April 13, 2018

As I get older not only do Fridays seem to come more quickly, but also I find I am more tired by the time they arrive.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, but somehow, every Friday, I am.  "Friday already?  Wow...that week went fast!  I am ready to sit (or snooze) on the couch!"  Pretty typical words falling out of my mouth this morning, and most Fridays.

On Saturday we did our meal planning and picked out a few new recipes to try. We didn't get around to all of them and we had mixed results.  2 were fine but by no means keepers.  Glad to keep you from wasting your time and energy on those lackluster dishes.  But two of the recipes earned keeper status, with one of them just blowing it out of the water!  The Lime Pork with Peppers & Onions was a massive hit, and was even delicious warmed up as lunch the next day!  Totally give this a try if it appeals to you - maybe even try it with chicken if you aren't too keen on pork.   And seriously...oven baked fries with parmesan and garlic salt?  That was almost a keeper without even actually making the recipe! Ha!

And I have a trick to cutting raw peppers.  Maybe you already know this one, but when my mom showed me a few years back I was amazed and LOVED it.  Now its the only way I prep peppers!  Watch the video and I'll show you how to do it!

I hope you had a good week, and I hope you find time to sit on your couch this weekend!

Happy Cooking!

New Recipes
Lime Pork with Peppers & Onions
Parmesan Fries

Video Tip
Cutting Peppers (minimize waste)

Cutting Peppers - a great tip!

Lime Pork with Peppers & Onions

Ingredients
* 2 medium limes
* 1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce (plus additional if needed)
* 4 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 tsp dried oregano
* 1/2 tsp dried thyme
* 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
* 1-1.5 lbs pork loin, cut into 1 inch cubes
* 1 bay leaf
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 1 tsp brown sugar
* 2 medium onions, cut into chunky pieces
* 2 bell peppers (colors of your choosing) cut into chunky pieces

Directions
1. Finely zest both limes.  Then cut and juice the limes into a 1 or 2 cup measuring cup.  Add into the measuring cup the zest, soy sauce, garlic, oregano, thyme.  Add additional soy sauce to bring your total marinade mixture to 3/4 cup.  Mix well.
2. Pour 1/2 cup of the marinade into a large resealable plastic bag, then add the pork. and bay leaf.  Massage to combine and distribute the marinade.  Reserve the remaining marinade to use when cooking.  Refrigerate the pork for at least 2 hours or overnight.
3. When ready to cook - drain the pork and discard the bay leaf and marinade. In a large non-stick skillet heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the brown sugar and stir until bubbly.  Add the meat, cook and stir for 3-4 minutes or until browned.  Reduce the heat, add the onions and peppers and reserved marinade.  Cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender and pork is cooked through. Serve!

Notes
Delicious! I marinated this overnight and then dinner swiftly came together!  Love that!  Liam, usually one of my pickier eaters, took one bit and asked if he could bring the leftovers to school for lunch!  His comment was followed by Ryan and Owen also thoroughly enjoying it!  Keeper status for sure!!! And I wrestled Liam for the leftovers...he got mostly the pork and I took mostly peppers and onions.  We were both happy!

One thing to note is too keep an eye on the pork while it cooks.  You don't want to cook it too long as pork has a tendency to get dried out. Remember...this is a QUICK dinner! It seemed very odd that it called for 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, but I included it and will continue to do in the future. I used one yellow and one orange pepper.  When preparing the peppers and onions keep them uniform in size so they cook in the same amount of time. Also - watch this video I prepared on a tip about how to cut your peppers!  It is one of my favorite cooking tricks I learned from my mom!

Parmesan Fries

Ingredients
* 1 egg white
* 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
* 1 tsp garlic salt
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 5-6 Yukon gold or russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into wedges (peeled if desired)

Directions
1. Preheat over to 425 degrees.
2. Combine the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl.  Add in the potato wedges (a few at a time) and mix to coat.
3. Place the wedges on a large greased cookie sheet and cook for 35 minutes.  Turn and cook for another 5-10 minutes until the potatoes are your desired color.  Remove from the oven and serve!

Notes
These were voted keeper by everyone - even Finn!  Delicious!  I got 8 pieces from each potato I used (cut the potato in half, then in 4 pieces).  I did peel my potatoes before cooking, but maybe next time I will leave the skin on!