- Carnitas tacos at Chris’s Restaurant
- Cheesesteaks at Jeno’s
- Carolina Pulled Pork at Corkey’s
Sometimes, a little fruit salsa is exactly what a dish needs to make it complete. I like to serve a fruit salsa with grilled fish, especially swordfish and tuna. This is one of those recipes where the basics are constant and the star ingredient (the fruit) can change.
Fruit Salsa
1/2 Medium Onion, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground chili powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 jalapeno (optional)
Fruit of your choice, chopped (peaches, pineapple, mango work well)
Juice of one lime
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and let the mixture of goodness sit in the fridge for at least a half hour. Serve with your favorite grilled fish or with tortilla chips.
Okay, so I’ve been dormant for a long time. My apologies. Maybe this will make up for it. Maybe not.
Sometimes, you just need to get creative. Sometimes, creativity comes out of necessity. Sometimes, it just happens. That’s what happened tonight. I hadn’t planned my dinner very well, and found a fridge full of good things, but none that seemed to go together. I had a smattering of different ingredients, but nothing that really added up to a full on meal. Or so I thought….
Pork Tenderloin Tacos with Confetti Veggies
Pork Rub
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/4 tbsp chili powder
1/4 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 pork tenderloin (about 3/4 to 1 lbs)
Veggies
1 yellow squash
1/2 Vidalia onion
1 red pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp olive oil
Prep
Rub a single tenderloin with the aforementioned mixture and set aside for a good 30 to 45 minutes. Light the grill and bring it to a cool 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Use a thermometer.
Cut the veggies into small bite sized pieces, about a half-inch thick (they will contract/shrink on the grill). Toss them with olive oil and spices.
Veggies Cooking
Use a grill basket. Place veggies on the grill basket and walk away. Have a beer, or a whisky, or something to occupy your time. These suckers will take a bit of time at 350F. Give them the time they deserve. About 10 minutes later (you should be done with your beer) go and turn them with a pair of tongs. Put your meat on the grill.
Meat Cooking
You’re going to want to cook this slowly, because it’s pork. If you cook it fast at a high temp, it will be tough. I’m not suggesting an all day affair, but give yourself 20 to 30 minutes to cook your tenderloin. Turn it as often as you like, but make sure you get some good black grill marks on the meat.
Tortillas
I like flour tortillas. You can choose your own favorites here, really. I used some small taco sized flour tortillas and just laid them on the grill for about 2 minutes a side.
The Final Product
So far we have some grilled pork, a few tortillas, and some grilled veggies.
The magic happens when you combine them. Slice the pork into nice bite sized bits, preferably on a bias. Pile about 2 ozs of pork on each tortilla, add as many veggies as you can fit, and garnish with some cheddar and salsa.
Grab a cold one and enjoy!
Three and a half weeks ago, I took inventory of my goals for 2011 and realized that I was falling short on the most important one of the three. I’d set out to lose 30 pounds in January and hadn’t changed a thing about my lifestyle that would get me on track.
I’ve been “on weight watchers” now for three and a half weeks. I’ve had some ups and downs, but overall I’m down by 5.5 pounds. That’s 18% of my goal, in just three weeks.
I expected being “on weight watchers” to be difficult. I’d done the program before about 10 years ago and it was frustrating. I felt like I couldn’t eat any of the things that I wanted to eat. As many people know, I love food. I’m not just talking about a casual love affair with food, I’m talking about a full-bore passion for food. Nothing makes me happier than to spend an afternoon cooking a huge meal for friends and then sharing it with them over a few beers and some wine. I was worried that making changes to my lifestyle would put a damper on my cooking.
But it really hasn’t.
For one thing, the program has changed and there is less emphasis on fiber as the solution to all woes, less emphasis on processed sugar alternatives and more of an emphasis on eating the right amounts of all kinds of foods. I can use olive oil, sugar, even butter. I don’t have to deprive myself of the good things in life. I can have a real beer (not a watery light beer) with my meals and not feel guilty.
I even cooked chicken parmesan twice in these three weeks. And that would have been out of the question on the old program.
Of course, I’m also way more active than I was ten years ago. Not as active as I’d like to be, but I logged about 120 miles on the bike in March. I’m keeping track with a great little app on my iPhone now called cyclemeter so next month I won’t be estimating my miles.
No not the kind you smoke, the kind you eat at. A dive, a hole in the wall, a place that is not quite clean, but hasn’t been shut down by the health department. Yeah, that kind of Joint.
There are a lot of Joints in the Baltimore area. Duda’s in Fells Point, Davis Pub in Annapolis, and my personal favorite Attman’s Deli on Lombard Street. Recently, I had the opportunity to take some friends to Attmans and share a real Baltimore experience with them.
I’ve been going to Attmans since I was knee high to a grasshopper. There are only two things on the menu that I’ve ever ordered — hot dogs and corned beef on rye with mustard. That’s it, why try anything else, when these two items are perfection? (Oh, there are about 200 options on the menu for those who don’t like my choice.)
The kibbitz room is basically the same as it was when I was a boy. Not quite clean, but not dirty, and walls filled with picture frames. Although, some of the more — ahem — questionable material is no longer on the walls. Somehow it feels like coming home every time I go in.
And that is the definition of a Joint — a place that is unpretentious where you feel like you’re at home.
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