Month: March 2014

Dairy Goat Grub

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On my journey to find greener pastures to replace cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, and triple-cream brie, I’ve only encountered one or two trolls. But rather than resort to bland soy or tofu substitutes, I’ve happily swapped in goat cheese for cream cheese, goat milk yogurt for sour cream, and continued to indulge in addictive gourmet chevre that will dominate any cheese board. Burritos and bagels, rejoice!

For those of you trying to cross that bridge, here’s some of my favorite dairy goat grub:

Once you make the switch – oh, the places you’ll go! Here are my recipes featuring goats milk substitutions.

With that, I’ll leave you with a sleeping baby goat at Surfing Goat Dairy:

Corned Pork & Colcannon in the Crock Pot

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I love a good Irish meal, but don’t love picking over the leftover processed and packaged corned beef in the grocery aisle. So I decided to try seasoning pork tenderloin with the same flavors as the traditional St. Patty’s meal. With potatoes, carrots and broccoli near expiration, I was in a decent position to emulate Colcannon to round out the meal.

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Here’s how:

Use a peppercorn grinder to coat all sides of each loin in the crock pot.

Make a paste of about 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard and garlic cloves (I used 2 cloves, but feel free to go big). Spread the paste on all sides of each loin. Cook on low for 4 hours.

Shred the pork in the crock pot. Then, add a layer of peeled potatoes, baby carrots and broccoli florets. Cook for 2+ hours on low (at 2 hours in, the potatoes and carrots were still somewhat firm). Separate and mash the potatoes, carrots and broccoli with 1 cube of melted butter and 1 cup of heated almond milk. Salt as desired.

This Irish girl was happy with the flavors of the dish, but my non-Irish husband added BBQ sauce. Slainte!

Oscar Remix: Crock Pot Almond Milk Pulled Pork

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In 2009, it was raining on Oscar Sunday, so I whipped up a milk-braised pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes dinner using ingredients on hand in our tiny SF apartment. Last year, same occasion, I swapped in almond milk and added pappardelle. Today, it’s act III, but the crock pot is now playing a lead role in my kitchen.

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To the crock pot, add pork tenderloin and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Add about 1 cup of chicken broth and 2 cups of almond milk. Cook on high for 4 hours (or low for 6-8), or until pork can be easily separated with forks.

Optional mashed potatoes:

Midway through cooking the pork, place 4 peeled russet potatoes around or on top of the pork. Cook for 2 hours, and flip halfway through. Remove potatoes and mash with melted butter and almond milk. Season with salt & pepper, and stir in green onions. Keep warm in the oven at 200 degrees, as needed.

Served pulled pork over a bed of mashed potatoes; ladle juices over the top.

Pin Real Life: Barley & Baked Eggs Brunch

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It’s Sacramento Beer Week, so what better time to celebrate barley? Actually, that wasn’t really the motivation for this. The real story is that we’re going to be drinking a lot of beer to celebrate a certain Beer, so a healthy and hearty brunch is in order.

I’ve been wondering what to do with the pearled barley I was inspired to purchase at some point. So naturally, Pinterest provided a solution, Skillet Barley with Kale & Eggs.

I swapped in green onions for shallots, spinach for kale, and chicken broth for vegetable broth, in this adaptation:

Add 2 sliced green onions to 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium high heat; cook for 2 minutes.

Add 1 cup barley; stir to toast for 1 minute.

Add 3.5 cups broth (I used organic chicken broth) and bring to boil; adjust temperature as needed to maintain active boil for 15 minutes, and ultimately you want the barley to soak up all the liquid.

Turn on the broiler with the rack 6 inches below.

Stir in a bunch of spinach (I used half a bag) until wilted. Add another swirl of olive oil to help the process along.

Crack 4 eggs over the top; season with salt, and broil until egg whites are opaque. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan.

I was very happy with the results, because I like grains any time of day, and the dish had the right amount of flavor. David isn’t as convinced about the barley. But the eggs were perfectly runny at least!