There is no sight more promising than a table full of veggies …
Last week, I inaugurated my brand new slow cooker by sort of following this recipe for ropa vieja. I enlisted Erik to do the yucky raw meat part of the preparation …
… while I went to work on the broth:
Erik also helped me chop the rainbow of veggies that we decided to throw in for fun. And then he went to sleep.
I combined everything in the pot …
… and set my alarm for 4:30 am so that I could get up and remove the meat …
… shred it …
… and then return it to the pot for another couple hours to marinate:
Can you guess what I had for lunch the next day??
It was sooooooo delicious … comparable to the meat that my coworker Belkis makes.
(Clearly, I’m almost an authentic Latin American chef!)
The next day, I embellished the stew with some spiralized zucchini:
Mmmmmmm. I rarely cook with meat, so I get really excited when it actually works!
I also made some fresh orange juice with this new addition …
… and then I obviously ate all the pulp:
I hadn’t made fresh orange juice since I was probably five years old. This was incredible!
I also went crazy and finally purchased one of these giant pomelos that I had been admiring at the market:
Since it was so huge, I planned to eat it 1/4 at a time for a little snack …
… but it was ALL flesh in there!
Obviously, I had to eat the whole thing since it was so small 😛
I was left with a big pile of peel and no idea what to do, so I started some googling and found that pomelo peel is excellent candied! I loosely followed the recipe I found (which I can’t locate now) and chopped the peel into 1-inch chunks:
And boiled it in fresh water three times to remove the bitterness:
And squeezed the peels between two cutting boards to remove as much of the moisture as possible:
I ended up with about three cups of peel:
The recipe called for 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup of water per cup of peel. I improvised here thanks to this jar that’s been waiting for a job:
I probably used under 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of water, and the last 1/2 cup of the key lime jam that Wife brought for me when she visited last year:
I whisked everything together in a saucepan over low heat until it was melted and reduced:
Next, I mixed the peel into the syrup until every piece was coated and then arranged it on a foiled cookie sheet to dehydrate in the oven for a couple hours:
I pulled the “candy” out of the oven while it was still a little bit wet …
… so that I could roll it in this:
And voila! Candied pomelo peel:
And super green fingers!
So sure, the peel still tasted like peel a little bit and I’m the only one who is going to eat it … but I still think it is pretty cool that I turned trash into candy 😀
Have you done anything creative with trash lately?
Mmmm…..that slow cooker business…when are you inviting me over for dinner? 🙂
P.S. Every time I see that poster in the background, I get really happy. I bought a calendar by the same artist and it’s great!
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You are SO creative! I’d love to try pomelo, candied or not!
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Ok, so that ropa vieja recipe looks amazing… think it would ship ok?? Want to send me some? 🙂
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Wow, what an awesome recipe! I’m never very creative in the kitchen, but you are definitely an inspiration!
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You are beyond creative! I’ve wanted to try Pomelo for forever but they scare me for some reason. Have you tried an Ugli fruit yet? They have them at Union Market and they are pretty awesome.
http://eatventures.wordpress.com
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