Amity's Pork Salad

My friend Amity has a radar or something because every time I am about to feed my family cereal for dinner she calls and says, "I have extra dinner do you want some?" One of these meals she brought over was her Pork Salad. Dennis, Cadey (my one child that eats!) and I ate it and thought it was one of the best things we had ever put in our mouths!!! SOOO YUMMY! We served it last night for Cadey's birthday dinner.

Ingredients:

1 3-4 lb. pork loin

1 cup brown sugar

I cup salsa

Tortillas

Lettuce

1 can black beans

Rice (about 2 1/2 servings)

chopped tomatoes (3-4)

chopped onion (about 1/2)

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Dressing:

1 1/3 cup sour cream

1 1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 packet ranch dressing

1 bunch cilantro

lime juice

4 Tbs. Salsa Verde

1/8 tsp. Tabasco sauce

Directions:

We sered our pork loin on the stove with salt and pepper and then put in the crock pot on low for about 6-8 hours. However, you can just put it directly into your crock pot and it still cooks up nice.

When pork is cooked thoroughly, shred and add salsa and brown sugar.

While that is cooking make your toppings.

Pico de gallo: combine your chopped tomatoes, chopped onions and cilantro.

Dressing: Combine all dressing ingredients in a blender and blend.

Rice: In your water add lime juice and some cilantro, cook as directed. After cooked, mix in your black beans.

Salad is assembled on your tortilla and can be eaten as a burrito.

Stuffed Potatoes

So I didn't quite meet my goal. Wednesday night I gave in and we ordered Pizza. Brandi's Chicken will have to wait until next week. I also didn't post a recipe for spaghetti because I figure not many people need a basic spaghetti recipe. I just make mine from a can!
Tonight we had stuffed potatoes and I forgot to take a picture before we ate, oops! We have two more in the freezer so when we cook those I will add a photo. For now here is the recipe. I got this one from a cookbook from the library that I photocopied some pages from. I liked this book because it had recipes for "2 fer meals" (make one night and use left overs for something yummy the next night), freezer meals and easy meals. However, I don't have the title of the book! I will try to find it at the library again and add it to the post. Anyway, short recipe long, here it is:

Stuffed Potatoes:

Ingredients:
6 medium sized baking potatoes
Oil
kosher salt
1/2 cup softened cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
1/3 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 cooked bacon slices cooled and crumbled
2 green onions chopped
salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Poke potatoes for baking. Coat potatoes with oil. (I just use my hands and rub it all over). In a large zip lock bag add salt and one potato at a time and get a good flavoring of salt on the potatoes. (This makes the skin taste super good and is something I do now with regular baked potatoes).
Bake un-covered for 1 hour or until tender. Let cool.

Cut a wide strip of skin off top of potatoes and throw away the skin. Scoop out inside into a large bowl leaving shells in tact. Mash pulp, cream cheese, butter and milk with a masher, stir in cheese and other ingredients. Spoon mixture into shells.

Wrap with foil; freeze in large zip lock bag up to 1 month.

To cook from frozen:
preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove desired amount of potatoes from bag bake for about 1 hour.

To cook from fresh:
Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.


I normally served these at the main dish with a salad but could be used as a tasty side dish with a steak or other meat if your into the carnivore thing.

Chicken Turmeric

I put this on the menu this week because I had left over coconut milk from my cake last week. This recipe is also from my Guamanian Recipe cook book. This is a very savory dish and is neon yellow from the turmeric. Dennis is a fan of spice so he really enjoys this one. I served it with stuffed zucchini, which was the first time I had tried that and they turned out pretty yummy as well. Enjoy.




Ingredients:

1 Tbs. cooking oil
3-4 breasts of chicken cut into small pieces (I always cook mine ahead of time in the oven and then cut it up)
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. lemon juice
3 tsp. turmeric powder
1 cup coconut milk

Directions:

Saute onion and chicken in oil over medium heat. Add seasonings. Simmer over low heat until chicken is cooked through (if you didn't cook ahead of time). Add milk and remove from heat to serve. Serve over rice.

Stuffed Zucchini
(Taken from 12th Edition Better Homes and Gardens)


Ingredients:
6 zuchinni
1 slightly beaten egg
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese or Parmesean cheese (2 oz.)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 Tbs. parsely
salt and pepper to taste


Cut ends of zucchini and then cut them lengthwise in half. Steam for about 10 minutes (until tender). Allow a few minutes to cool. Scoop out pulp leaving a zucchini shell. Chop 2 cups worth of pulp, stir in all other ingredients minus 1/4 cup of the cheese. Fill shells with mixture. Place in shallow baking pan.


Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with reaming cheese. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes or until heated through.

Chicken Enchiladas

I had planned on making chicken turmeric tonight but even an easy meal seemed too much for me today, so pulled out a freezer meal. I am loving that I have that option! If I just don't feel like cooking, I don't have to, I just go to my freezer!!

I had been worried about how these would turn out because the recipe contains sour cream and a cream soup and I didn't know how well it would freeze and re-heat. But they turned out as tasty as ever! This is really the best enchilada recipe I have used. Super GOOD! I just served with rice, because I haven't been to the store yet this week and well like I said before I was feeling lazy.

This recipe is taken from allrecipes.com called Angela's Awesome Enchiladas. I don't know who Angela is, but these are for sure awesome!! I just changed a few minor things like I use canned chicken instead of cooking mine and shredding it myself, but you could easily do that in the crock pot with some mexically type seasonings.

Ingredients:
2 cans chunk chicken

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 1/4 cups sour cream

1/4 tsp. chili powder

1 Tbs. butter

1 small onion chopped

1 4 oz. can green chilies

1 package taco seasoning

1 bunch green onions (divided)

1 tsp. lime juice

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

5 tortillas (I only use the uncooked Costco kind)

3 cups (or more if you like) shredded cheddar cheese (divided)

1 can enchilada sauce

1 can sliced black olives

DIRECTIONS:

In a saucepan combine soup, sour cream and chili powder. Simmer over low heat and stir occasionally. Turn off and cover to keep warm.

Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and saute until onions are translucent. Add chicken and break it apart to be shredded, add green chilies, taco seasoning, half the green onions and water. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in lime juice, onion and garlic powder and simmer 10 more minutes.

Meanwhile cook up tortillas if you are using the uncooked type.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir in 1 cup of the soup mixture with the chicken. Spread remaining soup on bottom of large baking dish.

Fill tortillas with chicken mixture, top with cheddar cheese and fold tortillas. Place seam-side down in prepared pan. When all tortillas are filled, top with enchilada sauce, remaining cheese, remaining green onions and some olives.

Bake until heated through and is bubbly; about 25 minutes.

*Bake about an hour if you made this a frozen meal.

*I always have a lot of filling left over (enough for about another 1/2 pan) but you will need more soup mixture, more cheese and more enchilada sauce. When we made this on freezer day we had this left over and so I made the small 1/2 pan size for dinner that night however I didn't have any more soup to make more for the bottom layer so I just omitted that and used extra enchilada sauce. This was also very good.

On the Menu: 3/8-3/14

This week will be busy. I have two appointments, Dennis has two scouting activities, we are having a new couch delivered, I have a 19 mile run and it's Cadey's birthday!

We'll see how it goes. I have great hopes I will be able to create healthy and yummy meals and not succumb to ordering out or picking up a pizza this week!

Monday: Turmeric Chicken (easy)
Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas (freezer)
Wednesday: Cafe Rio/Brandi's Chicken (easy)
Thursday: Spaghetti (easy)
Friday: Stuffed Potatoes (freezer)
Saturday: Amity's pork salad (easy)

Dessert: Birthday Cake (not easy but necessary/I am making the "Barbie Doll" cake!)
Dessert: Cookies (freezer)

This week I am going to try seperate posts for each recipe. Let me know which way you all like best. Right now I am just experimenting with how to do this.

Banana Bread

We always have bananas in our house and I for one am pretty picky about the ripeness of my bananas, unripe bananas leave a weird bitter feeling in your mouth and over ripe bananas are too mushy and become in my opinion plain nasty. Often we do not eat a full bunch before they get too mushy for me (I need to remember my kids don't eat and only buy enough for Dennis and myself, but still I keep hoping. . . Cadey does eat bananas and Ian and Viv will eat a bite or two, Will absolutely will not. So it is hard for me to know how many to buy). I feel bad throwing them out all the time so I try to use them for baking. One of the most obvious uses is to make banana bread. This is considered a quick bread, but for me it has taken awhile (and I even mess up still) to figure out the best cooking method. Banana bread is really dense and if you are shy the littlest bit on your cooking time many times you will cut in and the center will not be cooked. Don't be shy about leaving in your bread the correct amount of time. If it looks like the top is getting too done, cover with foil (dull side up) the last little bit of cooking. The recipe I use is from the 12th edition Better Homes and Gardens Cook book. I think most people have a recipe for banana bread so unless someone wants me to post mine, it's really just an idea for what to do with your over ripe bananas!!

Brandi's Chicken

Several months ago we went to dinner at Dennis' brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner. My sister-in-law Brandi made the best dinner ever. It is a version of a meal from Cafe Rio if you are familiar and it is so yummy. Whenever I make it I call it Brandi's chicken. She has posted that recipe along with the dressing for it (you make a salad/burrito) on her blog, so I thought I would direct you all there so you can enjoy this delectable dinner as well. It has a super star rating for great taste and super easy!!! My kind of meal!!