Spicy Cuban Pork Stew

#72
Classification: Pork
Prep/Cook Time: 3 hours
Servings: 6

This fall, we took delivery of a whole hog from Lopez Island Farm. We've been buying from this farm for four years now, but this is the first we went whole hog! I love the pork from this farm...it has so much more flavor than what you buy in the store. I believe it's because the pigs were happy. They had a huge pasture to run and root in. They got to eat bugs and vegetables....not pig mush or food that was filled with meal. They also weren't shot up with hormones or antibiotics. All the butchering was done at the farm with a mobile unit, so the animals were all stressed out like those at a slaughtering house. 

Since I have a freezer full of pork, I decided that the next stew I made would have to make sue of some of it. We both like spicy food, so the Spicy Cuban Pork Stew sounded quite appealing.

Substitutions/Additions:

I only had about a 1/4 cup of tomato paste, so I added hot pepper tomato paste to make up the difference. I figured that since the stew was supposed to be spicy, it couldn't hurt. Plus, as you have come to know, I like to make a recipe my own. I also didn't have pork steaks, so I use country style ribs that I cut into cubes.

Verdict:

Yum! Did I say, Yum?! I wasn't sure about the olives with pimentos...I like olives in things, but they are usually black olives or kalamata olives, not the cheap olives I grew up eating as a kid.  I'm glad I used the hot pepper tomato paste....I don't think it would have been as spicy without it. The peppers alone don't give it enough body, so it's very meat heavy. When I make this stew again, I plan to also cook some rice and serve the stew over a bowl of rice. I also will start earlier. I didn't realize the meat should be marinated a couple of hours, so by the time I discovered this, it only marinated about 10 minutes before I had to add it to the pan...that, or eat at 9pm.