Spicy Pork Chops with Fried Rice

I like to buy meat at Costco. I find it to be fantastically fresh and a lot less expensive than at Fry's. That being said, I sometimes buy WAY more of something than I actually need. Like pork chops. I don't often cook them, but I bought them at Costco because they were on sale. So naturally, I come across this recipe at thepioneerwoman.com and have to make it ASAP so I can make room in my freezer for the important things in life - ice cream bars.

I spent a few hours at my dear friend Amy's this morning helping her assemble her wedding invitations. They are gorgeous and beautiful, just like her. They are also slightly complicated - which gave my brain and fingers quite the workout. Somehow I acquired quite the appetite from the sweatshop labor and decided to be adventurous when it came to dinner.

This was quite delicious. A little sweet, a little spicy, just like me. There's a pinch of sriracha and honey in the sauce on the chops and it is to DIE for. Just remember, if you can't take the heat, get the heck out of the kitchen. You could leave it out, but your sinuses won't be quite as happy as mine are right now.

Okay, one main player in this is obviously the pork chop. However, I am a ding-bat and didn't photograph them. They were thawing in the sink. I told you I decided I needed to cook them ASAP.

For the chops you'll need 4-6 pork chops, 2 cups cooked rice, sliced onion,  1 tbsp. sesame or canola oil, 1 tbsp. butter, 6 tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce, 1 tbsp. sriracha, 2 tbsp. honey, 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar.

For the rice you'll need 1/2 pineapple (grilled and cut into chunks), 3 minced garlic cloves, 1 tbsp. oil, 2 cups cooked brown rice, 2 eggs, 2 cups frozen peas (thawed), 1 cup shredded carrots, 2-3 tbsp. soy sauce (more to taste).

To start, cut your pineapple into spears. Good luck - this was interesting. I have never cut a fresh pineapple before, and it was much more intimidating than it needed to be. Just cut out the outside and make sure you don't eat the middle core. Boom done.

Throw half of the spears on the grill pan. Get some lovely color on them. This just makes the already sweet pineapple even sweeter.

It smells so good right now. SO GOOD. I'm kind of bummed I made this earlier this week, as I want to eat it now.

There you go - grilled pineapple spears. Use them on everything from bbq chicken pizza to kabobs. Or just eat them. They're bomb.

Cut the spears up into chunks and set them aside.

 Heat the butter and 1 tbsp. oil in a pan on medium high heat.

Yum. Melted butter. Nothing bad comes from melted butter.

Put your pork chops in and let them sear on one side for about 5 minutes - until you've got great color.

Flip baby flip. Flip baby flip. Cook for another minute or two.

Add those onions and let them start to get soft and colorful.

There's nothing quite like cooked onions. It amazes me that they taste so different from the uncooked version. Stranger things have happened I guess.

Add your soy sauce, sriracha, honey, and vinegar. Let it cook for another minute or two.

Take the chops out of the pan and place into a bowl. While this is happening, your sauce will finish reducing.

Reduced sauce. Something that took me a few years to figure out - I just wasn't patient enough for it in college. But now that I'm old and mature, I can wait. I also tend to forget about it until it's reduced - which works too!

Pour the saucy-onions over the chops and let them sit until ready to serve.

Don't clean the pan - that's a silly waste of time. Add the remaining oil and saute your garlic for a minute or two.

Here's the fun part. Add your two eggs and scramble them until they're cooked and in tiny pieces. WEE! Don't stop stirring until they're all cooked and perfect.

Add your veggies and soy sauce and cook for a few minutes.

Add the rice.

Stir it all together and cook for a minute.

Add the pineapple and stir. Get ready for a flavor explosion! Or just some good fried rice.

Put the rice on a plate with the pork chops and sauce on top. Be sure to add a little extra sauce to help flavor your rice. It's worth it.

Sometimes you just crave something different, and this is it.

Cheesy Chicken-Veggie-Rice Casserole

Some days I am a very boring person. All I want to do is get in my PJs as soon as I get home, eat dinner, and watch horrible TV shows all night. Or I want to read a book. I may want to eat ice cream. But none of those things involve exerting any energy or interacting with other people.

When all you do is interact with 30+ little people all day, you really learn to treasure the silence.

This is a "boring mood" dinner that doesn't taste boring. It takes all of 5 minutes to get ready, 50 minutes to cook, and then you eat it. It's a perfect lazy day meal. 

And when I say boring, I don't mean the dish is boring. It's bomb.com. It reminds me of something a grandma from the midwest would make when you come to visit. Then you'd go work on the ranch in the morning and spend time in a garden. Just me? Okay.

This dish requires no fancy ingredients. 2 chicken breasts, a can of cream of chicken soup, a small bag of any frozen veggies you like,  3/4 c. rice, 1 1/3 c. water, 1/2 tsp. onion powder, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, and 1/2 to 3/4 c. any shredded cheese your heart desires. My heart desired cheddar that day. It would be delish with mozzarella and DANG good with some shredded pepper jack. My heart belongs to pepper jack cheese. Don't tell Drew.

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Mix everything but the cheese and chicken in a 9x13 pan. Make sure the soup is mixed together with the water and isn't too chunky. That was the hard part. Give yourself a pat on the back, because you got this.

Cut the chicken breasts in half and place them on top of the rice/veggie/liquid mixture. Cover the entire pan with foil and bake it for 50 minutes.

Uncover your casserole and gaze at it. MAN that chicken looks naked. I don't like naked chicken. Really, I don't like any naked poultry. I'm quite conservative.

So obviously the solution is to cover the entire top of the casserole with your cheese. DO IT. Love it. Cover the pan back with the foil and let it sit for another 5 minutes.

 Look, the cheese melted. You didn't do anything to it and it got it's act together. How wonderful. And creamy. And cheesy. And wonderful.

Here you go. A wonderful old-lady-esque casserole that makes me feel like I'm in Kansas with Dorothy and her mother. Eat it and love it. Feel comforted.

Lemon Avocado Pasta

Okay, so I was craving something different. Something new. Which is what I crave almost every day - hence my unending need to constantly find and try recipes. 

So, when I saw a description of a lemon avocado pasta, I knew I had to try it. I would be adventurous and try some sort of strange new sauce. Let me tell you - it was not bad! Strange at first - but delicious! It was mostly strange just because it was so different from anything I'd had before.

The starting line up for this dish isn't unusual. These are ingredients I've used thousands of times before. Pasta. 1 whole avocado. 1 lemon - both the juice and the zest. 2 garlic cloves minced up nicely (don't be cruel to the garlic). Salt - I used about 1/2 tsp. 1/4 c. fresh basil chopped. Read about how I chop my basil here. 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil. Black pepper. Shredded chicken (This is totes optional. Easily made a vegetarian meal without it). And some parmesan cheese for topping - but only if you want. And I want. I really, really want.

Cook your pasta. Drain it. That was the hardest part. DONE.

Now for the sauce. Put the avocado, lemon juice, garlic, salt, basil, olive oil, and pepper in a blender.

Blend it. WOW. This is quite difficult to explain because of how complicated each step is. I sure hope you don't mess it up.

Just kidding. This is super easy and I have full and total confidence that you will be able to make this.

Put some pasta in a bowl. Add the shredded chicken. Then put the sauce on. Top it with the lemon zest and parmesan cheese.

Stir it all up. Eat it. Love it.

Delish.

Hasselhoff Potatoes

Okay, so the name I've actually heard these called is Hassleback potatoes. But really, tell me that didn't immediately make you think of the Hoff. 

These were the PERFECT side dish to a roasted chicken. I'm thinking they'd be good with any meat - steak, roast, pork chops, turkey... you name it! They're really just as good as baked potatoes, but a little crispier.

You'll need potatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. As my dear friend, Ina Garten, would say, "How easy is that?"

Cut the potatoes width wise until you almost hit the bottom - then STOP. Make sure they all stay together in one big piece.

See how I didn't cut the bottom. And how it looks like the potato man is going to eat you. Nom nom nom. Really kids, you shouldn't play with your food.

Drizzle them in olive oil and roll them around in it. The Hoff was always oily, so are these potatoes - just before we bake them.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Pop them in a 425 degree oven for about 40 minutes until crispy.

Nom nom nom. SO good. They're perfect. Just like the Hoff. Except the Hoff isn't perfect (especially not his singing - ask me about when he sang the National Anthem at a UA football game...)

Asian Noodle Salad

Once upon a time, I had a roommate who introduced me to the wonders of Vietnamese spring rolls. She took me to a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant that, after over 3 years of living in Tucson, I still didn't know existed. I was so impressed with the flavors in that spring roll. The chewy noodles, the fresh cilantro, the perfectly seasoned shrimp, the salty/sweet dipping sauce. Yum... 

So when I found a salad recipe much like this, I knew I had to make it ASAP. And when I say ASAP, I mean I went to the grocery store early the next morning (I found the recipe late at night) and made it that very day. We've both eaten two meals of it now, and it still has a way to go, but we're okay with that!

This is one of the most delicious, wonderful, filling, gigantic, delightful, and flavorful salads I've ever made. Even the hubster loved it. I can't believe how filling it was. It's beautiful, colorful, and doesn't taste healthy. It just tastes - good.

There are a lot of ingredients, but they are ALL completely and totally worth it.

For the salad you'll need three peppers thinly sliced (the more colorful, the better), 1/2 head of purple cabbage - thinly sliced, 4 green onions - thinly sliced, 1-2 cups bean sprouts, 2 cups baby spinach, 2 cucumbers peeled and thinly sliced, one bunch of cilantro roughly chopped, and one box of linguine noodles, cooked and cooled. I used some whole grain noodles and you couldn't even tell the difference because of all the other ingredients.

For the dressing you'll need the juice of 1 lime, 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/2 c. low sodium soy sauce, 2-3 tbsp. sesame oil, 3 tbsp. finely minced fresh ginger, 2 cloves garlic - minced, 2 serrano peppers finely minced, and 1/3 c. brown sugar.

Does anyone else think that vegetables are gorgeous? I really do and am probably up for some sort of psychiatric evaluation because of it. Look at the color and texture of the cabbage. Come on. Its gorgeous. And I firmly believe you are what you eat. I eat gorgeous veggies, therefore I am gorgeous. However, I also eat ice cream and brownies and donuts...

Chop, chop, chop. Am I the only one who really enjoys chopping vegetables? There's something soothing about the rhythmic sound of the knife hitting the cutting board. I just focus on the beautiful vegetables and chop. I don't think about anything else. It's quite a lovely experience.

Green onions. I'm starting to try to grow my own. I will let you know how if it works out. If not, I'm just going to have a funky glass of onions in water on my counter.

I had never peeled cucumbers before this. I may or may not have rushed while doing this. I like chopping, peeling is a completely different story.

Place them all in the biggest bowl you can find. And I recommend a much larger bowl than this, because we had some SERIOUS stirring issues.

Nom. Colorful veggies.

Put the chopped cilantro on top of your bowl smack dab in the center.

Here's the part where I'm a bad blogger. I forgot to photograph my noodle adding skills. I'm sorry. I'll try to describe what it looked like to you as best as I can.

I put some cooked, cooled, and rinsed noodles on top of the bowl. Then, I mixed it all together Whew. That was stressful.

Now make your dressing. Put your oils and soy sauce in a bowl.

Add everything else and whisk it together until the sugar dissolves. Boom done.

I took a portion of my salad (what we were going to eat that night) and put it on a platter. I then added about the same fraction of the sauce and tossed it all together to make this hot mess of a salad. There's so much salad and not that much stomach room between the two of us, so I only did this. The plate shown is maybe 1/3 of the total salad. Can you say lunch tomorrow.

Don't mix the entire salad with the dressing unless you are planning on eating it ASAP, because the dressing will cause the veggies to wilt if then stored in it.

Grab a fork and dig in!

P.S. I hope you like the little glimpse of my slipper down in the bottom of that picture. Man, how I wish it was socially acceptable to wear those bad boys out of the house.

Eat and feel healthy! And full. And Asian. And decadent. And lovely.

Okay. Just eat it.