Coriander, Not Cilantro

This makes me think of the song, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), by Jimmy Kennedy and Nat Simon.

Coriander was cilantro
Now it’s coriander, not cilantro
Been a long time gone, cilantro
Why did cilantro get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the gardeners

Wow, that was really bad.  Sorry.  Anyways, when I first was looking at planting cilantro for salsa making I was interested to find out that cilantro is the same plant as coriander.  The leaves are called cilantro and the seeds, coriander.  My little patch of cilantro has become a little patch of coriander as the plants have gone to seed.

If you have your own little patch of cilantro you can let it turn into a patch of coriander at the end of the growing season.  It will slowly start to die and you will see little green seeds start to form at the end of branches.  Then the plant will dry and turn from green to brown.  Once the plant has completely dried out, you can harvest the coriander.

You can pick each seed by hand or you can pick larger clusters and hang them upside down in a paper bag.  Shake it and they will fall off the branches and into the bag.  I decided to only harvest some of the seeds and hope that the rest will re sprout cilantro next year.  They absolutely should, my only hesitancy is if the patch gets taken over by weeds.

Spicy Pulled Pork in Slow Cooker

I decided to experiment with slow cooking a pork loin for the hero’s first father’s day.  It turned out really well.  In the morning I mixed up a bunch of stuff in the blender and used it plus some water as the liquid in the slow cooker.  I put carrots down at the bottom and put the pork loin (after I had trimmed of the surface fat) on top.  The I poured the liquid on, sprinkled some paprika on, and set it to cook on the low setting for about 8 hours.  It was really good.  Here’s the recipe for the liquid.

Spicy Pulled Pork

2 scotch bonnet peppers

1 orange bell pepper

1 clove garlic

1 green cayenne pepper (from our garden)

3 onion greens (from our garden)

3 sprigs of cilantro (also from our garden)

Splash of chicken broth to get it going in the blender

Blend all these things together.  I took off the dry stems of the peppers and then just blended them whole.  I had to put the chicken broth in to have some liquid in my blender before the produce got liquified.

Then I put carrots from the farmer’s market on the bottom of the slow cooker, trimmed the surface fat off the pork loin and put it in the slow cooker.  I poured the blended liquid on and then added water until the pork was mainly covered.  Then I realized I had forgotten to add paprika so I sprinkled some on top and closed the lid.  I left it on the low setting for 8 hours and did everything else for 8 hours but cook.  I love my slow cooker!

We had the pork and carrots for dinner and it was so good.  The meat was spicy and tender.  It just fell apart when we picked it up out of the slow cooker.  The carrots were even better, it went together so well that if I made this again I would add carrot to the pureed liquid.  It would go great with a citrus beer or maybe just lime juice.

Cilantro Flavored Ice Cream

We have recently started experimenting with making our own ice cream.  While I love traditional ice cream flavors like chocolate, mint, and extreme moose tracks, I also love unique flavors.  I’ve had rose, green tea, violet, and spicy pepper chocolate flavors and loved each one.  I decided to try making cilantro flavored ice cream.  Because we had it in the garden and why not?

I used the same recipe we had tried before for vanilla I just took the cup of half and half and put a bunch of cilantro in the blender before making the recipe.  I still put the vanilla extract in also.

It turned out alright.  Not amazing but still pretty good.  There is a pleasant cilantro aftertaste.

I’m encouraged to try more unique flavors.  Anyone got any ideas?