Pork

Autumn Spice Cake

/ krby4 / Leave a comment

The taste of fall goes best with a cream cheese frosting (included).

Ingredients

Dry ingredients:

  • 1 1/8 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 ground cinnamon/(to taste)
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg/(to taste)
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger/(to taste)
  • 1/2 tsp allspice/(to taste)
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves/(to taste)

Other ingredients

  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 4 oz cream cheese at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup butter at room temperature
  • 2 cups of powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Tools

  • 9-inch pan
  • Large stirring bowl
  • Oven
  • Stand mixer
  • Paddle attachment

Method

  • Whisk dry ingredients together and set aside.
  • Mix together the brown sugar and vegetable oil until the clumps are gone. Add applesauce and mix with a paddle attachment until well combined.
  • Mix in eggs and vanilla until well combined. Add in the dry mix on a low speed until combined, then add the buttermilk.
  • Spread in a well-greased 9-inch pan and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.
  • After cake is baked, let cool completely.
  • Mix together all cream cheese ingredients and add to top.
  • Refrigerate if not eaten immediately.

Breakfast Burritos

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This is probably one of the only things that I actually food prep, but it is fairly easy to make

Ingredients

  • 1 lb bacon, chorizo, or breakfast sausage
  • 1 package freeze dried hash browns (I use Idaho Spuds)
  • 10 large eggs
  • 12 oz salsa
  • 2 cups shredded cheese
  • 12 large flour tortillas

Tools

  • 2 large pans
  • Large stirring bowl
  • Large cutting board for rolling burritos
  • Cookie trays for freezing burritos

Method

  • Start preparation of hash browns according to the packaging instructions
  • If using bacon, chop it into roughly 3/4″ pieces. Cook until crispy and dry on paper towels
  • If using chorizo or breakfast sausage, break roughly apart by hand and cook until slightly crispy, draining excess fat off. Set aside
  • Scramble the 10 eggs and cook until your desired texture
  • Heat the tortillas in a pan over medium high heat until just barely browning. As soon as the tortilla pulls off the pan without any sticking, it is ready
  • Loosely mix meat, eggs, cheese, salsa, and hash browns in the large bowl
  • Put roughly 1 cup of filling into the middle of the tortilla, roll one side over the long end of the burrito, pull the short ends over and then finish rolling
  • Place onto your cookie sheet and freeze for at least 6 hours.
  • I do not individually wrap these, I usually just stick them in a plastic container and eat them throughout the week. No clue how long they last as they are usually gone within a week at my house
  • To reheat, thaw overnight and cook for 2 minutes at half power on your microwave

Lasagna

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This lasagna is good. End of statement.

Ingredients

  • 1lb Ground Beef
  • 1Lb Italian Sausage
  • 30oz tomato sauce
  • 1tsp granulated onion
  • 1tsp granulated garlic
  • 1tsp black pepper
  • 1/2tsp salt
  • 1/2tsp basil
  • 1/2tsp oregano
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2tsp olive oil
  • 1lb shredded mozzerella
  • 4oz shredded parmesan or romano
  • 32oz ricotta cheese

Tools

  • 1 Large casserole dish
  • Noodle Maker
  • 1 Large stockpot or saucier pan
  • 1 Large mixing bowl
  • 1 Medium mixing bowl
  • 1 Stand Mixer (Optional)

Method

Sauce

  • Brown both the ground beef and Italian sausage in your pot or pan you are using for the sauce with a little olive oil to stop the meat from sticking
  • Pour in the 30oz tomato sauce, granulated onion, granulated garlic, 1/2tsp black pepper, basil, and oregano and bring to a simmer while occasionally stirring
  • After you see small bubbles in the sauce, turn the heat to low, cover, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally

Noodles

  • In your mixing bowl, add your flour and salt. Make a crater in your flour and crack the eggs in the crater
  • Beat the eggs and slowly incorporate more and more flour until the mixture is dry enough to need with your hands
  • If you find that not all of the flour is incorporating, add small amount of olive oil and water until barely incorperated
  • Let rest 5 minutes while you set up your noodle maker
  • Cut noodle block into 4 chunks. Run each chunk through the noodle maker on the widest setting, putting flour on both sides of the noodles as they come out
  • Continue running the noodles through the noodle maker and flouring until you have gone through at least half of the thickness settings for your noodle maker. Mine goes from 1-9, 9 being the thinnest, and I usually stop at 6 or a 7. You may also find that you can skip multiple numbers each passthrough
  • These noodles will be cooked in the oven and do not need to be boiled

Cheese

  • Combine the riccota cheese, half of your grated parmesan or romano, and 1/2tsp salt and 1/2tsp pepper until your mixture is evenly distributed
  • Mix the remaining parmesan with your mozzarella

Assembly and Baking

  • Preheat oven to 350
  • Begin by putting roughly 1/3 of your meat sauce at the bottom of the pan
  • Layer noodles over it until covered
  • Layer 1/2 of your ricotta mixture on top of the noodles, spreading evenly
  • Place roughly 1/4 of your mozzarella mixture on top of the ricotta mixture
  • Cover cheese layer with another layer of noodles
  • Repeat this for one more layer each, you should have 2 layers of meat sauce and 2 layers of cheese now
  • For the final layer, I leave it open faced. Pour the remaining 1/3 of your meat sauce on the layer, spread evenly, then top with your remaining mozzarella
  • Bake covered in tin foil for 40 minutes. I usually put in wooden toothpicks to keep the foil off of the cheese
  • Uncover, bake an additional 10 minutes or until the top is slightly golden brown. If you don’t like golden brown cheese, bake less time
  • Leave set at room temperature for 15 minutes. This ensures that the slices remain together and the cheese and meat sauce do not drain out of the layers

Baked Mac and Cheese

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This is a fairly easy recipe to make. Savory meatballs are great in subs and with spaghetti.

Ingredients

  • 1lb bacon
  • 1lb macaroni or other noodles (like lumaconi)
  • 1.5lb shredded sharp cheddar
  • .25lb shredded romano or parmesan
  • .5lb shredded pepper jack
  • 1tsp chili powder (optional)
  • 1tsp salt
  • 1tsp black pepper
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs (optional)
  • 1/3 to 1/2 cup flour
  • 1-1/2 cup whole milk

Tools

  • 1 large saute pan
  • 1 large casserole dish
  • Stockpot to boil noodles

Method

  • Begin by chopping your bacon up into small pieces, roughly 1/2″ in width
  • Cook your bacon to crispy, drain, and set aside. Reserve the bacon grease
  • Cook noodles 1 minute under recommended time
  • Preheat oven to 350
  • With the bacon grease, turn the pan to medium low and make a roux out of the flour and grease
  • Slowly add in the milk while stirring to create a gravy
  • Add in the spices and stir
  • Add the shredded cheese in batches, roughly a 1/2 cup at a time. Reserve about a cup of cheese to top the casserole dish with
  • Stir in between each batch, letting the gravy mixture come up to temp between each batch. Stir until the cheese in fully encorperated
  • Put the cooked noodles back into the drained pot where you cooked them and pour in the cheese mixture and half of your cooked bacon. Stir well
  • Pour the mac and cheese into the casserole dish, add the remaining bacon, cheese, and bread crumbs
  • Cook covered for 30 minutes at 350
  • Uncover and cook for another 10 minutes, or until the mac and cheese is crispy to your liking
  • Let rest 10 minutes before serving

Meatballs

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This is a fairly easy recipe to make. Savory meatballs are great in subs and with spaghetti.

Ingredients

  • 2lb ground beef
  • 1lb italian sausage
  • 1lb ground pork
  • 1tbsp granulated onion
  • 1tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1tbsp salt
  • 1tbsp black pepper
  • 1tsp oregano
  • 1tsp basil
  • 1tsp celery salt
  • 1tsp red chili flake (optional)
  • 1cup bread crumbs
  • 2 large eggs

Tools

  • Small muffin pans
  • Large stirring bowl
  • Oven

Method

  • Place all of the meat into the large mixing bowl. If you bought italian sausage in wrappings, take it out of the wrappings. Slightly break down the meat
  • Put the dry ingredients (herbs, spices, and bread crumbs) into the bowl and stir a little bit to distribute the ingredients
  • Crack your eggs and add them to the meat
  • Stir in one direction with a spoon for ~5 minutes, or until everything is evenly distributed. It should be relatively easy to see when the pork and beef are mixing, as the color of the meat will start to become a solid color
  • Let rest covered for around 15 minutes while your oven preheats. Room temperature meats can cook a bit more evenly
  • Preheat oven to 375
  • Scoop roughly 2tbsp of meat mixture and form into a ball. Place your meatball in your small muffin pan crevasses until meat is gone
  • Cook at 375 for 15-20 minutes, or until slightly crispy on top

*Note: The meat is fairly fatty so you may want to put a baking tray underneath your muffin pan to catch the drippings so you don’t start a fire in your oven. Smokey flavors are not what we are aiming for on these.

Chicken and “Dumplings”

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This is a family recipe from my grandma. I have dumplings in quotes up there because it really is just chicken and noodles, but I can’t bring myself to call it chicken noodle soup.

Ingredients

  • 3lb chicken or one whole chicken
  • 2tbsp salt
  • 1tbsp ground pepper
  • 1tbsp chicken Bullion
  • 1 cup heavy cream

For the Noodles

  • 4 cups flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 1tbsp salt
  • 3 eggs
  • Chicken stock from soup

Tools

  • Large stockpot
  • Cutting Board
  • Knife
  • Tongs
  • 1 large bowl
  • Noodle Maker (Optional)

Method

  • Put the chicken in the pot, cover with water (usually around 4-6 cups). You want to make sure you have excess broth, because the noodles really soak it up when you have leftovers
  • Bring the water to a boil and skim off any impurities. They usually just look like floating white goop.
  • Boil for ~1hour
  • Strain the stock into your large bowl and allow the chicken to cool
  • While the chicken is cooling, start to prepare your noodles. On your large cutting board or in another large bowl, put the dry ingredients in. (4 cups flour, 1tbsp salt, 1tsp baking powder) and form a bowl in the middle of the flour
  • Add the eggs to the center of your bowl of flour and begin beating the eggs and incorporating a little more flour each time. Add chicken stock until all the flour is incorporated.
  • Make sure to flour your cutting board, and roll out the noodles. If you have a noodle maker, just use the thickest setting
  • Cut the noodles into roughly 1/2″ wide and 1″ long strips
  • Shred the chicken with your tongs, and throw the stock and chicken back into the stockpot
  • Bring the stock to a boil, and add the noodles one at a time
  • After all of the noodles are in the soup, cook for another 5 minutes, turn the heat off, and add the cream

Instant Pot Pulled Pork

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This is a really good and easy pulled pork recipe that is great without sauce and great with it.

Ingredients

  • 4-5lb pork loin
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 1 tbsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp seasoning salt
  • 1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1/2 tbsp granulated onion
  • 1/4 tsp celery salt
  • 1 tsp chili flake (optional)
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1 tsp red wine vinegar

Tools

  • Instant Pot
  • Cutting Board
  • Knife
  • Tongs
  • Large bowl for marinating

Method

  • Cut the pork loin into roughly 1.5-2 inch cubes
  • Mix together the salt, pepper, seasoning salt, garlic, onion, celery salt, and if using the chili flake
  • Rub this mixture on the pork in your bowl, making sure to cover all of the sides
  • Cover bowl and let marinate 6 hours or overnight
  • Turn instant pot onto sear and sear all of the marinated meat. This doesn’t have to be perfect
  • After searing, put the chicken broth and vinegar in with the meat
  • Turn instant pot onto the “Meat” setting for one hour, let the pressure naturally dissipate
  • After the pressure is gone, shred the meat with your tongs
  • If using bbq sauce, this is when you toss it in with your meat