Nut Mix - Makes 6 servings

1 cup raisins
1 cup craisins
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup pecans

Lunch

Dark Green Salad

1 cup red leaf lettuce (chopped)
1 cup fresh spinach (chopped)
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 avocado (chopped)
sea salt (to taste)

Toss first 4 ingredients, then salt to taste. Serve.

Dinner

Asparagus and Walnuts

1 bundle asparagus spears
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1/4 cup walnuts (chopped)
sea salt

On medium-high heat, brown chopped garlic in the olive oil in a sauce pan large enough to fit the asparagus. If the oil begins to smoke, lower the heat slightly. As soon as the garlic begins to soften and turn brown, reduce heat to medium and add chopped walnuts then asparagus. Cook on medium heat until the point when the asparagus just begins to soften. Remove from pan and serve. Salt to taste.

Tomato Salad

I totally take tomatoes for granted. I always forget that they are one of the best superfoods out there. They are full of iron and antioxidants and are freaking delicious.

2 chopped tomatoes (of your choosing, about 2" in diameter)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and black pepper (to taste)

I didn't actually make a turkey for Thanksgiving because I ate at my father's house. However, I was gifted a 22-lb. turkey that I smoked two days later. I was very happy with how it turned out, but had to eat the whole thing myself. I decided yesterday that I wanted to make a turkey gravy with some of the leftovers and eat it with mashed potatoes. I did just that.

I would like to point out that my first choice for a turkey gravy would actually use the turkey stock from the turkey itself. However, it was chaos in my house the day that I smoked the turkey and I was a little absent-minded about saving the turkey stock after I carved her up. So I used bacon fat (which I always have on hand). You could also substitute vegetable oil, lard or shortening. However, I say go big and always make sure you save a can of bacon drippings in your fridge because it's so much better than lard or shortening.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp bacon fat
~1/2 lb. turkey meat (cut into bite-size pieces)
1 120z. bottle of pale ale
2 cups whole milk
2 tbsp flour (I used whole wheat)

Directions:

On medium-high heat, melt the bacon fat in a sauce pan. When the fat has melted down, add the turkey. Stir occasionally until the turkey meat begins to brown on outside.

Once the meat begins to get crispy brown marks, add the beer. Leave on medium-high heat until the beer is reduced to half, then reduce heat to medium.

In a separate bowl, thoroughly whisk flour into the milk. Add milk to the sauce pan and continue to cook, stirring frequently until gravy thickens. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:

She isn't much to look at, but boy is she tasty. The photo up top shows the gravy on top of a bed of mashed potatoes that I made fresh. I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Personally, I feel that most gravy is WAY too salty, so I went light on the salt and a little heavier on the pepper.