Martha Monday: Lemon Pudding

This week's Martha Monday pick was mine, all mine.  My first notion was to have everyone make their own soap as directed in the current issue of Living but Brette, the overseer of Martha Mondays, wisely encouraged me to pick something less work intensive.  Hence, lemon pudding!  I love love love pudding.  It is such an amazing thing to watch milk, sugar, and eggs thicken into something magical and creamy.  This pudding was no exception.  It was really easy too.  A perfectly tart way to wake up your taste buds this spring.  So give it a try and follow this link to the recipe.

Barbecue Pork

A few weeks ago I made a dish that required only one pound of a pork shoulder.  I stuck the other three and a half pounds in the freezer and waited for a day when I would be home ALL DAY to make this recipe.  The recipe boasts that you can cook this pork shoulder with very low heat, 225 degrees to be exact, for a very long time, 8 hours, to get the pork to a meltingly tender shreddable yumminess.  I dutifully rubbed my pork with the spices, basted it at the proper moments, and wrapped it in foil when necessary.  Unfortunately, my pork didn't even reach the 190 degrees at which it magically becomes shreddable.  After NINE hours, I decided to pull it out.  It had reached a safe 175 degrees and we were HUNGRY!!!!!  Since it wouldn't shred, I cut it into thin slices and served it on toasted buns.  And it was fabulous!  In fact, I liked it better than shredded pork because it reminded me of the sandwiches I used to eat as a kid at BBQ joints in Florida. 

Doused in barbecue sauce or ketchup, this recipe is sure to please.  Of course, if you can get it to the proper temperature and get it to shred up, let me know how you like it . . .

Barbecue Pork

Adapted from Cooking Light

1 boneless pork shoulder (4-5 lbs)

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
2 cups water, divided
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup cider vinegar

1.  Combine brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and mustard in a small bowl.  Rub mixture all over pork and let sit at room temperature for an hour.  Preheat oven to 225 degrees.
2.  Place pork on a rack in a roasting pan.  Pour one cup of water in the bottom of the roasting pan.  Bake at 225 degrees for one hour.
3.  Mix together ketchup and cider vinegar.  Baste pork with 1/3 of ketchup mixture.  Bake for another hour.  Baste pork with another 1/3 of mixture.  Bake for an hour.  Baste one more time and bake for an hour.  (Basically baste and bake for three hours total.)
4.  Pour one cup of water in the bottom of the pan.  Cover pork and pan tightly with foil.  Bake in the oven for four more hours.  Temperature should reach 190.  (Again mine only got to 175 and it was great.)  Remove pork from oven and let rest for 45 minutes.  Slice or shred pork, depending on your preference.  Serve on toasted buns with your favorite barbecue sauce or ketchup.

Martha Monday: Asparagus with Creamy Mustard Sauce

See those cute little fingers on the side of the picture?  Those fingers belong to my almost-three-year-old, Adam.  And that's pretty much what happened to this plate of mustard sauced asparagus.  He ate it.  He devoured it.  The asparagus disappeared bite by bite.  The mustard sauce was so delightful  that he grabbed the bowl of extra sauce and started spooning it into his mouth.  Ha ha!

Well, thanks to Steak and Potatoes Kinda Gurl for choosing this easy and yummy way to serve asparagus!  The tang of the mustard and vinegar really complemented the strong flavors of the asparagus.  I definitely think we'll be making this one again especially if it gets my Adam-boy to eat his veggies.

Click here to link to the recipe.

My Little Chef II

So, I've told you before about my son Jonathan and his penchant for cooking.  Well, things have been progressing.  No longer does he simply concoct decorations for our table.  Now he actually wants us to eat his creations.  "Cooking" for him usually means assembling ingredients because he's not really allowed to use the stove or oven by himself. 

Anyway, my little chef "cooked" breakfast for us this weekend.  As you can see he did a great job of plating!  Each plate consisted of clementine segments surrounding chocolate krisp cereal and topped with something of our choice - blueberries for some, nuts for one, and carrots for another.  It wasn't really what I had wanted to eat for breakfast, but how can I squash such inventiveness and enthusiasm?