Making Dinner at Home

Dinner was good the other night. Teresa and I made Country Style Pork Ribs w/ Mustard Greens, which we topped with a pan-seared relish of sautéed bell peppers and uncured chorizo.

I got two bunches of mustard greens and three bell peppers from my favorite produce stand in the market for $2. Then for about $10, I got about three pounds of country style pork ribs and a

half pound of chorizo from my favorite butcher. That, with the rice, garlic and onion, was all we needed.

Teresa cut the large pieces of fat and sinew out of the ribs while cutting them into smallish pieces.

Why? We rendered the fat out of these scraps and sautéed the mustard greens in the pork fat. It added a delicious flavor and extra richness to the finished dish for free.

I wanted the meat to undergo some kind of braising process but we were getting a late start and we didn't have all night. So, smallish pieces so both the heat and liquid would permeate the meat well.

Smallish pieces again with the greens. I figured that the pork and the greens would need about the same amount of cooking if sized the same. A great habit to get into is to keep a bag of veggie and (if you want) meat scraps in your freezer to use the next time you need soup stock. Having just used a full bag for a vegetable soup, we started a new one:

So, that went into the oven to slow cook together, and then it was just a matter of cooking rice and sautéeing some bell pepper and chorizo. Oh! By the way, if you want to separate all the cloves of garlic off a head, peel the outside layer of paper off the head until you the outer layer of individual cloves are exposed. Turn it upside down on your cutting board and smash it like this:

I got the sauté pan really hot, added the chorizo and cooked it, then added the bell pepper and cooked everything together for a very short while, and the mixture was so pretty!

This went on top of the braised pork ribs and greens. All that went over rice. And that was dinner! Simple and really delicious.