Super easy delicious grilled pork

We gorged last week when mom was in town so this week I wanted to make sure we ate well, especially since we're going to Vegas this weekend and will probably gorge.  The biggest difference between Eric and my idea of eating well is that I still want it to taste good and he could just drink water for a week which I just cannot do!  Luckily, I'm the one that makes dinner so we have been eating very healthily this week while still maintaining low calories.  You'd be surprised how good food can be even though it's low cal!

So last night, I made honey garlic pork chops, corn on the cob, and wilted spinach.  The ingredients were as follows:

boneless butterflied pork chops

soy sauce

honey

salt

pepper

garlic

I made a marinade with the ingredients and put them all in a ziplock bag.  It sat in the fridge for about 3 hours and I flipped it about 2 hours in.  

Once it was time to cook, I placed the pork on the grill at about medium high heat and cooked them for about 6 minutes each side.  Then let them sit for a couple of minutes just to cook some more off the grill and to allow juices to flow. 

I kept the spinach very simple.  I usually would have added garlic but since there was so much garlic in the pork, I decided to back off.  For the spinach, I used:

olive oil

spinach

salt

pepper

lemon

parmesan cheese

I took the stems off the spinach and made sure to wash the leaves thoroughly since they are pretty muddy.  

In order to cook all this spinach, it has to be done in batches.  So to start, I put a handful of spinach into the pan.  Once it started wilting, I added another handful into the pan.  I did this until all the spinach was wilted and then I added salt, pepper, and lemon juice. 

I was worried that I may have bought too much spinach but we ended up eating all of it.  I bought 2 bunches which was about 2 pounds!!

The corn was simple.  Just boiled a pot of water and threw it in.  About 10 minutes later, took it out and it was done!

So for finished dinner, I topped the spinach with sprinkles of parmesan cheese. The corn was salt, peppered, and buttered.  I must say, it was a great dinner and it was even better knowing that it was healthy! I do suggest this pork to anyone that likes pork.  It was so easy to make and I already had all of the ingredients on hand minus the meat.  It was cheap and delicious.  I don't know that it's possible for anyone to screw up any part of this meal.  I think this marinade could also be used on steak and chicken if pork's not for you.

A little Cajun never hurt anyone

Last weekend, Eric mentioned his friend talking about a Gumbo Casserole.  That got me thinking about Gumbo in general and with the rain yesterday, it seemed fitting.  It's been a while since I've had Cajun food besides crawfish and felt it was time.  Plus, it's been a while since I've gotten to use my dutch oven and I really like it so I was pretty excited about this one! I hope y'all are ready for lots of pictures, steps, and ingredients.  The following went into my gumbo last night:

chicken breast

andouille sausage

shrimp

okra

onion

garlic

orange bell pepper

worcestershire sauce

tony chachere

salt

celery

pepper

cayenne pepper

all purpose flour

butter

green onions

stewed tomatoes

beef broth

parsley

canola oil

To start, I chopped everything...all the veggies and meat.  Then I added oil to my dutch oven and let it heat.  Once it was hot, I browned the chicken.  I didn't have to cook it all the way through b/c I knew it was going to cook for at least another 2 hours later so this is just to brown the surface.  Once the chicken was browned, I browned the sausage.  The same method applied.  The sausage was also removed and I just put it in the same bowl as the chicken

Once the sausage was removed, I added the flour and some butter.  Continuously stirring for about 10 minutes, I created a roux and browned it.  In order to let it cool, I removed it from the dutch oven and put it in a small bowl, stirring it every couple of minutes to release heat. 

When the roux was cool, I added it back to the dutch oven and added more butter and the veggie bowl consisting of: garlic, onions, celery, and peppers. I stirred this frequently to make sure the roux didn't burn to the bottom. 

I let this cook down for about 10 minutes and then added worcestershire, salt, pepper, tony chachere, and parsley.  I cooked this for about 10 minutes again and stirred frequently. 

The beef broth was added next.  I gave it a quick stir and then added the chicken and sausage back to the pot.  Once this came to a boil, I reduced the heat to low to a simmer.  At this point, the lid was placed on the pot and I let it simmer for about 45 minutes.  

Once the time had passed, I added the tomatoes and okra, gave it a quick stir, and then replaced the lid and let it simmer for about an hour.  After this hour passed, I added the shrimp and green onions and let it simmer without the lid for about 20 minutes.  It was a bit liquidy for me so I kept the lid off in order to thicken it up some. 

We ate some of the Jalapeño Jack bread we had purchased at the farmer's market with it.  I threw some butter on it and put it in the oven to toast.  So this meal took about 3 hours to make from prep to finish.

I definitely don't suggest making it when you don't have a lot of time.  I wonder how this would turn out in the crock pot actually since it is basically a "stew" It turned out really well.  The bread was a nice touch since I didn't want to make rice and we already had it on hand.  It probably could have used a little more spice but it was still delicious without it.  I could have added hot sauce but it was already good so I didn't feel the need.  This also made for great leftovers!  I sent Eric to work with some and I ate some this morning and it's even really good cold. 

My man the grillmaster

We went to the Farmer's Market saturday and decided to grab some fresh veggies.  In the process, we decided what to make for lunch.  We had some hamburgers and brats leftover from July 4th that we hadn't cooked yet so we decided to grill those with some veggies on the side.  We also bought a Bavarian Pretzel, Jalapeño Jack bread, and Spinach Feta bread.  The pretzel struck the idea of making Rotel dip.  Needless to say, we had A TON of food.

While at the store, we sampled some sausages and ended up buying a package of spicy mango with jalapeño sausages.  For the dip we used a small block of Velveeta, hot Rotel, and the sausage.  We just put this in the microwave and stirred every 20 seconds or so until melted together.

For the grill, we had burgers, a turkey brat, cabbage, and zucchini.  Eric grilled while I made the dip which was great! I think he did a great job b/c everything turned out really well and yummy. It was hard to stop eating!

On Sunday, we decided to add some things to our pickle jar.  We bought one of those HUGE pickle jars from Costco that will probably take us a year to finish.  We've been talking about how it would be good to add some things to it and yesterday we finally did.  We added 7 jalapeños and garlic cloves.  In the process, Eric decided that bloody mary's would taste really good so he took charge and made us some.  Luckily, our fridge is stocked with bloody mary ingredients! They were a great end to the week.

Leftover madness

Turns out, over the past week, we accrued a bunch of leftovers.  I racked my brain a bit and thought about what I could do with all of them so they didn't spoil and go to waste.  After some thought, I thought Asian food of some sort would be best since they always use a mixture of shrimp, chicken, and beef.  This led to lettuce wraps!  They are so easy and I already had everything I needed minus the lettuce! So the ingredients I ended up using were:

chicken

steak

shrimp

orange bell peppers

onions

mushrooms

hoisin sauce

green onions

sesame oil

olive oil

lettuce

I can't even explain how easy this was to make and incredibly healthy too.  I began by chopping everything up.

Then you start by heating up olive oil and sesame oil together.  Once it's heated, I added the onions, mushrooms, and green onions and let them cook for about 5 minutes and then added the peppers and steak.  The chicken and shrimp were added last since they were already cooked all the way through.  I also added the hoisin sauce at this time and cooked everything just to make sure it was hot all the way through. 

Once it was all hot, I dumped it into a bowl and served it with some red leaf lettuce.  

It turned out really well! I just added a pinch of salt after tasting it and it was perfect.  This is another one of those great meals that you can make from leftovers.  Not only a great meal to empty out your fridge, it's also healthy!

Happy 4th!

Sorry followers for being so slow lately on updates.  With mom in town and not a lot of cooking at home, blogging just hasn't been that important.  Due to that, this blog will have 2 meals.  

The first dinner was ahi tuna salad.  I've made this before and blogged about it but this will have more pictures and steps. I've been trying to not duplicate meals but my mom wanted salad and she loves tuna so we did this one again.  With this meal, I also bought some Burrata and french bread and topped the burrata with olive oil, balsamic, salt, pepper, and sun dried tomatoes. 

The ingredients for the salad were as follows:

salad mix

ahí tuna

orange bell peppers

mango

avocado

ginger miso dressing

sesame seeds

tomatoes

I chopped everything up, leaving the tomatoes whole.  I coated the tuna with salt, pepper, and sesame seeds and then seared it in a pan with heated olive oil.  I let them cook about 3 minutes per side.  

Final product:

We've been eating A LOT of cocktail shrimp lately!! 

For the fourth, we didn't really do much of anything but lounge around and be lazy.  We decided to grill for dinner since that's the "American" thing to do anyway.  For this meal we bought the following:

pork beer brats

tequila lime shrimp

cajum shrimp

shrimp cocktail

beef satay

buffalo hot dog

This meal was pretty straight forward.  I threw the brats and hot dog on the grill.  After about 15 min or so, the shrimp and beef went on as well.  Turning a couple of times, after about 25 total minutes everything was done.  

The brats were pretty good and shrimp cocktail as always was delicious.  I will say one thing, I will never eat a buffalo hot dog ever again.  I had never had buffalo before last night and I can definitely say that I am NOT a fan!! It was just too gamey for me.  

So mom leaves today so back to cooking tonight.  Unfortunately, it's the weekend tomorrow so I may disappear again for a couple of days but next week will hopefully begin regular blogging again!

Brunch at home

Sunday, we were all going to go to dim sum but then we decided against it. It really didn't matter b/c my mom didn't wake up until NOON and Eric went to the driving range.  I started getting hungry and at first thought that maybe my mom and I would go to brunch but the later it got and she didn't wake up, the hungrier I got and decided I didn't feel like getting ready and waiting for a table then ordering, etc...So instead, I decided to make brunch at the house.  I didn't cook that much last week obviously so I was kind of itching to get back in the kitchen anyway.  I decided to go with hash.  I made it with italian sausage instead of corned beef and added a lot of veggies.  The ingredients were as follows:

mild Italian pork sausage

hot Italian pork sausage

bell pepper

sundried tomatoes

potatoes

onions

garlic

green onions

mushrooms

avocados

I chopped up the peppers and onions, sliced the mushrooms, and then shredded the potatoes.  I put the potatoes in a bowl of water in order to take out some starch and also so it wouldn't brown. 

I began by heating olive oil in a pan and then cooking the sausages until the outsides were lightly browned.  I then took them out of the pan and chopped them up so they were in small chunks.  

Without draining the pan, I cooked the green onions and garlic in the juices.  Once those cooked for about 2 minutes, I added all the veggies and sausage and cooked them about halfway through then placed them in a bowl and set it aside. 

Once again, without draining the pan to keep flavors, I added the potatoes.  I let them sit in the pan for about 7 minutes without touching them.  Then flipped them and cooked them for about 7 more minutes.

Once they began to gain some color, I added the bowl of veggies and sausage and cooked the hash until it was done.  I basically let everything sit in the pan for about 5 minutes intervals and then I would flip the ingredients around so it wouldn't burn.  Once there was about 5 minutes left, I added the avocados and began cooking the eggs.  I made fried eggs runny to top the hash and topped everything with some salt and pepper.  We also bought sandwich thins in bulk from Costco a while ago and so I felt this was the perfect time to toast them and use them as toast since we didn't have actual bread.  

It was delicious and INCREDIBLY filling.  We have so much leftover still in the fridge.  Hopefully we will get through it.  Hash is so easy to make and you can throw any leftover veggies into it that you want, which is basically what I did! I highly suggest it as a Sunday meal for any groceries you didn't end up using during the week.