Salsa Verde Pork Tacos

Salsa verde spices up ground pork in these gluten free tacos. Spread the corn tortillas with a layer of refried beans for extra protein & fiber, and finish with your favorite toppings!

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Photo credit Emily Bir

This post is sponsored by the Ohio Pork Council, so it's odd that I'm going to start off talkin' turkey, but bear with me. Have you ever had a small interaction, a seemingly insignificant moment, that stuck with you, burrowed in, and changed your outlook on life? Allow me to share one such moment in my life.

A few summers ago I had the opportunity to assist The Foodbank with the quadrennial Hunger in America study. This involved going to many member agencies--the food pantries throughout Montgomery, Greene, and Preble counties who receive food from The Foodbank and get it into their clients' hands. I met the folks distributing food and interviewed folks receiving food throughout the Miami Valley. It was at one of these pantries that I experiences a tiny shift of my axis that has stayed with me.                        It was a hot, muggy August day and the food pantry had a surplus of whole turkeys in their freezer. As the clients were leaving, after they'd gotten their normal allotment of food, they were offered a frozen turkey. Some folks took a turkey, but the majority did not. I overheard one client say, "now what would I do with a turkey in August?"    Mind. Blown.    My assumptions--that folks have access to an oven to roast a turkey, or access to the rest of the kitchen infrastructure needed to fully utilize a 20 pound uncooked bird [check the Bed Bath & Beyond circular in November if you don't know what I mean], or the skills to know how to cook the bird--were challenged. Free food doesn't help anyone if you can't transform it into ready to eat meals.

Photo credit Emily Bir

This is why I'm delighted to spread the word about the Ohio Pork Council's recent donation. Ohio farmers have donated 17,400 pounds of pork to feed needy Ohio families. The Foodbank in Dayton received 3 tons of pork, enough to make 30,000 of the 87,000 total meals donated in the Pork Power program this month. That's huge and I want to shout it from this rooftop.

A pound of ground pork is a convenient source of protein. It can be cooked on a grill, stovetop, hot plate, or even a microwave. After the holidays donations to the food banks are down so an influx of healthy and useful products like pork is much appreciated. Providing wholesome meals to Ohio families is a thoughtful and compassionate endeavor, and I'm glad to draw attention to the efforts of Ohio farmers and the Ohio Pork Council.

The next food occasion on my personal radar is Cinco De Quatro Mayo so my mind is naturally turning in a fiesta direction. I'm checking the basement stash of home-canned salsa [no need to ration--yet] and craving more guacamole than usual. When the Ohio Pork Council asked me to share a recipe using ground pork, I immediately started thinking pork tacos. I didn't want to just substitute a pound of ground pork for a pound of ground beef or turkey and use my usual jar of taco seasoning.

Cheesy Broccoli Pizza with Mascarpone

The classic combination of broccoli and cheese--in pizza form! With a creamy layer of mascarpone cheese on the crust, this pizza lets the beloved flavors of broccoli and cheddar shine through.

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On Friday nights I make at least two pizzas. One is usually a vegetable-topped vegetarian pizza for my spouse, the other is something I know the kids will eat. Rarely do I make a pizza exactly the way I want it [but when I do, it's My Deployment Pizza--why is it that I'm comfortable putting my wants last?] however I generally like every pizza I make. I'd better like it, since we have pizza weekly!


I'm always looking for ways to incorporate vegetables into our meals, partly because I want to use up the contents of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box and partly because vegetables taste good and are good for you. No nutritional advice I've ever seen tells you to cut back on carrots or celery, you know? So it seems to me that increasing the amount of vegetables in my family's diet is a worthwhile goal.

Broccoli is a pretty tame vegetable pizza topping from my perspective, but I realize I'm kinda out there. Honestly, if you're making pizza every week and you have vegetables to use up, you'd be kinda out there too. I think broccoli is a good bridge between fresh tomatoes like my Tomato Basil Pizza and shaved kohlrabi like my Shaved Kohlrabi with Meat (or No Meat) Pizza. Last year I put up a large amount of chopped broccoli (blanched, then frozen) for use throughout the off season. It's one of the ways I feed my family from the farm share year round.

Sweet Potato Braided Bread for #EasterWeek

A sweet breakfast or brunch treat made with roasted sweet potatoes, this braided bread is an impressive addition to your holiday table.

Welcome to day 6 of #EasterWeek hosted by Bernadette from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen!

This week we are celebrating Easter and Bernadette’s blogging anniversary with all kinds of delicious recipes and a giveaway! From appetizers to ham recipes, we have everything you need for a great Easter dinner or brunch, and one lucky winner will receive a $200 Amazon gift card.  Scroll down for more details!

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It's good to have a skill in your kitchen repertoire that can be manifested in a variety of ways throughout the year. This recipe is an excellent example of that. The technique of braided 3 strands of bread dough is a simple one to master, and once you've got it down you can turn out an infinite array of breads for nearly any occasion. [As I type this, my brain is thinking towards savory routes.] I learned how to braid bread while living in Finland where I made a cardamom-spiced version called Pulla  [poo-lah] (you can find my Finnish Pulla recipe here).

Sometimes I get creative before I start braiding the dough. I've flattened and spread ropes of dough with caramel pumpkin butter before braiding to make a Caramel Pumpkin Butter Stuffed Braided Bread.
I've gotten creative using Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables to naturally color the dough for a tricolor Mardi Gras Bread using purple sweet potatoes, orange sweet potatoes, plus matcha green tea powder to make the traditional colors in sweet bread form.

The basis of this bread is a sweetened, enriched dough. My sweet potato bread dough recipe was inspired by the Overnight Sweet Potato Monkey Bread in Donna Currie's book Make Ahead Bread. When you make dough using vegetables the moisture content varies widely depending on the age of the vegetable and the amount of rainfall during the growing season, so it's important to be familiar with how an enriched dough should act/feel/look like. If you've never baked bread I would not recommend diving into this recipe. I'd suggest you start with the Pulla to get the hang of it, then branch out to incorporating roasted sweet potatoes into your dough.

For this recipe I wanted to expand on the sweet potato dough concept with complementary flavors. I chose pecans and brown sugar because that's my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes. I've made this bread several times, with several variations. I've got a bunch of notes, so do be sure to read through before embarking on your baking session(s). You can be as elaborate as you want, using 3 types of dough to make 6 loaves of multicolored purple/orange/brown bread. You could simply make a single batch of orange sweet potato dough and make two loaves of bread. Add in pecans or leave them out as you prefer. Sprinkle on maple sugar or use turbinado sugar as you prefer.  This recipe is pretty forgiving, and the dough can be stored in the fridge for several days or frozen for several months.