Tag Archives: Ground Pork

Hey, Cuz!

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

I have countless cousins. Well, that, of course, is not literally true. If I took the time, I could count them, thereby making them not countless. But my mother had 12 brothers and sisters that lived to adulthood, and she came from a good, Catholic family. So the 13 children resulted in many, many cousins for my siblings and me.

Most of my cousins lived in or around the area of Nebraska where we grew up. One of my mother’s brothers ended up in Minnesota, along with his large family, but the rest, as I recall, lived near us, at least as children. We rarely, however, gathered together as one group. We might gather one family at a time, but it was very uncommon for the entire family to gather, as it was quite formidable.

The one exception was our (almost) annual family picnic. We would get together, usually at a public park. Each aunt brought delicious picnic food; each uncle brought a more-than-sufficient amount of beer. Let the festivities commence! The adults would laugh and reminisce and gossip and drink and eat, getting livelier as the beer diminished. The kids would group together and run and play all sorts of games. The picnics were great fun. Even as adults, my sibs and I will occasionally talk about those picnics.

I thought about those picnics yesterday afternoon-into-evening as we were all together at yet-another celebration, this one a joint hullaballoo for my brother (with his year-end December birthday) and three of his children, with birthdays throughout January. My sister-in-law offered an amazing assortments of more unusual Mexican dishes – posole, menudo, and tamales made with Monterey Jack cheese, spinach, and green chili.

One thing about my Arizona family – if you give a party, they will come. And bring their kids. So much fun. So, the children – at least the ones joining us yesterday – ranged in ages from 8 to just over one month. Let’s see if I can get this right: one girl at 8, one girl at 7, two boys at 6, one girl at 4, two boys and one girl at 3, one girl at 1, and one baby girl just over a month. I think I’m close in those ages. You can sort of figure out how they paired up, though I did have occasion to see the 3-year-old boys playing with the 6-year-old boys. Or rather, the 6-year-olds were teasing the 3-year-olds mercilessly by keeping the ball away from them. Boys!

The weather was perfect – high 60s, so the kids played mostly outside, making up games as they went along. Later in the evening, one of my nephews lit up some logs in the firepit, and the inevitable cry, “Do you have any marshmallows”? rang out, to no avail, I’m afraid. Still, there was plenty of birthday cake to go around. For my part, I simply held my breath and prayed that none of the children would fall into the fire as they worked at finding a place to sit. Bill suggested he would dial 9-1 on his phone to be ready for the seemingly inevitable accident, which never transpired to my surprise. I missed my grandchildren immensely. They would have had fun with their cousins.

The whole scene made me think back on my days as a child with my cousins, as well as the days when all of my nieces and nephews gathered at my mom and dad’s house in Dillon, Colorado, every summer. The activities then were very similar. Cousins rock. They are like built-in best friends.

Until last night, I had never eaten posole. Posole is a soup made with pork and hominy (basically dried corn). The photo is stock, and is not of her soup. Most posole recipes use slowly-cooked pork shoulder as in the photo, but she used ground pork, which I thought was delicious.

New Mexican Style Posole from New Mexico Cookbook by Lynn Nusom

Ingredients
2 T. olive oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press
1 lb. lean, ground pork
1 t. salt
1 t. dried oregano
2 T ground cumin
1 c. chopped green chile
1 can (#10)white hominy, with the juice

Process
Heat oil in a frying pan, saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in ground pork, add salt, oregano, cumin and green chile, and cook until pork is brown.Pour hominy (with liquid) into a large pot, stir in pork mixture and cook, covered, over low heat for at least one hour. Serve in soup bowls with Red Chile Sauce on the side.

Nana’s Notes: You may have noticed I said very little about the menudo. My sister-in-law didn’t make the menudo; she got it from a friend. I love all things Mexican, but I couldn’t make myself even try the menudo. The smell, donchaknow. Oh, and the pig’s hoof that was floating in it — a treat for my brother who enjoyed it with great relish. Well, it was his birthday celebration after all. As for the posole, Sami didn’t serve it with Red Chile Sauce on the side; instead, she used a seasoning mix she found in the Mexican section of the grocery store — a mixture of chili pepper and oregano and probably other spices. She thinks it was called menudo seasoning.

Blood, Sweat and Prayers

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

Bill and I are pretty religious about going to 24 Hour Fitness three times a week. We both do interval training on a treadmill for about 45 minutes or thereabouts. Neither one of us like to exercise. We often point out that we NEVER look forward to going to the gym and we NEVER enjoy the time during which we are working out. In fact, the only time we feel content is when our time is up – likely a combination of endorphins and knowing we don’t have to face the treadmill for another 48 hours.

But we have pretty good motivation. In 2009, Bill was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. PD has no known cause or cure as of yet. Surprisingly little is understood about it except that it just sucks to have it. Research is showing, however, that aerobic exercise can slow progression. So Bill and I faithfully exercise.

And I pray. I pray and pray and pray. Every morning I ask for Bill to be cured of his affliction. While doing so, I recognize there is no cure as of yet. Still, all three of Sunday’s Mass scripture readings remind us to pray relentlessly. In the Old Testament reading, you had the Israelites winning the war against the Amaleks as long as Moses’ hands were raised in prayer. St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy reminded him (and us) to “be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient….” And finally, and most obviously, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus uses the parable of the nagging widow and the judge to remind us to never stop asking God to answer our prayers. When I heard that, I thought, “Hey, if there is one thing I am good at, it’s nagging!”

A number of years ago I came across a quote about prayer that I never forget. Here it is: God answers all of our prayers in one of three ways – yes, not now, or I have a better idea. I will continue to nag, I mean, pray, and God will answer my prayer. In fact, I remind myself that he answers my prayer every day by making Bill’s progression blessedly slow. We help out by exercising.

On a side note, I recently was working out very hard on the treadmill, scarcely noticing who was on the treadmill next to me. I finished one of my fast intervals, and my neighbor says, “My, you really work hard, don’t you?” I looked over to see a really pretty white-haired woman. I’m bad at ages, but I took her to be a minimum of 80 years old. We began chatting about the importance of exercise. She told me she works out three times a week on the treadmill for a half hour, and then goes to a seniors’ weight class for an hour. I glanced down to see that she was walking at a speed of 3 mph. (For reference, my intervals are at 4 and 6 mph.) I complimented her on her diligence and she informed me that she was 92 years old.

Now that’s inspiration!

Recently Bill asked me to make pasta with Bolognese. I love cooking this sauce, first, because it’s yummy, and second, because it takes several hours to cook and I love the way the house smells while the sauce perks away. As always, when I make anything Italian, I bring out one of my old, red-sauce-stained Lidia cookbooks. Lidia Bastianich is my favorite Italian chef, and maybe my favorite anything chef, of all time. That’s why my Lidia cookbooks are wrinkled and stained. A sign that a cookbook is loved.

Meat Sauce Bolognese

Directions
3 T. olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, minced (about 1 c.)
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely shredded (about ½ c.)
½ c. minced celery, with leaves
Salt
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
½ c. dry red wine
1 T tomato paste
3 . canned Italian plum tomatoes, with their liquid, crushed
3 bay leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
4 c. hot water, or as needed

Process
Heat the olive oil in a wide 3-4 qt. pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the onion, carrot, and celery, season them lightly with salt, and cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 4 min. Crumble in the ground beef and pork and continue cooking, stirring to break up the meat, until all the liquid the meat has given off is evaporated and the meat is lightly browned, about 10 min. Pour in the wine and cook, scraping the bottom of the pan, until the wine is evaporated, 3-4 min. Stir in the tomato paste and cook a few minutes. Pour in the tomatoes, toss in the bay leaves, and season lightly with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat so the sauce is at a lively simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is dense but juicy and a rich dark-red color. Most likely a noticeable layer of oil will float to the top toward the end of cooking. This will take about 2-3 hours – the longer you cook it, the better it will become. While the sauce is cooking, add hot water as necessary to keep the meat and vegetables covered. The oil can be removed with a spoon or reincorporated in the sauce, which is what is done traditionally.

Makes 6 c., enough to dress about 1-1/2 lbs. dried pasta

Nana’s Notes: Traditionally, a long, flat pasta is used, such as tagliolini. I frequently use spaghetti, but used penne this time and it worked very well. Also, I cut the recipe in half, and it worked great for the two of us. I had some left over that won’t go to waste! Just try not tasting it throughout the afternoon. I dare you.