Chipotle Pork, Black Eyed Peas & Roasted Broccoli

I've had a big hunk of BJs pork in the freezer for a little while now, so I decided it was time to cook it before the freezerburn took it over.  I also have had some Black Eyed Peas in my pantry that I've been figuring I could find something to do with one of these days.  Add that to a giant bag of BJs broccoli that needed to get used up and you have tonight's meal!!

Chipotle Pork with Bourbon-Ancho Sauce
I had a chipotle rub that my dad had given me for christmas so I rubbed the pork with that this morning.  An hour before I started cooking, I mixed a little of the rub with some brown sugar and patted that on the fat side so that it would crisp up the fat nicely.

We put it on the rotisserie and cooked it to 145.  Unfortunately, my timing was a bit off with the other dishes, so we stopped it at 135, let it sit, and then turned it back on again just before everything was ready to finish it at 145.

I figured the pork could use some sort of sauce, so I pulled out my Bobby Flay books, and found a good one in Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook.  I figured the Bourbon Ancho Sauce would compliment the Chipotle rub on the pork.  I halved the recipe, and didn't have apple juice concentrate so I used apple cider instead.  I also used chipotle chili in adobo instead of ancho chilis.  It definitely heated up the sauce a lot, and I probably could have done with a touch less, but hey, sometimes some heat is fun!  You can see me pouring it over a slice of pork to the right.

Baked Black Eyed Peas
My next Recipe is a modification of Bobby Flay's Bar Americain Recipe for Barbecue Baked Beans.  I started by cooking up some crispy maple bacon. I added diced carrot and onion to the bacon fat to cook down.  Then 4 cloves of garlic minced, and stir that in.  I added about 3/4 cup of Dark Rum and let that cook for about 5 minutes until evaporated.  I had cooked up 1/2lb dried black eyed peas (follow the packaged direction) and put them in a baking dish.  I crumbled the bacon over the BEPs and added the rum cooked veggies, 1/4 cup cilantro, 3Tbsp honey and 1/4 cup brown sugar.  The original recipe called for molasses, which I thought I had, but I didn't, so I just used brown sugar instead.  The molasses would have given it a nice richness, but this did in a pinch.  I added a cup of chicken broth and tossed it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Roasted Broccoli
The next recipe is from another of my favorite Food Network stars... Ina Garten.  I wanted to dress up my broccoli a little more, and found her recipe for Roasted Broccoli.  I omitted the pine nuts and basil as there was already going to be plenty richness to my other dishes.  The lemon and parmesan added plenty of flavor, and the tangy citrus helped offset the sweetness and heat of the other two dishes nicely.  Definitely a recipe I will use again!


Overall an incredibly tasty meal.  I would have done a few things differently as mentioned, but for just kind of playing in the kitchen and trying to "use up" some ingredients I had on hand, it was definitely a tasty meal!