Florida crock pot pork

Here is a great recipe I came across while reading a family members journal. I changed it a little to make it easier and it came out wonderful.

So as the story in the journal went; they were down to the last of the pork and it was up to the voodoo princes to come up with a hearty dish that would fill the guts of all on the ship. She decided to make a stew but being low on vegetables... it ended up being eaten with the last of the bread.

And belly's stayed full for two nights.

So my version.... follows.

Florida Crock Pot Pork

3 lbs of pork butt or shoulder (originally this was for 16lbs of pork. What ever pork you have on hand should work but you may have to add lard to drier cuts)

1 can of ro-tel (or use tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers)

1cup of fresh squeezed Florida OJ ( ok I used fresh bottled OJ)

1/4 medium onion

1/4 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of cumin
1tsp oregano

6 cloves of crushed garlic (the recipe called for an ungodly amount)

1/4cup of brown sugar

1tsp black pepper

1tsp sea salt

Put the liquid in the crock. Add the butt. Add the spices and garlic and onion. Cook on high for 8 hours. If it dries up you could add water but it is better on the dry side. It should be completely falling apart when done.

In a frying pan add lard or bacon grease. Enough to coat the pan but that's it. Shred up pork into the sauce in the crock pot. Pull some out and fry it in the pan. Flip it over and fry both sides. Serve on buns or bread.



What it looks like before it is fried. Skim off the oil sitting on top.

The recipe called for cayenne pepper as well but I'm not a big lover of spicy so I left that out. If you like the heat, go for it. And you can add what ever spicy peppers as well while frying. Such as jalapeno or habanero. We put bar-b-q sauce on top after it was fried, served it on potato buns and it was good.

Pimento spread

I love pimento spread I guess it's suppose to be a really southern thing to eat but I have no idea why. This is my recipe it is so easy and only takes like 5 minutes to whip up. I guess you could make everything like the mayonnaise and all from scratch if you liked but I always try to go the simpler route.

Jared pimento peppers

package of cream cheese

course shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

Mayonnaise

garlic powder

salt

Cheyenne pepper

onion powder

Let the cream cheese soften, then mash with a fork so it is even softer add the chopped pimento's and seasonings to taste. You could go with paprika if you don't like spicy foods but to give it a good flavor I like the Cheyenne. Add a little cheddar at a time it should be equal Cheddar to cream cheese. You want it to be easily spreadable so... add as much mayonnaise as needed to achieve that. Usually a table spoon or so. In the end it should look orange between the cheddar and the Cheyenne. Let it chill about an hour and spread on crackers sandwiches or what ever floats your boat.

Peanut butter pie!

My grandfather loved peanut butter and peanuts. When I was a kid and we visited relatives in Florida we always had to stop and get some boiled peanuts and a water melon. He always had peanuts on hand to eat. He liked the ones with the skin on still.  I know he would have loved this pie.

Peanut Butter Pie

As usual I didn't measure anything I just went on a word of mouth recipe. This pie is easy to make and inexpensive yet fancy enough to empress.

You need...

1 to 2 cups of powdered sugar

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter(more or less)

1gramcracker pie crust

1big box of vanilla pudding

whip cream

Now all you do is mix the powdered sugar with the peanut butter till it is the color of brown sugar. It should be like crumbs. So start with the powdered sugar and then gradually add the peanut butter and mix, mix, mix.

After your pie crust is ready to fill and cool, if you baked it with a coat of egg white, add a little less than 1/2 of the peanut butter crumbs to the bottom, spread out to about a 1/2 to 1 inch thick.

Then mix up the pudding, follow the pie filling recipe which has less milk, and pour on top of the crust. Place the pie in the refrigerator and allow the pudding to set up.

About an hour later place the remaining peanut butter crumbs on top of the pudding being careful not to smash down.

Then just top that with some whip cream and your done.

Eat up yum!

I could see making this with all sorts of variations. You could add bananas and call it the Elvis pie. You could use a chocolate crust and call it a peanut butter cup pie. You could use any different flavor pudding. Bottom line this pie was easy and yum!



Left over pulled pork

As if there is any! Belive it or not we had some. And we just couldn't bare to throw it away. Cause pulled pork is just so good. So we came up with an idea.....

Chris's pulled pork burritos

2cups pulled pork

1/2 cup grilled onions and peppers (or saute in butter)

2tbs lime juice

1tbs of brown sugar (optional)

Reheat pulled pork in pot or sauce pan. Add rest of ingredients. Stir all together. Serve on tortillas with rice that is cooked with salsa in it. Also would be good to add some fresh cilantro.

Makes about 12 burritos.



Chris's quest for the perfect red cabbage.

Chris's grandmother used to make the best red cabbage dish in all the world according to Chris. So anyway he didn't have the recipe so he set out to create one. He searched in books he searched on line. His grandmother was German and most of the recipes she made were German ones so when he found a recipe for Blaukraut (red cabbage) he was pretty sure he had it. But.... he didn't remember it having apples so he omitted the apple. His Uncle came by to let him know what he thought and said it was very close to the exact same thing but it needed a little more bite. So maybe more vinegar and he didn't remember any apple either. But... I think that maybe where the kick came from.

Chris's red cabbage

Here is the recipe:

2 Tbs Smoked pork fat (next time he said he was just going to use bacon)

1 onion

1 head of red cabbage

2 Tbs of apple cider vinegar

11/2 cups water

1Tbs of sugar

3 whole cloves (although they both did not like the cloves and said they would leave them out next time)

2 bay leafs

salt and pepper

 He heated up the pork in a large pot. then added the chopped onion till translucent

He then added the shredded cabbage in batches waiting for it to wilt down.

Lastly he stired in the vinegar and remaining ingredients. He reduced the heat to low and simmered for 11/2 hours (but most  recipes called for 30 minutes or so. He remembers his grandmother cooking this dish all day)

We ate this dish with some Polish sausage and some brats with some spicy brown mustard on the side and also some boiled potatoes. I don't usually like cabbage but I did like this dish. It was a good boiled dish and had a different taste than any thing I had eaten like it. I liked the cloves in it and I think if he put an apple in it that it would have been really good.



Florida cuisine.

So people have been asking me my version of what is Florida cuisine. The answer is simple, anything you want it to be. There is such a great variety of cultures, and people here in Florida that any style of cooking is acceptable and there is such an abundance and availability to get just about any type of food fresh, that you might say any food can be considered a Florida special as long as it can be made quick and easy.

The peninsula here is surrounded by both ocean and gulf water providing a variety of sea food, fish, shell fish, crustaceans such as shrimp, lobster and crab, and everyone has heard about conch mostly in the keys, but you could also easily find craw fish or other creatures from the gulf. You could by exotic things that aren't served any where else such as gator tail. Also we have some of the best known fresh water fishing in the states even though people don't usually come to Florida for a great large mouth bass dinner. It would be easily provided. A variety of vegetables will grow here in the fertile farmlands of central Florida, you just need to go to a farmers market to find that out, not to mention all the different kind of fruit. We are best known for the key lime, but all sorts of tropical fruit as well as some more northern fruits can be grown.

Cracker cow as it makes it's way through the dense brush with ease

Another cracker cow notice the horns are turned backward.

We are also known for our beef. The early settlers here in Florida had a special cow that could make its way through the saw palms and lush vegetation and swampish land that is found here. The cow boys sometimes could not get to the cows because of the dense forest and trained them to listen to the crack of a whip. Therefor the cowboys became known as cracker and the cows as cracker cows. My grandfather told me that when he was young he used to have to drive the cattle across the St. Johns river, but that was before it was dredged out for shipping. I'm not sure there is a store or a place to buy cracker cow meat but there should be I'm sure the unique Florida cattle range would add to the taste of it and I for one would like to see the difference.

Deer at the beach in the keys you can get a good size comparison with the picnic table in the back ground.

But this tougher terrain doesn't just affect the cattle it also has an affect on the animals found in the wild such as the deer. Our deer here in
Florida is significantly smaller than deer in other parts of the states. And although I haven't tried it, the taste is reported to be sweeter. And lends itself well to sausage.

Florida wild turkey

Also our wild turkeys are also smaller. But every year right before Thanks Giving there are tons of people up in Ocala national forest and surrounding areas hunting for turkey so it must taste better.

Feral pig in the woods.

Also I here the wild hog population is smaller too but with longer legs. We have what are known as feral hogs. They were actually brought here by Ponce de Leon and may be the birth place of all hog populations in north America since hogs are not native to Florida or the United States. Someday I would like to taste one of these too.

True Florida grapes. Mmm...

I did mention the caribbean and rum and it is well known that Florida was the main port for rum runners and there are plenty of rum dishes in families here in Florida, but what you may not know is that Florida is the origin of wine making in the US.
We have more wild grape vines growing, everywhere you look, to prove it than anywhere in California. The muscadine was widely grown and used for wine. French Protestants fleeing religious persecution began growing and making Muscadine wine near present day Jacksonville. The wines of Florida are generally sweeter which is probably why most of my family prefers sweet wine to dry. I've heard the university is working on creating a drier grape for the wine snobs of the rest of the world. A treat for anyone is to visit any of the laid back wineries found scattered about Florida. Most are small mom and pop operations and with out all the snobbery of other wine areas, so you can approach them with that same Florida laid back fun as anything else.

These guys are saining it's a practice that is illegal now. As are many fishing practaces of the past.

When my mom was young she remembers bananas stalks hanging from the back porch and sucking sugar from fresh stalks of sugar cane, going to the beach and having a clam bake right on the sand with clams they would dig right on the beach. Course they would eat more than just clams. What ever they could find or catch, scallops, shrimps, crab, lobster and all manor of fried fish. They would simply take a net walk out into the ocean and come back what ever was good that was in the net made a great dinner and the rest went free.

Not my family house but you can see a good example of the dog trot right through the center of the house.

Simple, fresh and easy are the recipes used most in Florida. Because why would anyone want to be stuck in the hot kitchen cooking when you could be out on the beach. Even the houses that were built way back when attested to this fact. Usually the kitchen was in a separate building so the main house wouldn't heat up. Sometimes the buildings were connected by a porch called a dog trot. That's where the dogs would usually stay at night and it provided them with shade as well. We lived in a house, for a short time, like that and it was nice not having the smells of food in the main living area all the time also it cut down on bugs because the food, that they like to eat, was kept in an the other building along with the trash.

Notice the different cowboy hat that is worn in Florida. It's is a little floppier.This is a dipiction of a Florida cracker cowboy notice the whip in his right hand. They were also good to kill snakes with out having to get off the horse. Notice also how Florida pioneers/cowboys were so much cooler than the ones out west that they had to were sunglasses.

I think food is a great way to explore the heritage that is so rich and nearly forgotten that is uniquely Florida. I hope you will enjoy this new section on recipes. Most will be my own creations but you will see how easy takes center stage in all the cooking here in Florida.