To the Far East and back in my kitchen

The pork shoulder I mentioned last week has been completely used up. I’m very happy to say, after having fed three people four meals each with two and a half pounds of pork, I can cook economically and the food can be interesting! Our journey to the Far East and back since last week:

Pork sandwiches w/ apple-cranberry chutney (Good ole’ fashioned American)

Layer on top of a burger bun, or other sandwich rolls: shredded pork, whole-berry cranberry sauce (from a can), and sliced apples sauteed for just a couple minutes with a bit of butter, pinch of cinnamon, and a little chilli powder, salt, and pepper (trust me, it’s very good). It was surprisingly good. Well, you’ve got pork, apples, and cranberries…how can you go wrong?

Bak-ku-teh (Vietnam)
My mother traveled to Vietnam earlier this year and brought me back some very interesting spice mixes, along with the cute little bowl and chopsticks that you see in this picture. I added the bak-ku-teh mix to some boiling water, and then threw in shredded pork, cremini mushrooms, and shredded napa cabbage.

Note 1: The grave mistake I made was throwing all the ingredients into the boiling water all at once. Next time, I would have blanched the cabbage first.
Note 2: I was not entirely happy with the flavor of the spice mix itself. I added soy sauce, fish sauce, and some vinegar to “fix” it. That seemed to work!

Spring rolls (er…generic Asian?)
A classic, family favorite! No picture because we ate them all before anyone thought to capture it. But, I must say, this is one of those extremely versatile dishes. Did you know that you can fill a spring roll wrapper with just about anything, deep fry it, and it will always turn out completely delicious? I have been making these for years, but always only for get-togethers or to take somewhere with us. I have never before made them just to eat at home, but then I asked myself “why the heck not?” so there you have it. I first learned to make spring rolls from one of my best friends, Gina, whose mother is a whiz in the kitchen (particularly in Asian foods since she is Thai). So these were made with the pork, and shredded napa cabbage. That’s all! Delicious.

Roasted Butternut Squash
Butternut Squash is clearly not pork, but I just have to talk about it since this is Fall. I mean, come on, when else can you put a pile of orange goo on a plate and call it yum?

We had some with our pork sandwiches last night, roasted with just a little bit of butter and brown sugar. So yum!