Summer Salads: Lisa Czlonka

Garrett and I discussed this weekend how blessed we are to have met so many nice people in our small town. Like us, many of them are not from here but have made a home in this little community at the foothills of the Ozarks.

Lisa Czlonka is one of these people who is a looooong way from where she grew up: Hawai'i.

Lisa Czlonka

 How lucky am I to have a friend who throws luaus in landlocked Oklahoma?! Really. She had a luau for her baby girl's first birthday. 

I thought Garrett went back for seconds of the Kalua pig, but he confessed to thirds.  Thirds. Garrett. 

Ya'll, kalua pig made my taste buds hula.

Lisa offers many special tricks with this recipe that she makes it sound simple. So simple you might want to throw your own luau. If not, you'll certainly wow everyone at the next potluck.


Lisa Czlonka's Kalua Pig
 
In Hawai’i, a typical drive-in restaurant will serve plate lunches, which essentially is a meat, rice, and mac salad.  In more recent years, the mac salad can be replaced by a side salad…well maybe you could do that awhile ago, but who was counting carbs in high school?!

So, I’m taking a little liberty with the salad share and really introducing you to a Hawaiian favorite, kalua pig.  As my husband would say, "Kalua pig on any salad makes the salad better."

Magical Meal Suggestion

Keep it simple and get a premix salad. Pictured is one that includes baby spinach because I love to get the extra punch of antioxidants.  Add whatever vegetables you’d like.  If you’re going fancy, you can use a ramekin to form a border for your salad from tomatoes or cucumbers.  

The white rice can be found in the Asian section of your local grocer.  You could replace this with brown rice to be healthier, but I’m just trying to introduce you to the traditional way it’s served in Hawaii.  Loading your fork or chopsticks with a little rice and kalua pig makes a nice flavor balance.   

But enough talk, let’s get to the recipe…and no it doesn’t involve digging a huge hole in your backyard, though traditionally a full pig is cooked in an underground oven called an imu (pronounced EE-moo).

 

Kalua Pig (~24 servings)

8 lbs. bone in pork butt (shoulder)

3.5 oz. liquid smoke

4 T Hawaiian salt

Oven Bag

Make sure your rack is set on the lowest level in your oven.  Preheat oven to 350. 

If your pork has a thick layer of fat, be sure to trim as much off as possible.  Or better yet, if you can remember when you're at the store, ask the butcher. 

With a paring knife, score the pork on all sides and then rub with the Hawaiian salt; use enough to cover all sides.  Don’t try to use imitation salt. I did once and it turned out bad.  If your local grocer doesn’t carry Hawaiian salt, ask and they may bring it in or go with the good ol' Amazon.  Put the pork in the oven bag and dump in the liquid smoke.  Make sure all sides get covered by turning the pork over in the bag.   

Blow air into the bag and close with the tie provided. I recommend cutting the excess bag so that you leave only a couple inches above the tie, as the bag will expand in the oven and you don’t want the bag to touch the top of the oven and melt.  

Place bag in a shallow roasting pan and cook for 4 hours. Remove from the oven and let cool for a bit and then shred the pork (you can use two forks).  Pour some of the liquid from the bag over the pork, which is really important in helping not to dry out the meat in case you want to freeze leftovers.

Aloha!


Check back this Friday for a give away that will keep you in the spirit of the islands.

Hint: 

Wailani's Body Scrub

Happy 4th of July Week to my Fellow Firecrackers!

The sizzle, screams, and splendor of fireworks are all part of Independence Day.

2012 was the first time the youngest generation of cousins picked out firecrackers and played with fire.

Perhaps it was a bad idea considering the variety of mishaps that occurred when my generation was sitting at the kids' table. Bottle rockets caught a field on fire. A string of Black Cats exploded in my brother's hand. My aunt "pantsed" her daughter because a sparkler caught her polyester pants on fire.

Sure, these things didn't happen when we were together. But with those experiences individually, what trouble might occur?

Time to make some memories!

We wore silly clothes.

Our ninety-one-year-old matriarch was thrilled to have her granddaughter and great-granddaughters visiting from Belgium and her grandson visiting from Virginia.  I'm sure she was happy we were there, too, but we now live down the street and around the corner so the novelty has worn off!

Don't we look festive?

We blew bubbles.

 We watched snakes "grow" and threw snappers.

We waved sparklers.

 

We made intelligent choices--like putting the bag of firecrackers on the baby stroller...

...and lighting a seemingly harmless train that blew smoke before miniature rocket launchers propelled it toward a gas grill's propane tank. Upon contact it rotated, shot sparks at the propane tank and sped beneath a parked automobile.

The gas tank immediately ignited.

 

I confess. That last part didn't happen for realsies. In my imagination it did, though. 

And it was a BIG fireworks display.


Hmmm. Maybe there's a reason fireworks are illegal in so many places.  Luckily, we all survived.

Hope your holidays were safe and continue to be throughout the weekend!

Alexandra's World vs. Christina's World

Alexandra experience grass for the first time recently. After luxuriating in the texture, she looked longingly at her brother, scampering about the lawn.

 

 Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World immediately came to mind.

Christina's World is in the style of magic realism. Something about my kids that day made me feel they were, too.

Magic Monday: Mermaids are Real?!

The Little Mermaid is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Confession: my favorite sing-in-the-shower-song is Part of That World.

 
When I heard about the mermaid "documentary," I was a tad excited.


Read here.
See pictures here.  And here.

Yes, I wrote a book about fairies. Some may think I'm one of those people who have rooms decorated completely in unicorn themes. I don't. 

Although...this lovely picture hangs on a wall.

Wouldn't you like to think that maybe, just maybe,  a real mer-girl like Ariel wants to find herself and break free from what's expected?

I don't know about you, but I like to believe in the possibility of fairy tales.

Toddler Tuesday: Yoga for Kids

 

Max and I attended a summer session of Yoga for Kids. What a fun experience!

Preschoolers are naturally cute, but when you see them doing downward facing dog and hear them barking, they're irresistible.  They hissed in snake position and meowed in "kittycat."

Libby Rogers , the instructor and owner of the studio, is great.  But who knew she was so creative? 

Each session offered positions and teachings of yoga.  What child doesn't love story time? We repeated the stories at night because they helped us remember essential life lessons. Like any great instructor, she adapted to the mood of her class.  Tree Pose was practiced in a fresh way by incorporating it into a game similar to Red Light, Green Light. "Big tree, little tree, grow!" Or something like that. One day the kids--okay, MAX--was antsy, so she introduced Butterfly Bowling.  The kiddos sat in butterfly position until "it" rolled the ball to him or her.  Then the position changed.

He had a "ball."

This morning he twisted himself into different positions--probably just to show me he could.

"Look, Mommy! Pretzel!"

"Mommymommymommymommy, butterfly!"

"Ruff-ruff, Mommy!"

I can't say enough good things about yoga.  I've taken private classes the last couple of months in preparation for baby Alexandra.  Hopefully, if I start my children early enough, they'll reap the benefits and find peace for life.

If you have the opportunity to practice yoga--for yourself or your little ones--do it!

If you want to practice at home, here's a link from Parents.com on some yoga poses for kiddos.

Toddler Tuesday: Sleepover!

Max's birthday buddies Jake and Jack stayed with us recently.  They brought along their parents and baby brother. We thoroughly enjoyed them. We love house guests.

Max, Jack, Jake

The older boys were born on the same day.  It's always interesting when they get together.  We learn something every time. For example, when they were about 8 months old, Garrett and I learned that yes, Max really could feed himself his own bottle. He watched them do it and took matters into his own little hands.

This time, we were so pleased to see someone give Max some of his own medicine.  Curious, Jack examined Max's behavior chart. Max marched over and told him not to play with it.

Does anyone else think it's ironic that one of the topics on his chart is sharing?

In response to Max's tyranny, Jack grabbed a magnet from it and tossed it across the room. Then, with a mischievous grin (much like his father's), he hid behind the couch to watch Max unhinge and retrieve the magnet.  This process repeated a couple of times.

They played well after that. Max realized he couldn't mess with him.

Jake, the gentlest of the boys, did not fare as well under Max's territorial assault. When he looked at Max's book on planets, he was willing enough to share with Max, but Max needed more than a little encouragement to understand that sharing doesn't mean he gets to play with everything and no one else gets to touch his stuff.

This parenting gig is hard work.

Still, when we set up the inflatable mattress for the twins in the playroom to spend the night, Max declared he wanted to sleep with them. The parental units were all a little nervous.  After almost three years of sleep deprivation, who can blame us?  But we gave it a chance.

I wish they were here every night because he slept in with no night time visits to our room!

Max and Baby Jameson

No matter how territorial Max can be with his toys, it doesn't seem to translate to babies.  He loves Baby Jameson.  In this picture, Max's fascination with Jameson's "tiny toes" is clear.  Max was so enamored with Baby J that while the baby was sitting in a Bumbo seat, Max pulled up a chair and sat right in front of him to study the infant's every move. Then he raced back and forth to his playroom finding new toys to offer the five-month-old.

Oh, I hope he's as sweet to Alexandra when she arrives!

Max was a little taken aback when Jameson spit up on me--because I was bouncing him after he ate. Head thunk.  I explained babies do that sometimes, and Alexandra might even spit up on him.  He declared that would NOT happen and began listing ways he planned to retaliate if his little sister considered such a thing.

But, according to him, it was okay that Jameson did it.

School is out!

Shorts and flirty dresses hinted it was almost here. Accents from around the country floated on the air as parents of the local university students picked up their kiddos.

But one place indicated school was out for the k-12 students in my town.

Walmart.

For my readers who live in small towns, you know that for better or worse this store reflects the heartbeat of the people living in the area. Yesterday afternoon was no different.

Yesterday I strolled past the hardware aisle and stopped and stared at the automotive section. It looked like the holiday sales they show on the news--minus the crazy. Talking excitedly, the teenage boys packed the two aisles. Their eyes shone as they examined various car waxes and doodads.

Summer has arrived. They have wheels. Freedom is theirs.

Enjoy.