Shoyu is the Japanese word for soy sauce, and Shoyu Pork is a Hawaiian plate lunch staple. This is a version that I put together for my crock pot ’cause I had many important things to do. Like sit on my couch and watch Cake Boss…

The smell that fills your house will bring you joy forever. Well, for a few hours anyway.

ingredients:
one 3-4 pound pork butt
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
4 slices of ginger

In a small bowl combine the soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar and water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and set aside.

Butcher down your pork into pieces, I’d say about 2-1/2 to 3″. Keep some of the fat to cook along with the meat, you’ll take it out before you serve it.

Cut your ginger into slices, about 3-4 is all you’ll need and sliced about 1/4″ thick.

Place the pork in the crock pot and pour the sauce over it. Add the ginger slices, pushing them down into the mixture. Set the pot on low for 6-7 hours.

The pork will get a very dark brown as it nears the end of the cooking time, it should be tender and fall apart. It is GREAT served with hot white rice and some mac salad – voila, my own in-house plate lunch!

I had this Sweet Chili Sauce leftover from when I made lumpia. It’s so sweet and delicious, with just the slightest bit of heat. It goes GREAT mixed into these burgers. Of course I couldn’t resist making them into sliders to put on my FAVORITE King’s Hawaiian Sweet Bread rolls!

ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup Sweet Chili Sauce“>sweet chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Sweet Chili Sauce“>Sweet chili sauce comes in a large bottle and can be found in the Asian section of the market or at an Asian supermarket. It’s pretty good…on anything.

In a bowl mix together the ground beef, garlic and sweet chili sauce. Add the salt and pepper to season.

Form the meat into patties. When I make burger patties I like to slightly indent the center so that it cooks evenly with the outside edges.

Put the burgers on the grill and cook to your likeness.

I like to serve these on King’s Hawaiian rolls not only because of the size, but also the sweet bread compliments the chili sauce flavor really well. Sure these are perfect appetizers but I serve them for dinner!

16 hours to make this?? Don’t freak. There’s only 3 ingredients – trust me, you won’t even have to work for it.

ingredients:
one 4-5 lb pork butt/shoulder
1 Tablespoon Hawaiian salt
1-1/2 Tablespoons liquid smoke

Place the pork in the slow cooker. Pierce it all over with a paring knife.

For the salt I used a mix of regular, coarse Hawaiian salt and a specialty Black Lava salt that I got from Hawaii. The charcoal, smokiness gives it a little something extra.

If you can’t find the ’special’ salt, don’t sweat it. Just use the coarse Hawaiian salt by itself – you can get a ton of it for a couple of bucks at a Japanese market.

Rub the salt into the top of the pork. Then pour the liquid smoke over and rub that in. Turn the slow cooker on to low…

Midway around the 8 hour mark, this is what your pork will look like. At this point turn the pork over,then walk away for another 8 hours…

Once the 16 hours is up, shred the pork using two forks, moisten with the juices if necessary, and serve.

Super simple! This is great for parties because there is NO work involved – just serve it with some Hawaiian sweet bread rolls, and you’re done!

DOMO is my muse.

I first made him as a cupcake (recipe, here) – and I’ve been sketching out ideas for something else ever since…

Yes you read that right…he makes a perfectly deliciously cute little meatloaf!

ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup bread crumbs
2 TB brown sugar

red bell pepper
one slice white cheddar cheese
sliced olives (just the ends)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a baking sheet lined with foil on the bottom and then a wire rack on top. This will let the fat drip off the meatloaves. Ew, I know.

In a bowl, mix together the ground beef, milk, eggs, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic and bread crumbs.

Form little loaves, squarish, and flat. Remember this is going to be a Domo…

Place them on the wire rack on the baking sheet. You should get four nice sized rectangles. Rub the tops of each with the brown sugar. Bake 40 minutes or until juices are clear.

While the meatloaves are cooking, start making the DOMO mouths. Cut a piece of red bell pepper into a square shape. Try to find a flat ’side’ of the pepper, pressing it down a bit to get is really flat.

For the teeth, cut a 1/4″ strip of the white cheese, then cut out triangles to form the ‘teeth’ – try to keep it joined at the top…

…so that way you can just lay it on the bell pepper!

When you take the meatloaves out of the oven, use a paring knife and cut out a small rectangle in the middle of the loaf. You are trying to make a space for the bell pepper ‘mouth’ to fit into nicely. (It looks better than just laying the ‘mouth’ on top, trust me.)

Once you have your opening, slide the bell pepper into the cut out rectangle.

Finally, use the ends of sliced olives for eyes.

There you have it, Domo Meatloaves! The kids thought these were hilarious and they were a lot of fun to make.

I even posed the DOMO meatloaf with his DOMO family, though I don’t know why he looks like the drunk cousin in a family picture….

These are LITTLE. I made them for kid’s sized hands, so you know they are small. But they were just enough for a meal or possibly and hors d’ouvres for a normal sized person.

ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
salt
pepper

pie dough (recipe, here)
1 egg
water
salt
pepper

If you’ve made your pie dough ahead like I do, bring it out to defrost a little while you make the filling.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil and saute the onion and the garlic until soft. Add the ground beef and cook until just no longer pink.

Add the paprika, worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper and simmer until the flavors are combined. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prep a baking sheet with a silpat.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out your pie dough. I like to make it about 1/4 inch thick, thin enough so it’s not so dough-y but thick enough to hold in the filling. Using a 3″ biscuit cutter, cut out rounds and place on a silpat lined baking sheet. For every one – cut another one – that will become the top part of the pie.

On the bottom cut out use a Tablespoon+ and put the filling down in the middle. Add a second cut out on top and use your fingers to press the seams together. You can also use a fork to put tine marks along the sides.

I like to decorate the tops for kicks, too. For these I cut out teeny little dough hearts and placed one on top of each of the hand pies.

Now in a small bowl, whisk together the egg and about one tablespoon of water. Brush the tops of the hand pies with the egg wash to give it a nice brown when it’s baking. Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of salt and pepper.

Once you have them all assembled, bake for 12-15 minutes. Let them cool a bit on wire racks, about a minute, you just don’t want steaming hot filling to come out and burn your mouth. Then plate and serve warm.

The kids liked that these were ‘their size’ and of course the Kid devoured the pastry first, while the Baby gutted the pie of all the meat filling. At least they both agreed it was cute and tasty!

Cleaning out my cookbooks, I found a ‘Hawaiian Air Flight Attendants Cookbook.‘ Who even knew I had this book?? Check this out:

HAWT. Er…or sexist.

Anyway, I found a recipe for Pineapple Spareribs, I changed it to update it a bit AND I put it in the crock pot to make life easier. (However it should be noted I also did it in the oven and it was great too. Man, I make up a lot of recipes ribs.) The book is stained and tattered but there is some neat stuff in there, more to come later…

ingredients:
2lbs spare ribs
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pineapple juice
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
2 slices of ginger
3/4 cup pineapple chunks

In a small bowl combine the apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, pineapple juice, water, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic.

Cut the ribs into twos, place in the crock pot. Pour the sauce over the ribs. Toss in the ginger slices.

Cover and turn crock pot on to low for 8 hours. When you are ready to serve, add the pineapple chunks.

If you want to do this in the oven, cut the ribs in twos, put them in a baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for two hours!

The kids…LOVED this. Oh my. After all those hours in the crock pot, the meat was flavorful and falling off the bone. I’ve already made this three times. Again, I test out A LOT of rib recipes…

Once a week I let the kids pick what they want for dinner. Don’t get me started on the Kid’s ‘Cheese Night‘. No, let’s move on to the Baby’s pick – hamburgers. I changed up boring hamburgers a bit by making them into mini sliders, adding a teriyaki flavor and serving them on a Hawaiian Sweet Bread roll. It took boring old hamburgers to a whole new level. And the Kid still got his cheese…but on a burger.

ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon minced ginger
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 Tablespoons Mirin
1/4 teaspoon pepper

sweet bread rolls

In a medium bowl whisk the garlic, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, mirin and pepper.

Add the ground beef into the bowl with the sauce – keep mixing it with your hands until it’s nice and juicy and combined.

Shape the meat into 8 small patties. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, then grill or pan fry until cooked through.

Serve with tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, whatever you like, on a sweet bread roll. Makes a nice appetizer or a fun dinner for kids!

Brown Sugar. Cinnamon. Bacon. They are the three best friends you could ever have.

ingredients:
1 pound of bacon (1 slab)
1/8 cup brown sugar (approx)
1 Tablespoon cinnamon (approx)

As you know I hate frying bacon – so the oven is a good alternative with minimum clean up. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Line the bottom of sheet pan with foil. On top of that, place a wire rack.

Take the bacon and cut it in half. Essentially you will have double the amount, in small half pieces.

Take the bacon piece and twist it, laying it on the rack. It’s a little more difficult with these small half pieces, but just work with it and it will stay. I like to do this because I think it crisps evenly without having to turn it (I hate taking the time to turn things – lazy).

Now sprinkle the brown sugar and the cinnamon evenly over each piece. Be as heavy handed or as light with the ingredients as you want. The amount is just an approximation.

Bake for 20 minutes, then serve.

The kids love these and I like to serve them with Ovaltine Pancakes. And since they are smaller pieces that means you can eat more, right? Right.

Say you like ham (SAY IT.) but you don’t want to commit to a giant Easter sized portion. You can buy one big ol’ slice of ham called a ‘ham steak’ and call it a day! And frankly, you can feed your whole family on that one slice.

ingredients:
1 ham steak
3-4 Tablespoons orange juice
2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Put the ham steak in, and pour in the orange juice.

Sprinkle ONE of the Tablespoons of brown sugar over the ham. Once the juice starts to bubble and the ham starts to heat, flip the steak over and sprinkle with the rest of the brown sugar. Cook through until the sugar caramelizes a bit. Cut into pieces and serve.

If Thomas Keller aka Best Chef in America, aka James Beard award winner, aka Michelin star go-getta, aka king of the French Laundry, knew how I bastardized his tri tip recipe, he might kill me. Or take away my autographed cookbook, but they’ve have to pry it out of my cold dead hands!! Just look at that penmanship!

In Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home it says right in the book, ‘don’t cook tri tip for too long ‘ so of course…I put it in a crock pot for 8+ hours. HEY. Don’t judge. I’m trying to make life easier! It came out good, I promise.

ingredients:
2-1/2 lb tri tip roast
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons paprika
1-1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
small pinch of cayenne
1 lemon, sliced thin
water or beef broth

I know what he’s saying. Cook it too long and it can become flavorless. But in a crock pot, slathered with spices, it works, honest. Trim the fat off the tri tip. If it doesn’t fit in the pot, cut into two or three pieces.

Mince the garlic, sprinkle with the salt and scrap at it with your knife to get a paste. Rub this into the tri tip.

In a small bowl mix together the paprika, black pepper, rosemary and cayenne. Rub that into the already garlic seasoned meat.

Slice your lemon thin and add the slices to the top of the meat. (Yes, that is a lemon, a giant one. Don’t ask.)

Down the side of the pot (not over the meat) add just enough water so that the meat sits in about 1″ of it.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

You can serve this with potatoes, rice, or I like to make little sandwiches for the kids out of it. It’s flavorful and soft – perfect tri tip. For the rest of his recipes I won’t betray the word of Thomas Keller, I swear. Well, not this week anyway.