Sweet Potato Crepes with Apple Pork

I recently went to Nashville and Franklin with my mom and my sister.  We went to Puckett's for breakfast one morning.  I got the Southern Stack: sweet potato pancake, sauteed cinnamon apples, sweet potato pancake, pulled pork, sweet potato pancake, and a fried egg.  It was delicious! My fiance prefers savory to sweet breakfasts, so I figured he would like this dish.  Once home I decided to remake this dish with my own twist: sweet potato crepes stuffed with pulled pork sauteed in apple butter.

Making crepes can be very difficult.  I usually mess up my first one with a tear or too much batter or not enough twist to spread the batter.  The method I have described below is the slightly harder method, yet better for getting a thin layer of batter on the pan.  The other way is easier to do and may give you a more perfect circle shape, but may give you much thicker crepes (not necessarily a bad thing).  The easier way is to pour a ladle of batter into the center of the hot pan.  Then hold onto the handle tightly and start shaking the pan while tilting and making a circular rotation.

For the pork, I used 3/4 pound pork tenderloin.  In a slow cooker, I combined the pork with 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tbsp BBQ sauce, 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup chicken broth, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup roughly chopped red onion.  I left it in the slow cooker for 6 1/2 hours.    This made a little extra, which I plan to use for pulled pork sandwiches.

Sweet Potato Crepes with Apple Pork

Recipe makes 8 crepes

What you'll need:
For the Crepes
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- pinch of nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/3 cup half and half
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1 egg

- 1 egg white
- 1 small sweet potato (mine made about 3/4 cup puree)

Filling
- 2 cups pulled pork (see above for marinade if desired)
- 1/4 cup apple butter

for pancakes: 1/3 cup half and half, 2/3 cup water, plus 3 tsp baking powder


1.  Heat pan to medium heat.  Spray with nonstick cooking spray.  Lift pan off burner and tilt sideways, almost vertically.  Using a ladle, pour mixture onto the center of the pan.  At the same time, twist the pan so the mixture spreads outward from the center.

2.  Cook for one minute without touching.  After 1 minute, gently lift the outside edges with a small rubber scraper.  Slowly move towards the inside of the crepe. Crepes should easily move when pan is shaken.  You can shake the pan occasionally to prevent air bubbles from forming.  Cook 2 more minutes (total of 3 - 3 1/2 minutes).   The side touching the pan should start turning golden brown, and may be wrinkly-looking.  Flip carefully using the spatula and/or your hands.  Do not pull to hard as the crepe is likely to break.  Cook 2 - 3 minutes on medium heat.

Center is NOT cooked yet

Center is cooked

3.  Let pan cool slightly before making next crepe.  Spray pan right before adding batter for the first 3 or 4 crepes.  After that, only use it if you see the crepes starting to stick to the pan.

4.  Saute pulled pork and apple butter in a pan over medium heat for 3 minutes.

Alternatives:
More Savory: use half the apple butter, add 1/3 cup low-fat cream cheese
More Appley: cut up one small honey crisp apple into small dices, then saute with pork and apple butter
More Sweet Potatoey: bake and puree 2 sweet potatoes.  Add 1/2 cup puree to pork and apple butter and saute

Baked Hoisin Pork with Asian Slaw

I made hoisin pork sandwiches many many years ago.  Ever since, I have wanted to try another kind of hoisin recipe.  Here, I used hoisin sauce on the pork and in the slaw.  I try not to use too much because it does contain a good amount of added sugar.  You can make your own hoisin sauce at home, but since I had never done that I did not want to wing it this night.

This recipe is pretty easy.  After you're done chopping, there isn't much more to do but wait.

What you'll need:
Pork:
- 2 pork tenderloin, fat trimmed
- 1 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
- 1/8 tsp ground pepper

Asian Slaw:
- 1/4 head cabbage, thinly sliced
- 1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 large carrot
- 1 package ramen noodles, raw, crushed
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 1/2 tsp garlic-chili sauce
- 2 1/2 tbsp hoisin sauce

What to do:
1.  Peel carrot.  Using the peeler, peel shavings off of as much of the carrot as possible.  Add to chopped cabbage and bell pepper.  Mix with ramen noodles, and the rest of the ingredients.  Stir to coat.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2.  Preheat oven to 350*F.  Spray a rimmed baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.  Place tenderloins on baking sheet.  Sprinkle with pepper. Top with 1/4 tbsp hoisin sauce on each.  Bake 15 minutes, then flip the tenderloins.  Coat tops with the remaining hoisin sauce.  Continue baking for 12 minutes, or until temperature reaches 160*F.  Let rest for 3-5 minutes after removing from the oven.  Recipe makes 2 servings.

Sweet and Sour Pork

Ben and I tried to make sweet and sour chicken back in college.  That was an interesting experience.   I realized the oil container in the cabinet was empty after already going to the grocery store.  For some reason, we refused to give up on the dinner project.  Needless to say, we made a mess of the kitchen and dinner didn't really taste great.  Since then, I have learned much more about making food, especially when a recipe just won't work.  Sometimes you really have to give up, and go back to the store or make something different.

Before going to the store, make sure you have enough oil to cook the pork.   Otherwise, this will not be a fun-to-make dinner.  You really do want to make sure the oil is extremely hot before adding the pork. This helps the outside be a bit crispy while the inside is still juicy.  It also helps cut back the greasiness. The hotter the oil, the less oil the pork will absorb.

Sweet and Sour Pork

What you'll need:
- 1 lb pork tenderloin, trimmed
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce, divided
- 1/2 tbsp ginger puree
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1/2 medium white onion
-1/4 cup sweet and sour sauce
- 1 tsp hot sauce, such as Sriracha
- 1/4 cup chopped pineapple, canned in its own juice
- 2 tbsp pineapple juice from can
- Cornstarch
- Canola oil

What to do:
1.  Cut pork into pieces (a little bigger than bite-sized).  Marinate in soy sauce, ginger puree, and garlic for 30 minutes.

2.  Chop bell peppers and onion into small squares.  Saute on high heat in 1 tbsp oil until barely browned.  Turn off heat.  Heat a heavy duty pot or Dutch Oven with enough canola oil to make a 1/3" layer of oil.

3.  Pour ~1/2 cup cornstarch in a bowl.  Dip pork pieces in cornstarch and shake off extra powder. Use a thermometer to check the temperature of the oil.  When oil has reached 300* F, add only enough pieces of pork to avoid overcrowding the pan.  After 1 minutes, flip pieces of pork and cook 45 more seconds.  Remove pieces and place on a paper towel to get rid of excess oil.  If cooking pork in batches, let oil reheat to 250*.

4.  When all the pork is cooked, add to pan with peppers and onions.  Add in sweet and sour sauce, pineapple juice, Sriracha, chopped pineapple, and pineapple juice.  Cook over medium-high heat 3 - 5 minutes.  Serve over rice.

Prosciutto, Gruyere, and Apple Hot Sandwich

This sandwich has a lot of strong flavors, but they all seem to balance each other out.  Prosciutto is not a really lean more, nor is it a really high-fat meat.  It is much leaner than bacon so prosciutto is certainly a healthier alternative.  In this recipe, you do not use a large amount of prosciutto, so that keeps the calorie amount and the grams of saturated fat as low as possible.  Gruyere, on the other hand, is quite dense in calories and saturated fat.  For just one ounce, there are 9 grams of total fat, of which 6 grams are saturated fat.  That is a lot for just one little ounce.  That is why I tried to keep it to half an ounce per sandwich.  The gruyere is simply there to enhance the dish, not be the main star.

When picking which kind of apple for the sandwich, you can pick sweet (Virginia Beauty or Honey Crisp) or sour (Granny Smith) or somewhere in between (Braeburn or Gala).  The best apples are freshly-picked.  There are a ton of apple orchards in northern virginia.  I loved going apple picking at a kid because it involved climbing up trees as far as you would dare.  Now I love it because the apples taste so much better when you pick them!  If you don't go pick apples, at least buy them from the farmer's market.  Those are usually picked within 24 hours before you purchase them.

Prosciutto, Gruyere, and Apple Hot Sandwich

What you'll need:
- 4 slices prosciutto,
- 1 ounce gruyere cheese, shredded
- 1 small apple, thinly sliced (~1/8")
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 4 slices whole wheat bread
- 1/2 cup arugula, washed thoroughly

What to do:
If you have a panini maker:
Preheat the panini maker.  Assemble two sandwiches using all of the ingredients.  Place in panini maker until bread is crisp and lightly browned.



If you do not have a panini maker:

You can toast the bread in a toaster first. Then place each piece of bread on a baking sheet.  Top one slice of bread with mustard, apple slices, and half of the cheese;  top the other slice with prosciutto and the other half of the cheese.  Set the oven to 'Broil' and toast in the oven for about 3 - 4 minutes. Watch carefully to make sure it does not burn.  Remove from oven and top with arugula and assemble sandwich.  Serve with a side of fruit

Pork Salad with Thyme-Cranberry Dressing

Pork goes really well with the sweetness of cranberries, and also goes well with the savory taste of thyme.  This salad has more sweet components that most salads, but it is balanced with some savory and sour aspects.

For this recipe, I use pork tenderloin.  This is a lean cut of meat as long as you cut off the fat surrounding the tenderloin.  The pork is sliced very thinly and cooked over the stove.  this particular time I made this recipe, I just cooked it in a little bit of olive oil over the stove.  Other times I have first dipped the pork in a seasoned flour mixture.  The seasoned flour has pepper and fresh thyme in it. The flour coating gives the pork a slightly different flavor.  Pork tenderloin is a strongly flavored meat, and I think the flour coating helps tone that down just a little.  Both ways it tastes good, so the option is up to you.

The salad dressing is atypical because it is cooked over the stove.  Simmering the dressing for a while lets the dressing reduce and thicken.  It also allows time for the flavors to develop.

Pork Salad with Thyme-Cranberry Dressing

What you'll need:
- 8oz pork tenderloin, trimmed
- 1/2 firm pear, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries
- 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp finely chopped shallots
- 3 1/2 cups salad greens


What to do:
1.  Slice pork in 1/4" slices.  Set aside.

2.  Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a sauce pan.  Cook shallots until transluscent.  Add in wine and simmer 3 minutes.  Add in dried cranberries and thyme and keep at a low simmer for 5 to 8 minutes, until thickened.

3.  Heat a skillet over medium, high heat.  Add 1 tbsp olive oil.  When hot, add pork slices and cook 2 minutes each side.

4.  Using 2 plates or salad bowls, plate salad greens and sprinkle with 1/2 tbsp olive oil on each salad.  Top with cooked meat, sliced pear, and salad dressing.