Keeping Warm in the Snowpocalypse

With winter storm Leon moving in, I needed to make something hearty for dinner tonight. Enter, chili verde. My pressure cooker is my kitchen best friend in the winter, and it cooked tonight's dinner up nice and fast. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can cook this in a regular stock pot, it's just going to take a bit longer. And, I highly recommend you go get a pressure cooker. ;-)

pre-marinated pork loin - approximately 2 lbs. - I used garlic and herb
tomatillos - approximately 1 lb.
20 oz. jar salsa verde
1 bunch of cilantro
1 medium white onion
4 cups water + 1 tbsp. chicken boullion OR 4 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp. olive oil

Quarter the onion, and all of the tomatillos. Remove all of the leaves from the cilantro, discarding the stems. Toss the vegetables and 3 cups of water into the blender, and blend to smoothie consistency.
Cut the porkloin into 4 or 5 chunks. Heat olive oil in pressure cooker and sear pork pieces, once seared, pour in blended vegetables and salsa verde. Use the remaining cup of water to rinse out the salsa jar and pour that in as well. Lock down the pressure cooker lid and put on the regulator - OR - if using a regular pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer.
In the pressure cooker, 2 lbs of pork should take about 40 minutes to cook. In a regular pot, more like 90 minutes.
When done, break up the meat and serve. I served ours with a dash of lime juice, sour cream and diced jalapenos.
Enjoy!!

No-bake in the summertime

It's hot. It's June, in North Carolina, and it's hot. And it is only going to get hotter.
Just before school let out (yesterday) I got to work looking for some activities I could do with the girls. I decided that this could be No Bake Summer.
Making no-bake items like granola bars and such is a good kid activity - let the grown-up deal with the cooking and cutting parts, let the kids stir and squish.
I just finished making a batch of no-bake brownies. I did these by myself, the girls were worn out from the pool earlier. I started with this recipe that I found on Pinterest, and was originally posted at Domestic Rebel. I made a few changes to suit the troops. The Man isn't a huge fan of peanut butter in anything but a classic PBJ, so I  subbed peanut butter Oreos for the Nutter Butters. The rest of the recipe remained the same.

No-Bake PB Brownies
30 Peanut Butter Oreos
1 King Size Butterfinger
1 bag Peanut Butter Chips
1 14oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Pulse cookies and candy bar in food processor to fine crumb.
Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil and mist lightly with cooking oil
Melt chips in a double boiler or microwave safe bowl.
Add the condensed milk to the melted chips, then begin folding in the cookie crumbs a bit at a time.
Press the dough into the baking pan and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes until set.

The original recipe said to store them for 3 to 4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
As previously mentioned, this is June, in the South, and we live in a 73 year old house with pretty hinky air flow. So I opted to store mine in the fridge. If you choose to do the same, do your teeth a favor and let them come up to room temp before you eat. :-)