Slow Cooked Pig Cheek

I was encouraged by my first experiment with pig cheeks, and decided to try something else with them. This time I tried slow cooking the cheeks in the oven, going for a chopped meat feel.

Pork Cheek with Root Vegetables

I saw pork cheek at the store the other day, and tried looking it up on my phone... I didn't find much, but I picked them up to try anyway. They are surprisingly lean, streaked with more cartilage than fat, and therefore are suited for low, slow cooking. They taste like very meaty pork - yet another flavor from the pig! I cooked them up with root vegetables, and they were delicious.

Grilled Pasta Sauce

I call this "grilled pasta sauce" even though its not really saucy. However, I use it the same way I would use sauce out of a jar, which is why I think of it that way.  The "sauce" is basically just grilled sausage and vegetables. I like to cook the ingredients for this while I'm grilling something else for immediate consumption, because there is an extra step or two to prepare it.

Quick Cucumber Pickle Salad

I'm not quite sure what to call this. I get a lot of cucumbers through my farm share, and this is something I'll make sometimes when I'm tired of having them plain. This is milder than a pickle, and goes well with Asian and Indian food.

Yu Hsiang Beef Noodles

The first time I had food flavored with Yu Hsiang was at Mary Chung's in Central Square, and it immediately became one of my favorites. The sauce is a sweet and hot and garlicky, and goes well with just about any kind of stir fry. I attempted to make it at home, and the result was so successful I made it again the next day.