Sweet potato and pork stew - WOW!

 The other morning, I thought I had taken out two pork chops to thaw for dinner. To my surprise, I had taken out  three baby back ribs by mistake. Three ribs? Really? What could I do with only three ribs? I had bought five pounds of sweet potatoes that morning to make our son some yummy sweet potatoes (his favorite, I might add). Since I usually make sweet potatoes when we eat pork, I thought why not put it all together and make it go a little further by making some kind of stew? I made this up as I went along, but knew in the back of my head that I had seen this before in some form. I wound up using baby food in the dish, too. I have apples galore in my freezer, but my son just doesn't like them, so I used them as a base here. The plan worked! Not only did I clear some space by using some unwanted pureed apples, but I also used something I was sure I was going to throw out! Way to save, girl! However, if you don't happen to have 6 ounces of frozen baby apples, I am sure a 50-50 mix of apple sauce and apple juice would work just fine.
NOTE: I know this is an ugly dish. The color is horrible and looks like something that came out of a small child (not in that cute way either). However, this tastes wonderful and ugly or not, I would serve this to company.

Makes four servings
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours
Total cost: about $5, or $1.25 a serving

1 very large sweet potato, peeled and chopped large
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
6 ounces of baby apples (or 50-50 pureed apples and juice)
1 granny smith apples, peeled and diced
3 pork ribs (a little less than one pound)
1 spring of rosemary
1/2 teaspoon sage
2 cups beef broth (I used "Better than Bullion" beef flavor with 2 cups of water)
Soy sauce to taste
fresh pepper
olive oil
2 large carrots

In a large sauce pan or stew pot, add oil, enough to lightly cover the bottom, over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and carrots. Saute for about five minutes, or until onions become transparent and begin to stick. While onions are cooking, cut meat from the bone into bite sized pieces. Leave some meat on the bone. Add meat and bones to the onion, garlic and carrot mix. Allow meat to brown lightly and then add baby apples. Cook for a few more minutes, or until the meat is sticking. Add all remaining ingredients except soy sauce. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low. Cover and allow to simmer for about an hour. Stir periodically. After an hour, add soy sauce to taste (I used about 20 shakes). Simmer for another hour. The potatoes should break down some to make the stew thick.

I think I would like to try adding chick peas to it next time to make it go further. Yum!!

Jamaican jerk pork chops and savory sweet potatoes

Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops

Growing up, I didn't eat pork very often. It was more expensive than other meats, and we didn't have extra money to spare. Therefore, I am pretty inexperienced when it comes to the world of pork. For a very long time, I didn't dig on swine, mostly because I didn't know it could taste not greasy and not over salted. However, I have been practicing with this simple and quite tasty Jamaican jerk rub. I first purchased the rub a while ago when the grocery store was handing out samples. The woman had both pork and chicken, and this rub was awesome on both! I bought it, even though it was pretty expensive. However, the rub is so super easy to make! I am actually almost ashamed I ever bought the rub rather than just making it. But, you live, you learn.

I like to serve this with savory sweet potatoes. The flavors mix wonderfully.

Serves 4

Prep time: 30 minutes (including marinading)

Cook time: 15 minutes

Cost: about $3.50 or $0.88 per serving

4 pork chops

salt to taste

olive oil

Jamaican jerk rub:

The ratio is 4:2:1, so adjust the amount as you need to. You don't need very much to spice up your dinner.

1/2 teaspoon each of sugar, garlic, allspice and pepper

1/4 teaspoon each of nutmeg, cinnamon, thyme and onion powder

1/8 teaspoon (or less if you want a milder rub) red pepper

Notice, there is no salt in this. Adding salt to meat while it marinates with a rub can pull moisture out. I always wait until right before I cook it to add any salt to the pork chop.

Coat each side of the pork chops with the spices and rub the mixture into the pork chops well. Allow the rub to sit on the meat for about 30 minutes. Do not refrigerate. Meat cooks at its best when it is room temp. 

Over medium heat, coat the bottom of a large pan with olive oil. Cook the pork chops for 6 to 7 minutes on eat side. Do not turn them until the pork chop comes up from the pan without sticking. You want the sugar in the rub to caramelize. Allow the pork chops to sit for about 5 minutes before eating.

(In this picture, there is only 1/2 a pork chop because it was just too big for just me to eat.)

Savory Sweet Potatoes

This is, by far, my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes, especially in the winter time. Around the holidays, the price of sweet potatoes drops to just about nothing. At the grocery store, I was excited to find them for only $0.22/lb! However, when I went back for more, they were back up to $0.94/lb. Oh well. You snooze you lose. I did recently get them again for a relatively low price of $0.45/lb. This time, I bought more. I am estimating the cost here at $0.60/lb.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour

Cost: $1.25 or about $0.21 to $0.32 per serving

4 medium sweet potatoes, diced with skin on.

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 sprigs of rosemary, removed from the stem

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350. In a large casserole dish, coat the potatoes with oil. Add garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper and mix well. Cover and cook for 1 hour.