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Delicious Recipes, Tried & True

A week ago I had friends over for lunch, and I made carnitas and tomalito, two things I love but had never made before (I always seem to enjoy trying new stuff out on said friends, who have been victims of stuff like homemade sushi, etc. before).

CARNITAS RECIPE (from food.com)

3 lbs pork tenderloin
4 cups chicken broth, hot
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder, medium hot
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt (to taste)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat up chicken broth on stove.
2. Add spices and lime juice to chicken broth.
3. Put broth into crock pot.
4. Add pork to crock pot.
5. Cover and cook on LOW for like 8-9 hours until broth is reduced and pork is delicious.
6. Shred meat and mix into thickened cooking sauces.
7. Be amazed you cooked something so delicious.

NOTE: I forgot the lime juice till the stuff was basically done. I added the lime juice afterwards and the pork was able to marinate in the newly limed juices overnight before my friends came over. So, I would recommend remembering the lime juice at the beginning because the citrus flavor really adds to the meat. Also add more salt. NOTE #2: the online directions say cook it on HIGH for 4-6 hours but I wasn’t going to be home while it was cooking so I just cooked it on low per some other recipe I found when I was looking.

CORN STUFF (aka tomalito from Chevy’s. From allrecipes.com)

5 tablespoons margarine, softened
1/4 cup masa harina
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup water
2 cups frozen whole-kernel corn, thawed
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons milk

DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium bowl, mix together the margarine, masa flour, and sugar until light and fluffy (use a hand mixer!).
2. In a food processor or blender, blend 1.5 cups of the corn kernels with the water and cornmeal just until smooth. Stir into the masa mixture.
3. Mix in the remaining corn, baking powder, salt, and milk until the batter is smooth.
4. Place batter in microwaveable container with a lid that seals so no steam escapes.
5. Cook in microwave on LOW (level 3 or 4) for 4 minutes, give it a good stir, then cook on HIGH (level 10) for seven more minutes.
6. Check to see if corn stuff is still soupy, if so, put it back in the microwave for another minute or so.
7. Stir up corn stuff so its texture is consistent and serve.
8. Be amazed that this is EXACTLY as delicious as the corn stuff from Chevy’s.

The directions actually call for the corn stuff to be cooked in a double boiler, but yeah, I don’t have one of those, nor did I have an hour for it to steam, either. The microwave method listed here worked just fine!

Anyway, enjoy. Right now I’m cooking another crockpot of pork, but I just did it regular with some seasonings. I will add mushroom soup and have it all gravylicious later. I like crockpot cooking, I’m glad I got over my irrational fear of it – there will be muchas pork tenderloin in my future!! I think real carnitas use a fattier cut of pork (shoulder or butt) however Trader Joe’s conveniently had tenderloin so that’s what I used.

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How corny.

Having received a real-live-actual invitation to Thanksgiving I am now backed into a corner re: my least favorite holiday because I was summoned to bring something to eat.

So I replied to the email summons that I would bring a corn pudding.

I like corn pudding.

I had not actually made one.

So, I putzed around on the internets and found myriad recipes for corn pudding until I came across one that would only cost me a couple of dollars because I actually had most of the ingredients, including about 4 cans of creamed corn in my pantry (wtf?). Last night I made it as an experiment and it turned out pretty good.

Here is the recipe:

CORN PUDDING THING

1/2 Cup Butter
2 Eggs
1 can creamed corn
1 can regular corn
1 box corn bread mix
1 Cup sour cream

I actually used the following:
1/2 Cup Fake Soy Butter
2 Eggs
1 can creamed corn
1 16 oz package frozen white corn
1 box Jiffy (8 oz, I think) cornbread mix
1 cup lite/light sour cream

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a 9×9 pan (MY MOD: 8×8 nonstick pan… because that’s what I had.)
  2. Melt butter/fake butter on the stove, in a small pan/pot. Drain the regular corn of excess packing water. Throw all ingredients into  a big bowl and stir until everything is mixed. Looks kind of like lumpy cake or cornbread batter when you’re done.
  3. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven (MY MOD: Since I was using an 8×8 pan instead of a 9×9, it took a good half hour longer to bake, because of the thickness of the batter). It’s done baking when the top is golden brown, and the pudding is “set”. Also, you stick a knife in the middle and it comes out relatively smoothly. Serves six or more, depending on serving size.

cornPudding
(image “borrowed” from here. Please note that my version had a bunch of knife holes in it where I poked it to see if it was done. And also it was square. But it looks really similar other than that! hehe)

Note: I didn’t thaw my frozen corn before I made this so I think that combined with the smaller pan definitely had an impact on baking time.

It turned out really nicely, moist and tasty. As a further modification, I think adding some chopped jalapenos to this recipe would be awesome. Then it would be like that chile rellenos casserole that my mom makes that is so delicious. Only with corn.

So if you like corn stuff, I would definitely recommend this recipe because it’s kind of a cross between corn pudding and cornbread. It’s also not too terrible fat-wise, though it’s pretty carby, so watch out for that, if that’s something you’re watching out for.  I like corn a lot, but in my quest to eat lower carbs, or make better carb decisions (whole grains, etc.) I don’t really eat it all that much since it’s not really a vegetable, it’s mostly a starch/grain. Because I used fake soy butter and lite sour cream that also added to the lower-calories/sat fat results.

Also if you’re looking for something less cholesterol-y I think you could probably substitute egg beaters for the eggs, but I’m not sure yet how to do substitutions like that. Food science, like the amount of canned corn in my pantry, remains a mystery.