Hoisin grilled pork tenderloin and Thai cellophane salad

We had dinner with some friends over the weekend at our favorite restaurant in town and I was inspired to make Thai food.

Here is my recipe for Thai cellophane noodle salad and hoisin grilled pork tenderloin.

4 ounces glass noodles (bean threads)
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons light vegetable oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 large cucumber, halved, seeded, and sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut in ½
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves
2-3 heads of romaine lettuce, washed and roughly chopped
½ C. crushed roasted peanuts

Soak noodles in hot water for 10 to 15 minutes or until tender; rinse and drain. Place in a mixing bowl. (For easier serving, cut noodles into pieces with kitchen shears.)
Combine lime juice and next 4 ingredients; pour over noodles, tossing to coat.
Stir in remaining ingredients, and toss salad until well blended. Serve.

Hoisin grilled pork tenderloin:
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 cube frozen ginger
1 cube frozen garlic
1 pork tenderloin

Combine all ingredients in a Ziploc bag and let marinade at least 4 hours, turning bag occasionally. Preheat oven to 400. Heat grill to high. Grill pork for 5 minutes per side on grill, saving marinade. While pork is grilling, reduce marinade in a small sauce pan on medium high heat.

Remove pork from grill and place in an aluminum lined casserole pan. Add reduced marinade, cover pork in foil and continue cooking in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Thinly slice pork and add to top of salad before serving.

***Note- My kids will NOT eat the cellophane noodle salad, but will eat the pork, so I made them some couscous instead.

teriyaki salmon with brown rice and spinach

I was in the mood for salmon and came up with a super fast way of making dinner in 1 pan. This recipe serves 1 person.

Preheat the oven to 450. Line a smallish cookie sheet or brownie pan with foil and add 1 6oz. piece of salmon filet. Add 1 C. of frozen brown rice around the salmon and 1/2 C. of frozen spinach. Trader Joe's sells frozen chopped spinach in a bag that is not frozen in a chunk allowing you to use just what you need. Add 1/4 C. teriyaki sauce to fish, and 2 tbs. of water to the frozen rice.

Roast in the oven for 10 minutes or until salmon is cooked through. Halfway through cooking, stir rice and spinach.

This recipe can easily be doubled.

Waffle kick

Our youngest daughter is on a waffle kick at the moment. I made them for her yesterday for breakfast and she ate them again for lunch as well. Tonight she asked if she could have waffles for dinner- ok...

I am wondering if there is some vitamin she's needing that waffles provide? She doesn't even eat them with syrup.

Tomorrow we will not have waffles as I broke the knob on the waffle machine tonight...

Chicken and vegetable kebabs

We spent a fantastic week in Mexico and were spoiled with a chef during our vacation. The weather in CT. was gorgeous today and I spent most of it getting the garden ready for planting.

I did our grocery shopping for the week and with the help of the girls made delicious chicken kebabs tonight with onions, mushrooms, red peppers, and zucchini, chicken thighs, and a bit of chicken sausage.

I sliced the veggies into about 1/2" pieces and cut 4 boneless, skinless, chicken thighs into about 2" chunks. I also sliced 2 chicken sausages into about 1" rounds. I combined the juice from 1 lemon, a large pinch of kosher salt, 2 cubes of frozen garlic, 1 Tbs. of Greek Seasoning, 3 Tbs. of olive oil, and a large pinch of ground pepper.

I marinated the chicken and veggies for about 10 minutes then the girls helped me skewer everything. They had a great time putting everything onto skewers. While the girls skewered the food, I preheated the oven to 500, lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and turned the grill to high.

As the girls finished the skewers, they placed them on the foil lined sheet. Once they were all done, I put them on the grill to cook for about 4 minutes, turned them once and let them cook for another 4 minutes. I removed them and let them finish cooking in the oven for about 5 more minutes.

While the skewers cooked, I made some frozen brown rice.

The girls loved the dinner and were so excited to eat food from a stick. They tried everything and although didn't love the zucchini, my pickier kid loved the grilled onions.

They can't wait to poke more food onto a stick!

Pantry Meal Experiment -Days 3 & 4

Quick update, last night was ravioli (which was in the freezer) and some tomato sauce, fresh pineapple and frozen peas. Not thrilling, however am happy to be cleaning out and using the food that we already have on hand.

Pantry Dinner #4 (tonight's dinner)- I did not make dinner tonight, as I had to work. My husband found some turkey hot dogs and pasta, not sure if there was a fruit or veggie present, however pretty sure there were Girl Scout cookies involved!

Another benefit of this weeks experiment was that I cleaned out and organized our pantry, freezer and refrigerator. I must admit that I am looking forward to shopping next week and restocking.

Roasted Chicken Breasts, Rice with Pigeon Peas and Green Beans

Tonight's dinner is an old stand-by.

Roasted chicken- I have 2 bone-in breasts which I lay into a casserole pan, squeeze the juice from 1 lemon, add a drizzle of olive oil and a good sprinkle of Adobo seasoning and a pinch of pepper. I added a couple peeled, sliced carrots under the chicken and roasted at 400 for 35 minutes.

While the chicken cooks, I have a box of Spanish rice with Pigeon peas. They are a hard flavor to explain, tastes similar to a black bean but with a firmer texture.

We are also having a can of green beans. I must admit that I DO NOT like canned veggies and found these at the waaaaaay back of our pantry yesterday, however Kirk and I both agreed that we grew up eating (and loving) canned green beans. They taste nothing like a real green bean, but they do have a familiar texture.

Tomorrow's dinner is going to involve something with shrimp... Mexican with black beans? Italian with sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts??

Eating out.. of the pantry- DAY 1

I am conducing a little experiment this week, how long can we eat dinner's consisting only from the food that is presently in our home.

Day 1- Monday night... Tonight we had homemade pizza from dough that I bought on Saturday. My other daughter had asked for ramen soup for breakfast this morning, I told her she could have it for dinner. We also had leftover pureed cauliflower and some raw veggies.

I will say that I did not begin this experiment with a fully stocked house. I did a very small shopping on Saturday night, consisting of jello, chicken, carrots, pizza dough and potatoes.

I am looking forward to this challenge and will post our dinners for the remainder of the week.

Pureed cauliflower with leeks and Parmesan cheese

My friend has been making a lot of pureed cauliflower recently; I had a head of cauliflower in the house and decided to make my own version. It's delicious and very flavorful, my daughter's even ate it!

Boil 3 cups of water and add 1 heaping Tablespoon of Better than Bouillon to the water. Add in 1 head of cauliflower that has been cut into florets. Don't worry about cutting the florets the same size as it is going to be pureed. Boil until cauliflower is soft, about 10 minutes.

While the cauliflower boils, slice 1 leek in 1/2 lengthwise and thinly chop. Rinse in a bowl of water to remove any sand. Heat 1 Tbs. of olive oil in a pan and add the rinsed leeks. Saute for 4-5 minutes on medium high heat until the leeks are soft and goldenish. They will still retain much of their green color. Add a good pinch of kosher salt and pepper. Drain the cauliflower and add to a bowl. Add the leeks and puree with a hand blender until smooth. Add another pinch of black pepper and a about 1/4 C. of grated Parmesan cheese. Serve.

15 Minute Meal for $15 on WTNH

Here is tomorrow's recipe that I will be making on WTNH, Good Morning Weekend Connecticut. It comes from my new "recession buster" series of classes that are beginning in April. The new schedule of classes will be up on my website by early next week.

Enjoy!

Egg noodles with chicken sausage and Parmesan

1 C. wide egg noodles
2-4 sliced chicken sausages
1 C. chicken stock
1 C. frozen peas
1 tbs. olive oil
1/4 C. grated Parmesan cheese
pinch of kosher salt and pepper


Boil water in a medium pan. When water boils, add noodles and cook 6 minutes. While noodles cook, thinly slice chicken sausage and add to a large nonstick pan on medium high heat. Add ½ C. chicken stock to sausage and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add frozen peas and continue cooking. Drain noodles and add to pan with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Add a pinch of kosher salt and pepper before serving.
*Optional- sliced mushrooms, quartered canned artichoke hearts, and cherry tomatoes are a delicious addition to this meal.

Sauteed rainbow chard

Tonight I made a staple in our house, panko crusted pork chops and couscous. I decided to throw a new veggie into the mix, rainbow Swiss chard. I've made it for the kids before, but not in ages.

I bought a bag of fresh, prewashed, chopped rainbow Swiss chard at Trader Joe's today. I heated a large nonstick pan on high heat, added in a Tbs. of olive oil and 2 cubes of frozen garlic. Next I added in the bag of chard. Don't get worried if the chard seems to form a small mountain, it will cook down a lot. I then added in about 3/4 of a cup of chicken stock. If you don't have it, you can use water, but the stock adds a lot of flavor.

Saute the chard for about 8 minutes until the stems become soft and most of the liquid has evaporated. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

The kids were a little unsure of the chard, but I assured them they should only eat a little as it is a Super Food and they might become uncontrollably strong. The elder (who usually makes the bigger fuss) ate it quickly but didn't fuss. She then jumped off her chair and began doing push ups on the floor! Abby began to laugh and quickly polished off her serving, promptly asking for more.

They both ended up having 2 servings of chard and we enjoyed a dinner and a laugh together. I love when we can get though a dinner without fusses!

Sweet and sour shrimp

We had a giant snowstorm in NE today and I didn't get to the market, fortunately I had bags of frozen shrimp and couscous handy for a dinner in a pinch.

While perusing through my (too) large selection of spices and seasonings, I came across a jar of sweet and sour sauce and thought that would be perfect for tonight.

Here's my recipe for sweet and sour shrimp. I would have added fresh pineapple, but we didn't have any, if you have some, add it!

Defrost 1 bag of large peeled, cleaned and deveined uncooked shrimp in a bowl of warm water. This usually takes about 3 minutes. I like to pinch the tails off, but this is certainly optional.

Combine 1/2 C. sweet and sour sauce with 1 Tbs. of soy sauce in a bowl. Add shrimp to bowl and let marinate for a few minutes. Heat a large pan on high heat and add 1 Tbs. of either sesame or peanut oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the shrimp and sauce and cook for 2 minutes. Remove and serve hot.

I served the shrimp with the Trader Joe's harvest blend couscous that I love and a salad.

* You could also throw in some cooked shelled edamame, red peppers or even snow peas when cooking the shrimp. *