Cajun-Asian Fusion?!?! What the heck?

Whoa,
     Maybe I have been watching too many Hell's Kitchen reruns, or maybe it was a jazz music my husband was playing on the piano tonight, but I twisted my simple Asian style pork into a odd mix that can only be called Cajun Asian fusion. Now, before you get all snippy with me, it was GOOD. But it was some of that out of the box thinking that I am so infamous for that shaped this dish.  Have you  ever gotten halfway into cooking something and all the sudden you run into a big problem... what you THOUGHT was ginger, was in fact, nutmeg. And bing-bada-boomg, you have a problem on you hands. Instead of the slight bitter and sweet taste you now have a bold flavor in a dish of easy flavors. Don't panic, as one of my favorite books The Hitchhiker's Guild to the Galaxy tells you, I will walk you through how to save your pork and turn a everyday dish into a amazing feast!

Uh oh Cajun Asian Pork

What you need
Pork Chops (About 8 thin sliced or 4 thick sliced)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup of honey
1/2 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/2 cup of Asian chili sauce (Siracha)
2 tablespoons of  minced garlic or 4 table spoons of garlic power
1/4 cup of chives
2 tablespoons of nutmeg
2 table spoons chopped mint or any sweet spice.



First, take your sugar, soy sauce, Siracha and garlic and mix them all together in a nice big bowl. the good thing about these flavors is they are a easy mix flavors. All this means is they blend with no heat! How awesome!

Next FOLD in your honey and chives and nutmeg and mint into you mixture.

Jessycane says; Folding in is a method used when you have spices that can and will break up easier than normal. To fold something in, just put it int he middle of whatever you want to fold into, and with light strokes, pull the middle outward to the end of the bowl. Just repeat until well blended. 

Your mix should smell sweet, with a small, yet well defined,  red pepper bite at the end.

This is what your mix should look like.

Next is pan prep. Put your pan on the stove and put some Olive Oil in the bottom.  Put your heat on about 8.

Jessycane says; In a fusion dish, you want bright flavors. So with this in mind, when you are blending flavors, use Olive oil. NEVER use butter or anything that has a flavor on its own. Keep it simple and healthy. Use Olive Oil in place of butter whenever you can. Not only is it better tasting, it is also better for you and much easier to clean up! 

Pour just about a half of a cup of sauce mix into your pan. Let this sit for maybe 5 minutes max.

While this is heating up, brush your pork chops LIGHTLY with some of the mix.

Now you can cook your pork. Put your pork in the pan, letting it sit on one side for 2 to 3 minutes before flipping. Make sure you flip the pork every 2 to 3 minutes to avoid any of your sugar  getting browned. You are making pork chops, not candy. Cooking anything with a good amount of sugar requires a lot of watching. Good news is, it is easy to make sure you don't end up with candy coated meat... just flip!

This is what your food should look like in the pan.

Couple of things to note. First is the color, that rich brown color is what you want. If you have something that looks like oil and water mix, your heat is not up high enough. If you are having popping and snapping sound from the pan, the heat is too high. If you are having popping and snapping sound NOT coming from the pan, well, go find the kids. Chances are you are getting to go to the ER tonight. Make sure to turn off the stove on the way out.



That is it! Plate your food and serve it! Good news, this dish is low fat and easy easy to clean. No stuck on mess due to the Olive oil! Enjoy!

And remember, a mistake is only another way to get to try something you have always wanted to do without everyone thinking you are nuts! 

Take care,
Jessycane

Dexter and me

Boo!
    I just love Halloween! Maybe it is the cool weather, maybe it is the dressing up, but I think it is the chance to eat all the sweets I want! So keeping with the seasons, I want to put one of my newer tests on here as my first real blog! I am totally addicted to Dexter, and I saw a recipe in a magazine not to long ago about making suckers with worms in them for Halloween. Well that got me thinking, how easy would it be to make something for my "dark passenger"? So I pulled out mamaw's trusty pot and got to work on some blood slide candies. Super easy and you can do this with you kids! Just tell them that it is some kind of virus! So I give you Dexter's blood slides!

Ok, so here we go!

All you need is
 1 cup of sugar
1/3 up of light corn syurp
2 tablespoons of water
red food dye
Toothpick
Wax paper

Mix the sugar and corn syrup and water together in a pot and put on med- high heat. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, making sure to scrape the bottom when you stir! When the mix it at the "hard ball" stage of candy, remove from heat.

Jessycane note; Hard Ball stage is when you can drop your mixture into a cup of cold water and it turns into a hard to move ball of candy. But not too long or it will not want to come off your pot! 


Put the wax paper in the bottom of a cookie sheet and pour your mixture in . The thinner you can make it, the better it will be. Put the pan in the fridge for about 10 mins.

 

So this is what your sheet of camdy should look like now.

With a large chopping knife, cut the candy into strips. You WILL break a few of them. If it seems like it is very very hard to cut, you can use a lighter to heat up your blade. Make sure you are using a knife you are not that attached to. It didn't happen to me this time, but I have used the heating the knife thing to cut another candy and it left some marks on the blade.

Cut your strips into smaller rectangles. They should be about 2 inches wide and 1 inch tall.

Next take your red food dye and let one small drop fall in the dead middle of the "slide". With your toothpick, move the drop around until it is a semi-wide drop of "blood" on the slide. Let the dye dry and enjoy!!

My daughter Mary Katherine, or Micki, eating one of the slides!

Hello All!

Welcome!
       Let me start by saying thanks for taking time to check out my blog. This is mainly going to be about my fav thing in the whole wide world, food. I love to cook, and I love to share food and eat with all my friends and family. The most important part of a meal, to me, is what you put into the food. No, I am not talking about what you use to cook. I am talking about what of you you put in. I believe that food is a expression of who you are. So when I cook, I use methods and techniques passed down to me from all over. I can sometimes cook like my Mamaw, who taught me how to cook soul food made all day with love, or from my dad who taught me that if you feel like you want to add something totally off the wall, DO IT! Or from my mother in law, Terri, who has mastered the art of feeding big groups of people with simple, yet wonderful meals. So when you are cooking anything, use who you are!


Much love

Jessycane