Libby Hemphill research and posts on social media, collaboration, and related technologies

Recipe: Pot Roast

Prep time: 15 minutes
Active cook time: 2 minutes
Total cook time: 4-6 hours

Ingredients
1 English roast, 3.5+ pounds (chuck eye works too)
1 white onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced or through a press
2 medium carrots
1 celery stalk
1 C. chicken broth (optional)
2 tsp. sugar
Salt & pepper
Sprig of thyme
Water
Vegetable oil

Tools
Dutch oven or other big pot with lid that can go in the oven
Plate
Chef's knife
cutting board

Notes
I like to salt my beef before I cook it, almost all the time. That means I salt steaks, roasts, what have you. By "salting" I mean that I generously cover the thing in kosher salt and stick it in the fridge for an hour or two. Much like brining for poultry, salting steaks and roasts makes them more tender and flavorful. So, if you're home at lunch to put the roast in the oven, salt it. Then eat lunch; then put it in the oven.

Process

1. Salt the beef with kosher salt and stick it on the plate, in the fridge for an hour or two (optional)
2. In the Dutch oven, heat enough oil to just cover the bottom of the pan
3. While the oil heats, season your roast with salt (if you haven't salted it) and pepper (no matter what)
4. When the oil's hot, brown the roast on all sides. Will take about 10 minutes for all the sides to be nicely browned.
5. While the meat browns, coarsely chop your onion, carrots, and celery; preheat the oven to 300 degrees F
6. When the meat's brown, remove it from the pan and let is rest on the plate. Add the chopped veggies and garlic to the pan.
7. Cook the veggies until just tender, then add the garlic and sugar. Cook the garlic and sugar for about 30 seconds or until you can just start to smell the roasting garlic.
8. If you're using chicken broth, add it now.
9. Use the broth to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. If you're not using broth, add a bit of water and scrape up the bits.
10. Add the roast back into the pan and fill with water to halfway up the sides of the roast; add the sprig of thyme.
11. With the lid on, bring the pot to a simmer.
12. Once simmering, put the whole shebang in your now-warm 300 degree oven and leave it there for 3 - 4 hours.

Eating the Roast
When you pull the roast from the oven, it should be cooked all the way through and fork-tender. What you do next is up to you. I boiled then pan-fried white potatoes and cooked up some green beans to go with mine. I also used a slotted spoon to remove the veggies and reduced the remaining liquid to about half. Then I added a flour-butter mixture to thicken it just a little and used it as a really runny gravy. It was tasty but not fantastic. The roast makes great leftovers as sandwich meat, pasta topping, even just reheated with the same sides as the first night.

Recipe: Chicken Tortilla Soup

Prep time: depends; is your chicken stock made?
Active cook time: 35 minutes
Total cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients
1 batch of chicken stock, or 8 cups of commercial stock
1 boiled chicken from chicken stock, or 3/4-1 lb of cooked chicken in small pieces
1 small to medium white onion, quartered (no roots)
2-4 cloves of garlic, peeled
Cilantro and oregano in an 8:1 ratio (e.g. 8 springs cilantro, 1 spring oregano), use as much cilantro as you like and adjust oregano accordingly
8 corn tortillas
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 medium to large tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 small to medium jalapeno, seeds removed if you want a milder soup
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, minced, a little less if you want a milder soup
a spoonful of adobo sauce. leave out if you want a milder soup
Salt

Garnishes
Lime wedges
Monterrey Jack or Queso Anejo
Cilantro
Avocado
Sour cream

Tools
Chef's knife
cutting board
soup pot
food processor
baking sheet
small Tupperware
wooden spoon

Notes
I make chicken stock the day before (or earlier in the day) when I make this soup. I have not tried it with commercial chicken stock and don't recommend it. Those stocks have so much salt that they'll overpower your soup. Making chicken stock and this soup costs about $13 and will last you at least 6 meals. Remember that the longer you let this sit in the fridge, the hotter (spicier) it will get. You can always add spice later, but you can't take it away. Bottom line, be careful with those chipotle chilies.

Process

1. If your broth is frozen, defrost it.
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
3. Core and quarter your tomatoes; quarter the onions; peel the garlic; strip the seeds of the jalapeno (optional); mince your chipotle chili
4. Puree the tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapeno, and chipotle in the food processor until pretty smooth
5. In the soup pot, heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot
6. Pour in the tomato puree mixture and cook over medium heat until it gets darker, sort of a maroon rather than red.
7. While the tomato puree cooks, chop your tortillas into thin strips.
8. In the small Tupperware, toss the tortilla strips with vegetable oil until lightly coated
9. Spread the tortilla strips on the baking sheet, and when the oven's ready, bake for 15 minutes or until they're as crunchy as you like. You may want to shake them or turn them after a few minutes.
10. By now, your tomato puree should be darker and should smell pretty tasty. Add the chicken broth, cilantro and oregano and cook until hot, about 10-15 minutes
11. Put some chicken in the bottom of a bowl for each eater
12. When the soup's hot, ladle some over the chicken in everyone's bowl
13. Let the soups sit for a couple minutes, heating the chicken through
14. Make sure you've pulled the tortilla strips from the oven
15. Serve the soup with all the garnishes and tortilla strips, and let everyone add their own cheese, cream, extra chilies, whatever

Tips for storage and leftovers
Part of the reason I don't cook the chicken directly in the broth is that I want to use some of the chicken for other things like chicken salad. Adding the chicken to individual bowls lets every eater decide how much chicken she wants. Also, if you have other meats like turkey or the carnitas from Trader Joe's lying around, you can use those with this soup as well. Make sure you store the soup in airtight containers in the fridge or freezer; if you store it in the soup pot, you'll end up with stew and then slush rather than soup. Again, remember that the soup will get spicier in storage.

Recipe: Chicken Stock

Prep time: 2 minutes
Active cook time: 25 minutes up front, 10 minutes at the end
Total cook time: 1.5-4.5 hours, the longer the better

Ingredients
1 chicken, divided, skin and bones included
1 medium to large white onion, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 tsp of salt
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
Water

Tools

• Chef's knife
• cutting board
• big stock pot, with lid
• tongs
• wooden spoon
• big bowl
• refrigerator-ready container or other bowl to hold the finished stock
• enough Tupperware or plastic bags for 4 cups of cut cup chicken

Notes
This chicken stock is so simple, I can hardly believe I'm writing it down. It's tempting to do too much with stock though, so it's important that I remember the simplicity and perfection of this stock. More chicken will yield richer stock. I like to keep the ratio of one medium-large onion per chicken. I haven't experimented with the bay leaves' ratios. More salt will make the flavor richer, but part of the point of making stock from scratch is to avoid all the sodium in the commercial varieties. Make sure the stock part is large enough to hold all the chicken and have room to spare.

Process

1. Heat the oil in a stock pot.
2. When the oil's hot, brown the chicken pieces in batches. Use your tongs to place them in the pot and then to move 'em to the bowl. They should get crispy on the outside, so don't brown more than a few pieces at a time. A crowded pot will leave you with soggy chicken.
3. While the chicken browns, chop the onion.
4. When chicken pieces are no longer pink, put them aside in the bowl and do another batch.
5. After all the chicken is browned and set aside, throw the onions in the pot.
6. Cook onions, stirring occasionally with the wooden spoon, until they're just tender.
7. Add chicken back into pot, cover, and reduce heat.
8. Cook chicken and onions over low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, until the chicken's juices are released
9. Remove the lid, turn up the heat.
10. Add warm water to cover the chicken plus an inch or two. Warm from the tap is warm enough.
11. Add the salt and bay leaves.
12. When the water starts to bubble, turn the heat down to low; wash your bowl and tongs.
13. Let the stock cook for as long as you can (up to about 4 hours), with the lid off.
14. Put the chicken aside in the (now clean) bowl with your (now clean) tongs
15. Strain the stock into a refrigerator-ready container. Cheesecloth or a colander with small holes will work.

Stock's made, now what?
That's it, seriously. This stock is awesome. If you're making soup or something right away, you're all set. If you're going to save your stock for later, stick it in the fridge for a few hours. When it's cool, scrape the fatty stuff off the top. You can freeze it easily by putting the cooled stock into plastic bags (e.g. Ziploc) and then lay them flat in a baking pan in the freezer. When they're frozen, take the baking pan out, and you have stackable blocks of stock. Remember that the stock will expand in the freezer, so don't fill the bags too full.

What about the chicken I set aside?
That chicken will be so tasty and moist, you'll hardly be able to stand it. When it's cool, wash your hands, and pull it off the bone in little pieces. You're kind of shredding it, but not so carefully that it's a hassle. You'll have about 4 cups of shredded chicken to use in tortilla soup, chicken salad, chicken and noodles, whatever. Put it away in the Tupperware or plastic bags. It'll keep in the fridge for a few days or the freezer for about a month.

Pork has magical powers

It's true. Molly said it herself. She said it because she had just eaten a pork taco made with the pork I crafted today. For the last two months, I've been working on finding a recipe for carnitas that would fulfill my pork dreams. I LOVE pork. I especially love it spiced, crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and wrapped in a corn tortilla with white onions, fresh cilantro, and a little salsa or hot sauce. My goal has been to make a carnitas at home that would allow me cut down on trips to Chipotle and Taquiera la Fiesta. I think I've found it, and now I'll share my special carnitas recipe with you. I've gone through at least 15 pounds of pork to get this right. Enjoy!

----------------------------------

Time: 2.5 hours (active time about 40 minutes)
Serves: Lots; lasts about 5-6 meals at our house with 3 pork eaters

Part One - The Boiling and Shredding
3+ pounds of pork shoulder (butt) roast, cut into chunks about 2" x 2"
half a big white onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
some water
lots of salt
1 tablespoon of canola or vegetable oil

Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a stock pot, braiser or Dutch oven. I use the setting about 7 out of 10 on my stove. While the oil heats, chop or dice up the onion so it's in little pieces but not tiny pieces. Throw it in the oil and spread it around with a wooden spoon so most of the onion is flat in the oil. Crush up your garlic (or pop 3 cloves out of the rockin' frozen garlic from Trader Joes) and throw that in the pot too.

While your onion and garlic heat up, cut the pork roast into chunks about 2" x 2". You should remove the big chunks of fat but leave the little ones for flavor. As you're chopping it into chunks, toss them in the pot. Once you have all the pork in the pot, stir the pot up and start adding water. Use enough water to just cover the pork. Shake salt over the pot until it makes a little salt layer near the top (you want the water pretty salty but not salty enough for all the stuff to float or anything). Add your two bay leaves. Throw in some black pepper if you like black pepper. Cover the pot, and turn up the heat to the max.

Once the water starts to boil, skim some of the frothy stuff off the top. Put the lid back on over about 2/3 or 3/4 of the pot, and turn down the heat. You want the water to bubble occasionally, a little less than a real simmer. Let the pork almost simmer, partially covered for about an hour and a half.

Your house should start to smell pretty good. You'll probably start to get hungry just thinking about your rockin' pork. After that hour and a half of almost simmering, turn off the heat and take off the lid. Grab a slotted spoon, a big Tupperware, two forks, and a cutting board with the little dents to catch liquid.

Using the slotted spoon, scoop a few chunks of pork out, and put them on the cutting board. Shred the pork using the two forks (hold them back to back, sort of scrape the meat away from one). Separate as much fat out as you can, and throw the shredded pork bits into your Tupperware. Keep shredding until all your pork is in the Tupperware. Then throw away the fat, and put the forks and cutting board aside.

You can eat the shredded pork if you like. Put it on pasta, eat it with vegetables and potatoes, whatever. Or, you can continue to Part Two and become really, truly happy. You put the pork directly into the Tupperware because most of it is going to go in the fridge. It'll keep for about a week, and you can repeat Part Two every time you want some yummy tacos, burritos, whatever.

Part Two: The Frying and Assembling
Time: 10 minutes (all active time)
Serves: Many, fry enough to feed your hungry roommates

For the frying pan, you'll need
Enough canola or vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan
Chili powder
Black pepper
Garlic salt

For each taco, you'll need
A slotted spoonful of shredded pork
1-2 small tortillas (I prefer corn)
Half a handful of diced white onion
A couple pinches of chopped fresh cilantro
Some salsa or hot sauce (I like the green Tabasco)

Put the oil in your frying pan, and heat it up. I use a setting of about 7 or 8 out of 10 on my stove. While it's heating, add chili powder, black pepper, and garlic salt. Add as much of each as you think you'll like, but remember that pork has a lot of its own flavor, so you don't need to cover it up with spices. I basically shake each spice over the oil back and forth across the pan. It probably ends up being about 1 Tbsp of each.

While the oil heats up, get your onion and cilantro out and on the cutting board. Grab the pork from the fridge (or the counter if you're moving right from Part One to Part Two). When the oil is hot - hot like about to splatter but not quite - add 1 slotted spoonful of pork for each taco you want to make. If you're making burritos or using big tortillas, add a little more. The pork with shrink a bit while frying.

Fry the pork until it's a little crispy. Stir it up once in a while to coat it in oil and spices, but you don't need to stir it constantly. You can tell when it's done by the smell - after about 4-5 minutes, you'll smell the first burned bits and know that your pork is done. It'll be crispy on at least one side, and 3-4 shades darker than it was in the fridge.

While the pork fries, chop up your onion and cilantro. You want small chunks, about the size of the onion pieces you put in the pot with the pork. Heat your tortillas (I put mine between two damp paper towels and stick them in the microwave for about 15 seconds per tortilla). When you smell that pork (you really will be able to tell by the smell), remove the frying pan from the heat.

Spoon your pork onto your tortillas, top with onions and cilantro, and add a bit of salsa or hot sauce. Eat up!

----------------------------------

It's so ridiculously good. Yes, it's also that simple. In fact, my roommates and I decided we like it so much that we're going to keep a constant supply in the fridge. Making dinner or a snack is really easy once you've gotten the pork shredded and into the fridge. We save the broth from the boiling pork to use in the frying if the pork gets too dry; you can add a little pork broth to the frying or even to your taco to make it more moist. I'm pretty sure Jason's going to eat the pork broth with noodles or something too.