Set it and forget it. That's the supposed magic of the slow cooker. Dump a bunch of ingredients into it and come back eight hours later to fall apart pulled pork or a potato soup that's been simmering away all day. And while the convenience factor is high, the real truth is, not everything benefits…
Before we get to Christmas, there's one more week(end) of football. On Sunday, the Seahawks will take on the Arizona Cardinals for the second time this season. The Monday night game is Falcons at Niners. Whoever you're rooting for, you'll want to throw some chicken into the slow cooker for these Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches. The…
Growing up not far from Little Saigon, pho shops all had numbers -- Pho 79, Pho 84, but somewhere along the line pho went mainstream and so did the names of the shops. So let's get the jokes and gimmicky names out of the way upfront.
"What the Pho?" -- Kids in my class were using this one as far back as junior high -- in the late '80s. Now, it's a noodle shop in Bellevue, WA.
"9-0-2-1-Pho" -- This is real. And yes, it's in Beverly Hills.
"Jenny Pho" -- Also real. In Issaquah, WA.
And of course, the king of all Pho shops...well, there's an, um, king and he don't serve burgers.
Creating a good pho broth takes hours, but there's no reason you can't do it. Put aside your worries about leaving a pot simmering on the stove unattended overnight, because you can make a good traditional pho broth in the slow cooker. I never would have thought of it, and then a lightbulb flicked on over my head when I saw the recipe on Serious Eats.
It's almost February. We're in the thick of winter, when a slow cooker should be getting a real workout. But strangely, I haven't been using mine that much. I like doing soups and chilis on the stove, but the truth is, the slow cooker is almost a magical appliance. You throw in a few things, cover it with the lid, abracadabra and 6-8 hours later, you have something amazingly delicious. It took this Coca-Cola Braised Pork shoulder to remind me just how magical it can be. I'm not even going to feign modesty and say, "Oh, it's pretty good, you might like it." I'll just say it, this pork shoulder is super tasty. It's not just good, it's gooooooooood.
Sometimes the standout in a meal surprises you. I expected the main topic of this post to be the chicken tacos we made using this recipe from the Flying Pig food truck, but what I want to talk about first is pineapple salsa.
I don't know if it's because this Spring has been very un-sunny and I'm jonesin' for a Hawaiian vacation, but this pineapple salsa really struck a chord. You'd think I never had a fruit salsa before. It was the perfect complement to the tacos.
