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slow cooker magic

March 7, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

One of the things I knew was a must-have for our wedding registry was a slow cooker. I usually get home later than T, so a longer cooking slow cooker recipe is a perfect way to land at a normal dinner time. It wasn’t until earlier this year that we finally pulled this red shiny cutie out for it’s first use for this recipe for Hirino Psito from A Year of Slow Cooking. We’ve made it again since – so easy and so good.

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There is minimal prep, and it’s a perfect recipe to throw in and head out the door. Whereas some require some pre-cooking, the magic for this recipe all happens in the slowcooker.

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Ingredients

  • 3-4 pound boneless pork butt or shoulder
  • 10 whole garlic cloves
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 teaspoon sage
  • 1 teaspoon rosemary
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 tablespoon gluten free Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1 cup beer

This recipe is intended for a 6 quart slow cooker. Place the pork into the crockpot. Dust on the dry spices and the brown sugar. Flip the meat over a few times so that the spice mixture is on all sides of the meat. Next, peel the garlic cloves. No need to do anything special – just put them in spread around the crockpot. Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, honey, and cranberries. Finally, top with the bay leaves and pour in the beer. Note, if you’d prefer, you can use stock in place of the beer.

Cover and cook on low until meat shreds easily with a fork, typically 8-10 hours. I’ve done this two times and far preferred it when I let it cook for around 11 hours. The meat was so tender and shredded easily. The second time we had to crank up the heat to high to catch up for not having enough time to let it cook. Though it was still good, I definitely recommend allowing to cook longer, if time permits.

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You can serve over rice or pasta, on your favorite sandwich rolls, or – like we did – in tortillas for tacos! We added sour cream, which might sound strange, but was quite good.

Pork Tacos - Crockpot Recipes

Filed Under: Food, Recipes Tagged With: Conquering the Kitchen, Dinner, Pork, Recipes, Slow Cooker, Tacos

dinner at maysville

February 21, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

T and I hadn’t seen our friend Yosh in a bit, so we made plans to catch up at Maysville. Ah, Maysville. Just going in made me a bit sad, as it’s the Manhattan outpost of our favorite Char No. 4. We missed the last hurrah at Char No. 4 last year while we were on our honeymoon, so this was a perfect chance to get some of that great food in Manhattan.

Lara Ziobro - Grits in the City - Food Blogger - Lifestyle Blogger - NYC Blogger

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Filed Under: Food, Restaurants Tagged With: Flatiron, Flatiron District, Manhattan, NYC, Southern

the quick scoop: love is all around

February 12, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

The weekend is fast approaching (not that I’m watching the clock, or anything.) This year, Valentine’s Day is conveniently located on the weekend – and not just any weekend, the weekend before a holiday. How’s that for timing?

For those of you still thinking on where to go, make sure to check with the restaurant in advance. Many New York City restos are doing prix fixe only for both Saturday and Sunday. Dislike. I found many restaurants did not necessarily have their websites updated to reflect that, so it’s worth a quick call to them just to make sure. There’s even a local pizza restaurant I found that’s getting in on the action, so no obvious assumptions on whether a restaurant will be doing this or not. Eater shared some last minute reservations still available a few days back – worth perusing as a starting point, though many have since vanished. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Life

on that whole name change thing

January 30, 2016 by Lara 1 Comment

Sure, planning a wedding requires a lot of time and energy, but the thing which had me the most anxious was something entirely different: changing my name. With a maiden name that’s more commonly thought of as a woman’s first name, I’ve always had the intention of taking my maiden name as my middle name and changing my name upon marriage.

It wasn’t having a new name that had me worried. When I noted my intentions, I heard so many friends tell me this wasn’t something you could do in New York City. A number actually just kept their original middle name because they didn’t want to go through the process to change it to what they really wanted. It used to be that taking your maiden name as your middle name required that you petition the U.S. court system for a name-change. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Bridal Cut, Life Tagged With: Bride, Married Name, Name Change, Wedding, Wedding Planning

a warranted indulgence at per se

January 21, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

Ever since I moved to New York, there was one place I wanted to go: Thomas Keller’s Per Se. Shortly after I’d unpacked my bags, I found myself enrolled in a memoir course through Gotham Writers. My teacher’s one published memoir, Service Included, was about her time at none other than Per Se. I spent nights reading through her book, lost in the description of their indulgent dishes.

Not able to afford the expense at the time, years went by after the class concluded without my visiting the restaurant. Since it opened its doors in 2004, Per Se has continually been on the various lists of the most expensive restaurants in the world. I’d always known that when I finally made my way there for a meal, it would have to be lunch, based on the price tag alone. At the time, in addition to the chef’s tasting ($310), you could go with a 7 course ($245) or 5 course ($205). We went for the 5 course which, as you can see below, kept the meal to a more reasonable amount for one sitting. With some of the recent negative coverage of Per Se, I thought it was time to finally hit publish on this post.

Per Se - Columbus Circle, NYC

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Filed Under: Food, Restaurants Tagged With: Columbus Circle, Manhattan, New York City, Per Se, Prix Fixe, Thomas Keller

classy party nibbles

January 18, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

For New Year’s Eve, we decided to have a small group of friends over. Since our start time wasn’t until 8:30PM, we planned to have some lighter bites and drinks, with our guests likely to have been to dinner beforehand. It turned out though that we may have ovedone it a bit on the amount of food – but better too much food than too little, I say.

Recently I’ve been to a few restaurants which had crispy chickpeas as we waited for our meals. When I saw the recipe in Martha Stewart’s Fresh Flavors Fast cookbook, I thought they would make an excellent addition to the NYE line-up.

Grits in the City - Food Blogger - Lara Ziobro - New York City - Lifestyle Blogger

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Filed Under: Food, Recipes Tagged With: Appetizers, Easy Recipes, Entertaining, Hostess with the Mostess, Nuts, Party Planning, Recipes

new year’s brunch at maialino

January 4, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

IMG_5216

To start the year, T and I made reservations at Maialino. It had been years since I’d been and he’d only ever been for dinner. This holiday season, we’ve been dining out a bit more than typical, but it was nice to squeeze in one more nice meal out while the restaurants are still decked out for Christmas.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Food, Restaurants Tagged With: Brunch, Gramercy, Maialino, New Years, New York City

getting real with resolutions

January 1, 2016 by Lara Leave a Comment

Oh hello, 2016. So nice to see you. Now that we’ve made it through last night’s celebrations and made our way out of bed, it’s time to do this thing.

A new year means new resolutions – a list we aspire to and often fall short of but that’s ok. As has been my goal as of late, I’m keeping my lists shorter and aiming to stick to them. Let’s see how this goes. It’s less resolutions and more overarching goals. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Goals, On Writing, Real Talk, Resolutions

2015, it’s a wrap

December 31, 2015 by Lara Leave a Comment

FullSizeRender (13)

I can’t believe we’re already back here, about to close out another year. Most years seem to fly by, and this year seemed to do so even more than the others. As always, I love a reason to pause and look back through the best the year had to offer. Out of all the recent years, I have to say 2015 is one of the best, as it was filled with so many wonderful milestones and moments I’ll never forget. From engagement to new apartment to getting married to my best friend, it’s hard to not feel a bit sentimental in these final hours. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Memories, New Years, Year in Review

merry christmas!

December 25, 2015 by Lara Leave a Comment

The cinnamon rolls have been consumed and the sausage ball prep is underway…

Cinnamon Rolls

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Christmas, Holidays

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Welcome to Grits in the City, located at the intersection of Southern class and big city sass. One Bama native covering it all from food to fashion, one avenue at a time. Heels optional.

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