Pork and Pancakes for Christmas

I know most food blogs post lots of recipes over the holidays for the benefit of their readers.


With baby Rachel: check out those aunt-ing skillz

Well this blog is for me, and I was busy. This is not to say you should not read my entires. In fact, I welcome it, and it truly encourages me. However, if I thought about this blog as a responsibility, it would never have lasted as long as it has. When I get busy, the blog takes a backseat. When I am bored, it keeps my occupied. The most important part of all is it keeps me cooking, and maybe...just maybe it gets you to cook too. Like this:



I usually stay pretty busy when I come to Florida for the holidays. I try to spend some quality time with my friends and family that I rarely get to see during the year. This Christmas, I got to see my whole Puerto-Rican Style family for Christmas Eve and then my brother's family for Christmas Day. I even got to spend some time with my boyfriend's family the day after. Nothing made me happier than to see so many people I love in the short time I have here. A highlight included my aunt Janet's new fluffy black dog, Diva. See if you can spot her sandwiched between our dark curly hair in the pictures below:




My Aunt Janet makes flavorful, tender Puerto-Rican style pork every year for Christmas Eve dinner, but this year was absolutely, by far THE. BEST. PORK. I. HAVE. EVER. HAD. I couldn't stop eating it. I wish I could pass along her wisdom with a simple recipe and a little story, but this is something that comes with years of practice, trial, error and patience.

We had another pork the next night for Christmas night which we shared with my sister-in-law's wonderful family. Then it was time for dessertland.



Geeze.

Now, I have never bothered to includes ads on my blog because I don't know that I have all that many readers. However, I am going to go ahead and personally endorse my first product.



Without this product's knowledge or approval I am going to crown it the official pancake accessory of Bite Me Food Blog. It was gift for my sister-in-law who makes pancakes about 100% more than I ever do. The pancake pen jumped out at me when I was skimming through a magazine one day months ago. It worked far better than I ever imagined it would, and it was a blast to use to amuse my 4-year-old niece:




Check out the cutie presenting the plates with her sister's name on them. Poor Charlotte's name is too long so she just got a "C".

She was super impressed up until the point where I could not be precise enough to give Minnie Mouse a bow between her ears; she had to settle for a blue berry bow after being plated.

I am not going to supply you with a fantastic pancake recipe here because to be honest, I cared very little about the taste of the pancakes and more about the fun we would have making them. I used the "just add water kind" and attempted to cover it up with an array of toppings and mix-ins. I call it "pancake bar": chocolate chips, blueberries, bananas, pecans and any combo you can think of. I ended up with a choco-banana-nut pancake, and I must say the letter "A" (or whatever letter I had) never tasted so good.

I don't really have a recipe for you, just a couple tips. Consider them a late Christmas present: #1 buy the pancake pen if you or someone you know have kids who could get a kick out of it and #2 make the lost of your left overs.



Number 2 might hit home specifically to my brother and sister-in-law who like us, must have at least 4 to 5 pounds of pork left over from Christmas dinner. Of course, you don't want to get stuck eating the same thing every night just to avoid the guilt of throwing something perfectly good away later. It is important to get creative with leftovers, especially when you have a ton of the same thing (this might be a familiar Thanksgiving situation including turkey instead of pork). This year, I decided to use some of the pork leftovers to make BBQ pulled pork sandwiches.



It was simple to shred the meaty pieces into smaller ones and reheat with plenty of brown sugar BBQ sauce, slap it on a bun, and call it a good ole' American meal. Another use of the pork was just as part of a salad that included dried cranberries, feta cheese, apple slices and walnuts. Considering we originally enjoyed the pork as an authentic Puerto-Rican style dish, the variations so far have been different enough to keep the meal "fresh" in my mind. What's next? Pork enchiladas? sweet and sour pork? Pork Pancakes?