Goat Cheese Pizza

The warm weather has stirred in me a desire to go overboard with light eating: refreshing salads, crisp fruit salsas, and simple entrees. I decided to try a dish inspired by the Goat Cheese Pizza featured in Ellie Kreiger's latest cookbook, and am delighted to add it as a staple to my repertoire!

1 tbls olive oil

1 med red onion, cut in 1/2 and thinly sliced into half moons

2 cups spinach

2 whole-wheat tortillas

2 oz fresh goat cheese

s+p

Preheat oven to 400°. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook over low heat until onions are caramelized, about 10 minutes, occasionally stirring. season with s+p. Place the tortillas on a backing sheet and cover each with spinach mixture. Crumble generous amounts of goat cheese on top and bake until cheese begins to melt, about 10 minutes. Serve in wedges. Serves 2

Easy Pulled Pork Sandwiches

One of our favorite breweries is Third Street Aleworks in SR. Whenever old friends come into town to visit, this is always a culinary must on the To-Do list. Bry’s favorite is the pulled pork sandwich, so I thought I would treat him to a little dinner surprise. Before I left for work this morning I threw a pork roast in the trusty ol’ Crock Pot and was welcomed home by a perfectly juicy, tender, fall-apart, melt-in-your-mouth meal. This roast is way too easy to be so good, and a great way to have dinner waiting for you after a long day. The most difficulty comes in shredding the meat... but even that is pretty pleasurable.

Note: This is probably ready to eat after 6 hrs, but I prefer to leave it for at least 8 hrs. If no one is going to be around to flip the roast after 4 hrs, then cover the entire roast at the start with liquid. Lastly, there is plenty of room for interpretation; I didn’t have apple juice on hand so I just used water and I threw in a few slices of lime that were sitting around.

1 pork roast (whatever size, just make sure it fits in your slow cooker!)
1 onion, sliced
½ bottle apple juice
¼ cup vinegar
1 bottle of favorite bbq sauce (I prefer Cattleman’s)
bbq seasoning
s+p

Place onion on the bottom of the slow cooker. Rub roast with seasoning and s+p, then place on top on the onions. Fill half way up with the apple juice and add vinegar. Cover the top ½ of the roast with a layer of bbq sauce (about ½ cup). Cover and cook on high for 1 hr, then turn to low for 7+ hours until falling apart!

To make Pulled Pork Sandwiches: place the roast on a cooking sheet and with 2 forks, shred the meat into pieces. Cover with more bbq sauce (to taste) and pile on a toasted bun :)

For Brew Pub Greatness: serve with Garlic Chips (the English kind) and a nice micro-brew (try New Belgium Brewing Co.)

Roma Festival

This past weekend Bry and I went to the 13th Annual Roma Festival. We have lived in Sonoma Co. for nearly 10 years, but this was our first visit to the festivities… can’t believe we have never been before! It was a great event hosted by Voice of Roma in Sebastopol, CA. The festival highlighted the plight of the Roma in diaspora while celebrating the rich, wonderful culture of the Roma people through film, art, music and food. Voice of Roma was established as a non-profit organization that raises funds to benefit Roma in Kosovo. They have built schools, aided job development and 100 % of the proceeds from the festival go directly to the Kosovo projects. One of my favorites of Roma culture is the music, whose roots are deep and have been major influences in the current world culture today. For example, most people consider the music and dance of Flamenco as being quintessentially Spanish, however this is a Roma contribution to the Spanish culture. There are a number of bands that are so awesome, and to sample a bit of this greatness check out:

Fanfare Ciocărlia: http://www.myspace.com/fanfareciocarlia

Kočani Orkestar: http://www.myspace.com/kocaniorkestar

All in all we had a great time!

Green highlight: in an effort to continually be “greener” the festival decided this year to not sell plastic water bottles, and instead offered reusable water bottles made from recycled material.