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the life and times of J T Frey
I went searching for new "summer season" crock pot recipes to try and found one for pork tacos. Being able to mix-it-up a bit and not always serve tacos stuffed with ground meat seemed like a good direction to grow. The results were delicious. I cut the meat (and most of the fat) off rib-end bone-in loin pieces that were on-sale at the store that week, but pork shoulder would work well, too.
From one of my favorite cooking shows — Good Eats — comes a fantastic recipe for chicken parmasan. The episode that led the fall 2019 season of the show discussed the history of the dish, the virtues of authentic San Marzano tomatoes, and a good use for salt-and-vinegar potato chips. I made a few minor alterations to tweak the flavors and portion size to our family of four.
This is an adaptation of a Food & Wine recipe of the same name.
One discount spice vendor at our local supermarket makes a great blend that's simply called, "chicken seasoning." It's an orangey off-white color, tastes of onion, garlic, and paprika, and it just plain great on — you guessed it — chicken. This is an honorable attempt at their mystery recipe for the blend.
At the Brandywine Arts Festival this year a local caterer was selling tacos. They had various meats and a bar of self-serve condiments. For one of my tacos I chose the chicken tinga, something I'd never heard of before. Adorned with chopped cilantro, pico de gallo, and their house red salsa, it was absolutely delicious. Recipes I've found online seem to call for a base of chipotles in adobo sauce, which is usually just too spicy. The amount of garlic seemed over the top, too. This is a somewhat more tame recipe I developed to turn some leftover roasted chicken into another meal.
This was a riff on Rick Bayless' "Red Chile Pork Tacos" recipe. I had purchased a whole Boston butt and had lopped-off the 5 lbs of it farthest from the chine bone to make sausage. Doing the whole roast with this method would have yielded way too much meat.