Slow Cooker Al Pastor Tacos with Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa

Just in case you are wondering what Al Pastor means, it is not the name of a restaurant owner after which the tacos were named after but it stands for tacos in the style of the shepherd (pastor in Spanish).  Here is how Wikipedia explains it,

In the style of the shepherd), also known as tacos al pastor, is a dish developed in Central Mexico, likely as a result of the adoption of the shawarma spit-grilled meat brought by the Lebanese immigrants to Mexico. Being derived from shawarma, it is also similar to the Turkish döner kebab and the Greek gyros.

You can read about how it is prepared in the same source.  It is a long and tedious process.  In fact when I was watching the source of this recipe, Guy Fieri,  prepare it on TV, I just told myself I was not going to make the dish.  Just too involved so I thought but then I felt the challenge staring at me and I took it.  I decided I would simplify the preparation and use my trusty slow cooker and so I did.

Guy Fieri marinated the pork first then cooked it in his wood burning stove for several hours at low heat with the fresh pineapple rinds on top to keep the broth from evaporating.  I did not do the latter either.  I used canned pineapple for both the meat and the salsa but you can use the ones from a fresh pineapple. I am a lazy cook. The slow cooker did the marinating and the slow cooking for me conveniently. I dumped the ingredients mostly from the pantry in the slow cooker and went my way to do my chores the Sunday I made it.

Here is my slow cooker adaptation of the Guy Fieri's recipe.  It is actually better the next day after it stood in the fridge overnight. This is a spicy and flavorful dish to serve for your next family gathering.

Slow Cooker Al Pastor Tacos with Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa

Adapted from Guy Fieri,

Tacos

• 2 cups crushed pineapple from a can, drained
• 1/2 cup fresh orange juice from bottle
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chipotle chiles in adobo plus 1 tsp of its sauce
• 1/2 onion, chopped roughly
• 3 lbs pork butt, whole

Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker and cook at low for 6 hours and at high for 3 hours.  I cooked mine in an Aroma Brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 3 hours.

Take out the pork and shred with two forks and return to the slow cooker.  Serve using the materials below.

For serving

• flour or corn tortillas
• lime wedges
• Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa (recipe below)
• green onions or cilantro 
• Cotiia cheese was suggested for serving which I did not use but you can.

Place the shredded pork over the tortilla and serve with the lime wedges, salsa and suggested cilantro or green onions and cheese if desired. You can spoon a bit of the broth for more flavor.  Enjoy. Grab a napkin.

Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa

• 2 cups pineapple tidbits from a can, drained
• 1/2 cup onion
• 2 tbsp minced jalapeno (fresh or from bottle.  If fresh seed it first)
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 small dry red chile crushed or one fresh one seeded and minced
• 2 tbsp chopped green onions or cilantro

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl and let it sit for about 20 minutes for the flavors to blend.

Slow Cooker Steak Sauce Pork Loin

One possible reason why I like cooking is because it is like being in a lab. Except I am doing my experiments in the kitchen not a laboratory. Plus I get to eat what I make.

There is always that element of anticipation involved in both cases. How things would turn out is always in my mind everytime I did experiments in the lab or trying a new recipe in my kitchen.

I tried this recipe I found in Food Whirl because I wanted to try something new with the slabs of pork I have in the freezer. The author of the recipe mentioned the method at great lengths, mainly slow cooking in the oven overnight at low heat and then basting with a list of ingredients later at higher temperature. No exact amounts of the ingredients were given, however. So this was my challenge. My experiment.

I thought of my slow cooker as the alternative method of cooking. The slow cooking and marinating could be done at the same time.  No fear of drying up the meat is present in this approach.

The author called for the use of butter in the basting material. I instead thickened the resulting broth with cornstarch at the end of cooking which I smothered on the tender juicy meat. It worked.

This dish got two thumbs up from two picky tasters, my husband and son in law. It is salty and spicy. Just like most guys like it.

The proportions of the amounts of ingredients gave the dish its saltiness and just the right kick. This an easy go to meal anytime, any place except the science lab where supposedly no eating is allowed.

Slow Cooker Steak Sauce Pork Loin

• 3 lbs pork loin or butt
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup steak sauce
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp hot sauce or to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tsp cornstarch in 3 tbsp water (optional)

Place all the ingredients except the corn starch mixture in the slow cooker. Cook for four hours at high setting or eight hours at low. I cooked mine in an Aroma brand rice cooker/slow cooker for three hours at slow cooker setting.

At the last few minutes of cooking, remove the pork and add the cornstarch in water mixture and allow to cook with stirring till you form a thick gravy. Spread over the pork.  You can also skip this last step and serve the thin broth with the pork.

Slow Cooker Mu Shu Pork Ribs

Four Ingredients. Slow cooker. You have all you need for an easy stick on your ribs pork dish.  I never thought I would like the addition of ground cinnamon to hoisin sauce but they are made for each other.  The spice gives the resulting sauce a smoky flavor but different from what cumin or coriander imparts.  Your family might remark "what is that" and might guess it.  My husband though find it is out there but I did not and I can be picky too.  It is pleasantly delightful to the palate.

I adapted this recipe from this website where they used the ingredients for their Mu Shu Beef Apple Wraps. I serve this over rice but you can certainly follow the example of this website and use it for Mu Shu Pork Wrap.  This is an easy comforting dish to prepare to warm your tummy and heart these fall days.

Slow Cooker Mu Shu Pork Ribs

• 3 lbs boneless pork ribs (or any other cut of pork)
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tbsp honey

Combine the ground cinnamon, black pepper, hoisin sauce and honey in the slow cooker bowl and mix. Add the pork ribs and coat with the mixture.  

Slow cook on high for 4 hours or on low setting for 8 hours.  I cooked mine in an Aroma Brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 2 hours at slow cooker setting.

Serve over rice and your choice of steamed or stir fried vegetables. 

Slow Cooker Barbecue Honey Glazed Pork Ribs

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I love glazed ribs especially the ones they serve at the Fortune Star Buffet at the Miracle Mile Mall in Monroeville PA. This one in this post comes close. It was conveniently prepared in the slow cooker. I actually adapted the recipe from the one my daughter used for chicken wings. She obtained it from BuzzFeed where oven baking was used twice in the procedure. This recipe uses a one step dump and forget it approach and it worked.

The ribs were tastefully coated with the sauce and I did not feel the need to bake it to caramelize the glaze though one could. The gooey honey barbecue mixture was thickened by the flour spice blend and successfully stuck to the ribs.  This is an easy delicious recipe for a family gathering or a large crowd.

Slow Cooker Barbecue Honey Glazed Pork Ribs

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 lbs country pork ribs (I used boneless)
• 1 cup barbecue sauce
• 1/2 cup honey

Mix the flour, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Dredge the ribs in the flour spice mixture. Place the ribs in the slow cooker. Add the barbecue sauce and honey. Cook for 3 hours at high or 6 hours at low. I cooked mine in an Aroma brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 2 hours at slow cooker setting 

Slow Cooker Beer Chipotle Green Chilies Pulled Pork

This was a hit with the end users shown below.  I visited my friend Seville and Bob and I brought this dish to their house.  They and their guest Rosie who was staying with them like me for the APAMS 2016 meeting gave the dish two thumbs up.

I just placed all the ingredients in a crock pot the day before I drove to my friends' house. I then froze it and brought it frozen in the car during the four hour drive.  I  placed it again in the freezer until the next day when I thawed it in the fridge and heated it on the stove for our dinner.

Note the number of ingredients!  Just five of them and they are all pantry items you can pack with you in case you prefer to cook this at your destination.  You can bring along frozen pork butt or buy it when you get to the place you are staying.  You can then place it in the slow cooker and forget it as you go about talking to your friends or sightseeing.

I prefer this on crusty bread that has been spread with mayonnaise and lined with roasted red pepper from a jar. You can also eat this over rice. This is delicious with that hint of spiciness as you bite into the dish either on rice or on a crusty bread.  Try it.  It is so easy to prepare.

Bob is entertaining us with his stories.  I wish he would get to the point.  ha ha ha.

Seville came later to savor the dish.

Rosie looks so full, doesn't she?

Slow Cooker Beer Chipotle Green Chilies Pulled Pork

• 2.5 lb pork butt
• 2 pieces of bottled chipotle 
• 1-10 oz can diced tomatoes with green chilies
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup beer (I used Samuel Adams)

Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker.  Cook at high for 4 hours or at low for 8 hours.  I cooked mine in an Aroma brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 3 hours at slow cooker setting.

You can skim off the fat if you prefer after cooling.  

You can serve this over rice or as a pulled pork sandwich using a baguette spread with mayonnaise and lined with roasted red pepper from a jar.  

Pulled Pork Rib Taco Quesadillas

This is a hybrid between a quesadilla and a taco.  It has the usual filling for a quesadilla, meat and cheese, and the traditional taco toppings of salsa, shredded lettuce and sour cream.  Whereas the tacos usually include these goodies inside the taco shell together with the meat they are now used as a topping in this hybrid recipe.  The quesadillas are ideal for this mode of adding these usual accompaniments to the tacos right on top because of the unique crispness of the tortillas used. This combination recipe is easier to eat and handle since all the fillings are encased in the tortilla rather than the taco shell.

I served this at our Book Club meeting last night held at the McGinnis Sisters Specialty Store in Monroeville, PA.  We usually have a themed dinner prepared by the talented Karen Novak, the Book Club and event organizer of McGinnis Store Monroeville but last night was a potluck affair.

Some, who did not mind the heat of the jalapenos, raved about it.  My picky taster, my husband, gave it a thumbs up too.

Below are photos I took during our meeting where we had for the book theme of the evening, "naughty heroines". We also had Brynn Chapman as a guest speaker. She is a prolific author of young adult fantasy books including the recently published The Requiem Red (click on image below for summary and to purchase). It was a great night of food and interesting discussions among friends.

Pulled Pork Rib Taco Quesadillas

• 2 cups cooked leftover pork (butt, ribs, shoulder), chopped (Note 1)
• a few tablespoons of the leftover sauce of the pork
• 1 onion, chopped
• 8 jalapeno pepper slices, bottled, chopped (Note 2)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• salsa
• shredded lettuce
• 4-8 inch flour tortillas

Mix the cooked pork, some sauce, onion, jalapeno pieces and shredded cheese in a bowl.

Place a whole tortilla on a plate and fill half of it with 1/4 amount of the pork and cheese mixture.  Put the other half of the tortilla over the filled part.  Spray both sides with cooking spray.

Place the filled tortilla into a large preheated saute or griddle pan that has been coated with cooking spray.  Heat till the tortilla crisp up, carefully turn to the other side and crisp up this other side.

Cut into triangles and serve with shredded lettuce and salsa.  One can also serve the taco quesadillas with sour cream.  

Notes

1.  I used the left overs from the Cola Soy Sauce Ribs found in this blog.  It is an easy slow cooker recipe. You can also use this other recipe, The Rolling Stone Spare Ribs, from this blog.

2. You can also serve the jalapenos as a topping instead of being part of the filling.

Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops With White Wine Gravy

Slow cooking is perfect for preparing pork chops with its gravy. I had to stay with my daughter and granddaughter at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Magee Hospital yesterday as my daughter nursed her newborn boy.  I thought of this dish which I could prepare before I left for the hospital and just forget it until I come home to prepare the birthday dinner for my daughter.

I served this with brown rice, crusty baguette, salad, and roasted potato and carrots. Plus of course cake and ice cream at the end of dinner.

My picky taster, my husband, gave it two thumbs up and so did my daughter and son in law. The white wine sauce gave it that special French touch.  The pork chops came out succulent and delicious smothered with the gravy and vegetables. Easy recipe without any sauteing involved. My kind of cooking.

Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops With White Wine Gravy

• 2.5 lbs pork chops
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 cups sliced mushroom
• 4 tbsp dry onion flakes
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup wine
• 1 tbsp cornstarch in 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 red pepper, sliced into strips
• salt and more garlic powder to taste

Mix the flour, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne pepper and black pepper. Divide into two portions. Use the first portion to dredge each pork chop. Set the dredged pork chops aside.  

Mix the second portion of the flour mixture with the ingredients starting from the mushrooms up to the Worcestershire sauce in the slow cooker bowl. 

Stack the dredged pork chops on top of this mixture. Place the onion and pepper on top of the pork chops.

Slow cook for 4 hours at high setting or 8 hours at low setting. I cooked mine in an Aroma Brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 3 hours using the slow cooker setting. 

You can add salt and more garlic powder to taste at the end of cooking.

You can serve this with rice or potatoes, crusty bread and salad. Elegant and delicious. Cest magnifique!

Slow Cooker Filipino Pork Adobo and Maddie's Visit to the Philippines Part 1

Filipino Pork (or Chicken) Adobo

To usher my series of posts on my granddaughter Maddie's visit to the Philippines, I decided to use the recipe of the most popular Filipino dish, adobo, to go with the first post.  The chicken version of this mouthwatering dish has been referred to by one cookbook author, Mark Bittman, in his You Can Cook Everything cookbook, as the best chicken recipe in the whole world.  One can readily use other meats like pork like I did in this post or beef or even seafood like squid for that matter to prepare adobo.  We also have mixed chicken, pork and beef.  

The dish is simply prepared using only a few basic ingredients, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic to braise the meat in.  Some Filipinos have also added bay leaf and peppercorn while other versions have added jalapenos, ginger, onion and sugar.  

When Maddie's father, Matt, had his knee surgery long before he married my daughter, Wendy, I knew he had absorbed some of the Filipino culture he had been exposed to when he asked his mom, Carol, to cook for him adobo when he was recuperating.  It is not only haunting and addictive of a dish but also comforting.  The sauce is a rice guzzler.  You will not be able to stop soaking the rice with the adobo's tantalizing sauce that goes so well with the meat, whether it is chicken, pork or beef.  We also like to boil eggs together with the dish when cooking it and eat the peeled hard boiled egg together with the adobo, sauce drenched rice, some cucumber and tomatoes.  

When I cook adobo using pork or chicken in the slow cooker, I use the minimum amount of water unlike when one is cooking it on the stove.   No liquid is evaporating during the slow cooking process in the crock pot so you do not need to worry about the sauce drying up as compared to when you are braising the meat using the stove.  Since you are not concentrating the sauce in the slow cooker, I use more soy sauce to vinegar than I usually do when cooking it in the stove. By doing this I find the result using a slow cooker to be comparable to the sauce that has been concentrated by braising via the stove top method.  The recipe for this awesome Filipino dish is at the end of this post.

Maddie's Visit to the Philippines, Part 1

For their vacation this year, my daughter, Wendy, and her husband, Matt, decided to go to the Philippines while I was there for my high school reunion.  They also decided to bring along their daughter Maddie who was less than two years old when they took the trip in March.  Her mom felt she was too cute to leave behind.

The flight to the Philippines, Maddie's first, was of course challenging.  It took them a total of 24 hours or so with stop overs and delays.  They survived the ordeal including being stranded in Japan for 9 hours for barely missing their connecting flight. The picture below shows the very tired Maddie upon arrival at the airport.

                                   

They arrived at about 5 am in the morning, proceeded to the condo my brother generously provided for them where they rested till noon.  Since they were only going to be staying for a week in the Philippines, they wasted no time and took a tour of Intramuros where the Filipino national hero Jose Rizal languished in Fort Santiago located in this "walled city" before he was executed by the Spaniards. Using a horse buggy we rented, they visited the landmarks in Intramuros like the Manila Cathedral and San Agustin Church.  Here are the pictures of their first day in the Philippines.

Maddie is all ready to go!

Intramuros

Fort Santiago

The Manila Cathedral

San Agustin Church

Dinner at Banzai Restaurant

Later that night, Wendy, Matt and Maddie got together with my brother Benjie's family which included his wife, Pinky and daughter Roxanne at Banzai Restaurant on Roxas Boulevard.  Ditos', my sister Bebeng's son, and his family which included his wife Candie and their two children, Jelo and Trixie, joined us later.  We were able to watch the spectacular international fireworks competition being held that night and the beautiful magnificent Manila sunset from the restaurant window overlooking Manila Bay.  Thanks Roxanne for making the reservations at Banzai and accompanying us during our tour of Intramuros.  It was a wonderful experience for all of us.  You and your parents are such generous and kind hosts.  

Banzai Restaurant is a teppanyaki Japanese place which features an array of Japanese as well as other food from various parts of Asia plus knife wielding and drama theatre.

                                        

Knife wielding skill show.

The actors display their theatrical show right around the floor of the buffet place.

  

We also celebrated Wendy's birthday at the Banzai Restaurant.

At the end of the night, Maddie rested on her Tita Pinkie's shoulder while Roxanne looked on.  More to come Maddie.  

Slow Cooker Filipino Pork Adobo

Ingredients            

• 2.5 lbs pork steak, cut into 2 inch rectangular or square pieces (note 1)
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed whole
• 6 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 bay leaf (note 2)
• 1 tsp peppercorn (note 2)

Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker.  Cook for 3 hours at high setting or 6 hours at low setting.  I cooked mine in an Aroma brand rice cooker/slow cooker for 2 hours at slow cooker setting.

Notes:

1.  You can substitute chicken thighs either boned in or boneless and skinless.
2.  I place them both in a metal tea infuser to make it easier to take out.