#josieskitchen

[josieskitchen]

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas Tacos!

My friends know well that I am a big fan of food trucks, better yet, I am a big fan of taco trucks.  I have a few favorites in the city and will try to hit them up as often as possible.  A few months ago, my brother's friend, Gabi, came to visit us for a few days. This was my first time meeting her and we hit it off. Being the good hostess I try to be, I decided to cook for Gabi. I decided to try my hand at replicating the taco truck's Carnitas Tacos. I cooked them in my slow cooker because I wanted to make sure they were super tender and as flavorful as possible.  

They. Were. Amazing. 

Better than the taco truck's... and that is saying something. 

So here we go... 

INGREDIENTS: 5 or 6 lbs pork shoulder, preferably bone in 2 tbs sea salt 1 tbs cumin 1 tbs ground black pepper 2 tbs ground dried oregano 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp cayenne pepper 8 garlic cloves, smashed and sliced 1 small can of chipotle peppers 1 white onion, chopped 1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped juice of 2 limes 1 cup medium salsa 1 cup orange juice 1 cup vegetable broth 1 can light beer

INSTRUCTIONS: Rinse the pork and place it in the slow cooker. The one I bought came pre sliced, but you don't need to.  Rub all the dry seasonings onto the pork. 

Add the chipotle peppers, salsa, onions, jalapeños, lime juice, garlic, orange juice and vegetable broth. 

Cover with beer and cook on low heat for 8 hours. I like to cook it on low to make sure the meat is as tender and juicy as possible. 

Take the pork out of the slow cooker. Shred the pork using two forks, it should be super easy because the meat has been cooking for so long.  

Preheat your broiler. Place the pork in an oven safe container and sprinkle with a few spoonfuls of the sauce it cooked in. Broil for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are crispy. 

And that is all! 

For best results, serve on soft tortillas and garnish with cilantro, sliced radish, pineapple chunks, cotija cheese, salsa verde, chopped red onions and fresh lime juice. 

Trust me... these tacos are delicious! 

The spiciness of the chipotle, cumin and other spices go very well with the lime juice and pineapple chunks. The fresh radish and cilantro are a refreshing contrasting taste. 

And in case you were curious, we paired the tacos with a nice light beer ;)

We all enjoyed this amazing dinner. Hope you enjoyed reading about it and try making it at home!  

xo Josie

[josieskitchen]

Emil timed me while i made tonight's dinner: pasta carbonara (with peas)!  It takes a little over 15 minutes from start to belly. 

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Last night's dinner was a sausage and veg stir fry!!

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We had meatballs for dinner last night!!!

[josieskitchen]

Lomo Saltado: Peruvian Style Stir-Fry!

Can you imagine a dish that is spicy and tangy, salty but also a little sweet and citrusy? Sounds delicious, doesn't it? Well, that dish is Lomo Saltado! I discovered this dish during my travels in Peru and fell in love with it. It was my first real meal there. Lorraine and I decided we wanted to walk away from all the touristy places our map highlighted and see where the road took us. We ended up getting hungry and walked into this comedor (cafeteria) and I ordered us grilled pork chop for her and lomo saltado for me. 

And I had it a second time at dinner later on that week. 

It was delicious both times! It has so many different flavors working together. It was filling but not too heavy. I knew then I had to recreate it once I got back home. So a few weeks ago I decided it was high time I made this. I wanted Emil to taste the deliciousness of lomo saltado. 

Lomo Saltado: Peruvian Style Stir-Fry!

INGREDIENTS: 1lb pepper steak 1 tbs distilled white vinegar 2 tbs + a splash of soy sauce (I used low sodium soy sauce) 2 limes 1 medium red onion 2 roma tomatoes 1 handfull of perejil 2 garlic cloves 1 small yellow chili pepper - preferable peruvian aji amarillo (jalapeños are ok) 1 1/2 cups frozen french fries vegetable oil as needed salt & pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS: Start by marinating the beef. Place the beef in a bowl or shallow dish and add the soy sauce, vinegar and salt & pepper. Set it aside. 

Start cooking the fries. While the fries cook, wash and cut the tomatoes and onion into thick slices. 

Scoop out the seeds of the yellow pepper using a spoon. This dish is supposed to have some heat, but it should not overpower the other flavors. It complements them. 

Chop the pepper into tiny tiny pieces. 

Use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic cloves. 

Rough chop the parsley and cut the limes.

Fries should be done by now. Take them out of the oil and let them rest on some paper towels to absorb any excess oil. 

Cook the beef (without the marinade) in about 1 1/2 tbs of vegetable oil. 

Cook the beef for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the heat and get all your ingredients ready!

Time for the tomatoes, half of the chopped parsley, onions, garlic and yellow pepper to hit the pan!

Add the steak (notice on the top left corner of this picture I started cooking my eggs around this time).

Add a splash of the soy sauce and the juice from the limes. Toss everything together and cook for about a minute. 

Toss in the fries. 

Add the remaining parsley and that's it!

Top with fresh parsley when you serve and accompany it with rice and black beans topped with a fried egg. 

There are so many flavors in this dish, and the beef is juicy and tender. As you can see from the pictures, this is an easy and fun dish to prepare. I had the music blasting and a glass of wine to help keep the festive mood hahahaha! 

Oh... by the way, there were zero leftovers, of course hahahaha! Emil loved it! 

Hope you enjoyed this post and try making lomo saltado at home.  That's all for now. Thank you for stopping by! 

Hope you are having a great week!

xoxo Josie

[josieskitchen]

Impromptu Sunday Night Dinner Party!!

I went to dinner and drinks with a coworker after work last wednesday. As we were chatting and getting to know each other we discovered we live about 3 blocks from each other and there is another girl from work who also lives in the neighborhood. This was great news, I love the idea of having friends near where I live. So after a few more pints of cider and a whiskey or two I decided it would be a fantastic idea to have a few work friends in my apartment for dinner... that Sunday. Yup... in 4 days... of which I was working 3... great idea. 

Did I mentioned there were a few of these consumed... hahahaha! 

Thank night I came home and asked Emil (via dry erase board) if it was ok to have a few friends over. It is his apartment as well, so I wanted to check with him first. I woke up on Thursday to find this:

And just like that, it was official! I was hosting a dinner party! In 3 days!

First step was creating the menu. My friend Tom was online and I knew he would have great ideas for the menu. He gave me a few items and I went from there. I wanted something light and springy. One of the girls is vegetarian so I wanted to make sure there were options for her as well, not just salads.  I had a menu with about 15 items in it by the time I sent out the invite. 

I sent an invite to about 10 people (all work friends), of those only 5 said they would go, 1 said maybe, 2 declined and 2 did not respond. Since my guest list was cut in half, so was my menu. No big deal, it was actually for the best. In the end there were 5 of us here and we ate about 95% of all the food. 

Here is what I made/served:

Savory: 

Dominican Style Potato Salad

Mushrooms and Asparagus 

Feta, Tomato & Basil Salad

Whole Wheat Pita Bread

Shrimp & Tomato Stew

Jully's BBQ Ribs

Sweet:

Flan (Regular caramel flan, not pumpkin like the recipe says)

Bourbon Bread Pudding

Libations:

Red Wine Sangria

Sparkling Bourbon Iced Tea

Beer

Wine

Dinner was delicious and almost everything was gone within a few minutes. We ate and drank to our hearts' content. 

The ribs were, of course, a hit! Jully's recipe was a success once again.

Everything else I pretty much made up as I went. 

For the shrimp I added garlic, parsley, cherry tomatoes,  siracha, canned tomatoes, green onions, celery and olive oil. It was not as spicy as I wanted it to be, but it was still pretty good. 

I wanted to use as many fresh ingredients as possible. 

I love veggies cooked in a simple, no fuss style. 

Take the mushrooms and asparagus, for example. I only cooked them with butter, sea salt, cracked black pepper and chili powder. Simple, yet delicious. 

The potato salad is my family's recipe. I used idaho and red skinned potatoes, celery, corn, sweet peas, apples and carrots. I love it, I can eat plate after plate of this thing. 

Dinner was successful and heaping plates of food were throughly consumed. 

And then, it was dessert time!! I made flan, which is a staple in any gatherings I host and a bread pudding with a bourbon glaze.  We ate about 20% of each and now I have a fridge full of flan and bread pudding calling my name. Thankfully, there is a new gym opening up in my neighborhood because I have the feeling i will be eating these!! 

I was scared to host a dinner party with such short notice but it ended up being great. It was a lovely, rainy afternoon with friends, food and booze. We laughed so much and ate so much. It was pretty awesome! 

Now I guess it is time plan (or wait until 3 days before) my next party. Wonder who'd want to come? ;)

Have a wonderful day and even better week. 

Until next time.

xoxo,  Josie

[josieskitchen]

What's been going on with Josie?

I had this whole post written out full of lies about how I was finally back and had recipes in the back burner and whatnot. The truth is that until 2 weeks ago I hadn't cooked in months. Cooking was my stress reliever and my favorite way to show my love to those I loved. And then my life changed and the rug was yanked from under my feet. I was left to figure out what happened.  In that process I completely ignored the kitchen, I was not cooking or eating. I moved apartments and found myself with a new kitchen. I felt this was not my kitchen. When I would go into the kitchen to cook I was filled with this incredible sadness and anger. Both because I'd been robbed of the pleasure I got from cooking. Because my life had, in an instant, changed completely. I was lost.

So I got out of the kitchen and would only wander into that part of the apartment to grab wine from the fridge. I either ate at the restaurant I work at or ordered in. This continued for a few months during which I made the wonderful discovery that my brother Emil is a wonderful cook (I guess this runs in the family). He has a few dishes in his repertoire and boy, they are delicious. The boy is talented!

I ignored the kitchen and the blog completely, along with questions and not so subtle nudges from friends and family regarding the matter.

And then I took this trip to Peru... To Machu Picchu (YES, It was wonderful! I will write more about it and post tons of pictures and stories about it). The experience was fantastic. I climbed to the ruins of the lost city and found myself surrounded by nature. I felt really small in the face of such beauty. It was liberating and emotional and fun. When I got back from Peru (with a stop to see my parents in Dominican Republic), I was so relaxed and at peace. So, of course, I volunteered to host friends over for brunch the weekend right after I returned. I'm not quite sure what possessed me to volunteer but I did (maybe I just can't relax....). I returned to the kitchen and this time it was for more than to get some wine, but don't worry.. Wine was definitely involved. 

Don't you love that I decided to start cooking again with such a challenge? There were about 18 of us altogether... Go big or go home, right?! Having so many people in a NYC apartment can be challenging. First, is the logistics of cooking for so many people (and hoping they like it) and then, where would we all sit?! We ended up sitting on tables, windowsills, the floor... anywhere really.... The brunch was a total success, only one glass of sangria was spilled and 98% of the food was consumed (on the menu: baked potatoes & eggs with rosemary and thyme, french toast casserole, bacon, sausage, mixed greens with corn and scallions, flan, mimosas, beer and sangria). But more importantly, I showed people I care about just how much I appreciate them by feeding them until they couldn't breathe. And that made me happy. I cooked again on Monday night (spaghetti carbonara) and Tuesday night (BLTs and tomato soup). I was on a roll!

Yesterday I got an email from my web hosting company asking if I would be renewing the URL: www.josieskitchen.com. That's it. I couldn't ignore it any longer. And I won't.

I am not saying I will be posting three times a week as I was before, I am not ready for that yet, but I will definitely post more (starting with the Peru post). And since brunch was so great I hope to make it a monthly thing (yes, if you are in NY you can come) and post all about it. 

So, this is too long now. Thank you for sticking around. You are awesome! 

xo, Josie

[josieskitchen]

stuffed peppers!

this is my favorite recipe for stuffed peppers. i have tweaked it a bit throughout the years and it has now become one of my favorite go-to recipes.  I have made this for all sorts of occasions, from dinner parties with friends to lazy weeknight dinners. the beauty of this recipe is that you can make the stuffing ahead of time or just use leftover rice from the night before; so it makes for a fairly easy recipe. i like serving it with a nice salad for a complete meal. 

INGREDIENTS: 1/2 lb lean ground beef 2 cups wild rice 1 tbs olive oil 1 medium tomato 2 garlic cloves 2 large green bell peppers 1 tbs sazon 1 tsp dry oregano 1 tbs worcestershire sauce  1 tbs tomato paste a handful of raisins salt & pepper to taste 2 tbs parmesan cheese 

INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Start cooking the rice according to the package's instructions. Chop up the tomato and mince the garlic. I like to use all parts of the tomato but if you don’t like the seeds you can discard them.

Heat up the olive oil and cook the garlic and sazon in it. Add the ground beef and cook on low heat.

Break down the beef and add the oregano and worchestershire sauce. Season the beef with salt and pepper. 

Add the tomatoes and cook covered on low heat. 

Wash the peppers and slice off the tops, right around the seeds.  Pull out the seeds and wash out the insides of the peppers. Take off as much of the veins as possible.

Chop up as much as the flesh around the seeds as well. I like to use as much of the pepper as I can.

Add the pepper pieces to the beef and continue to cook for another 2 minutes. 

Add the tomato paste and a bit of water (about ¼ cup).

Mix in the tomato paste until it dissolves.

Add the cooked rice and raisins.

Mix in the rice and raisins and remove the pan from the fire. 

Fill the peppers with the stuffing. 

Top with parmesan cheese. 

Bake them in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, until the skin of the peppers become soft and wrinkly. 

Serve with a salad and enjoy! 

Have a great weekend!!

Hasta luego,