Pork with Spicy Squash

My wife did all the cooking this weekend.   Both nights she made dinner using recipes from The New Slow Cooker Cookbook from Williams Sonoma. 

On Sunday, she made Pork with Spicy Squash.    This dish was amazing.   I enjoyed this dinner more than anything we have had in the past few months.  It was really delicious.   There are many flavors happening in this dish including butternut squash, fresh cilantro, fresh basil, peanut oil, slow cooked pork shoulder, onion, lime vinaigrette, and wine.   Wow! 

This recipe is also online and I provided the link above.   I am really looking forward to eating the left overs tomorrow night!

Chicken Fried Rice

I love this fried rice recipe from Cooking Light, but I don't make it that often mostly because for fried rice to turn out well, you need to make the steamed rice the day before and I don't usually know what I am going to make for dinner the day before.   Well, I planned ahead this week and had the steamed rice in the fridge ready to go.  

Photo: Randy Mayor; Styling: Leigh Ann Ross

I use chile garlic sauce from a bottle instead of sambal oelek (which I can never find in the grocery store).   I like the way the chicken or pork is cut into very small pieces when I order fried rice from a restaurant, but I never seem to be able to cut my chicken into small enough pieces to get the same effect. 

The recipe calls for cooking the chicken for one and a half minutes or until slightly browned.   I have found, that I need to cook the chicken for about 7 or 8 minutes before its slightly browned.  After about 2 or 3 minutes, a lot of moisture comes out of the chicken and then it takes about 4 minutes for that moisture to boil off and then another minute before the chicken starts to brown.   Maybe cutting the chicken into smaller pieces would help?

My egg never turns out in a form such that I could transfer it to a cutting board and cut it into smaller pieces.   My egg always turns out mostly scrambled and pretty much in small pieces.

Despite these obvious gaps in my ability to correctly prepare fried rice, the dinner turned out great.   It was really delicious and I had a hard time limiting myself to the serving size of one and a half cups.

Thai Beef Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Slaw

After the lasagna earlier in the week, I was in the mood for something a little lighter with more exotic flavors.  I decided to make Thai Beef Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Slaw using a Cooking Light recipe I found on myrecipes.com.

Photo: Becky Luigart-Stayner; Styling: Jan Gautro

 Although the recipe calls for marinating the steak for only 20 minutes, I let the steak marinate for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.   I grilled the steak over a charcoal grill using indirect heat.   I like to arrange the charcoal in a ring around the grill leaving the center open.   I place the meat in the center area and move the meat to the outer edge for searing when needed.

 Ring of Fire

My wife made the slaw for the tacos using the Cooking Light recipe and we used Smart and Delicious Light Flour Tortillas from La Tortilla Factory.  

The slaw was great and the combination of the cilantro, lime juice, ginger, and steak was wonderful.   We really enjoyed this dinner.

Thai Red Curry Tofu and Shrimp Cakes

I have been thinking about making shrimp or crab cakes for quite awhile now and decided to try a Cooking Light recipe for Thai Shrimp Cakes.  

Photo: Brian Woodcock; Styling: Cindy Barr

 I bought frozen, wild-caught, pink Key West shrimp from Whole Foods in Campbell, CA.  The shrimp were lovely and I hesitated to chop them up for the shrimp cakes.   I forgot to add the egg to the shrimp cake mixture and I used all of the shredded coconut in the mixture and had to add more coconut to the breading later.   I also needed a bit more oil when I cooked the shrimp cakes than is called for in the recipe.   Still, the shrimp cakes turned out to be pretty good.   My wife really liked them.

At only 83 calories per shrimp cake (per the recipe), I needed something else to make this a dinner, so I made the shrimp cakes a side dish to one of my favorite Thai dishes-- Thai Red Curry Tofu.

The Red Curry Tofu recipe is based on a Cooking Light Recipe for Thai Red Curry Shrimp.   I marinated the tofu in some Sarachi hot sauce, salt, and a little sesame oil for about an hour and then sauteed with a little more oil before adding the tofu to the curry mixture.   I served the Red Curry Tofu with plain rice.

This was a higher calorie dinner than I usually eat and the fact that I used more coconut than I should have and more oil, my shrimp cakes came out to around 150 calories per cake.   The tofu dish was around 320 calories per serving and with 3/4 cup of rice at 181 calories, the complete dinner was 650 calories!

Grilled Pork Chops with Pineapple Salsa

I have been wanting to try something new and decided to have a go at a Cooking Light recipe for Pork Chops with Pineapple Salsa.   I have really been into making salsas this summer.   This turned out great and I wanted to keep eating the salsa when my pork chop was gone!    My wife enjoyed this dinner as well.

Photo: Randy Mayor; Styling: Melanie J. Clarke

The recipe calls for pan grilled pork chops, but I really enjoy grilling outside on a warm day, so I grilled my pork chops over a charcoal grill.   I made the salsa on the stove.  

I served this with rice noodles and an southeast asian style salad with lettuce, shredded carrots, mint, cilantro, onion and a dressing made with sesame oil, chile garlic sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, and some sugar.

Everything was really delicious and the whole meal with a 3.5 oz cooked pork chop and 4 oz of cooked rice noodles and the salad was under 500 calories.

Chili-Glazed Tofu

The last time we made Chili-Glazed Tofu was back in April.   This is the second meatless dinner this week (3rd dinner if you count the left overs).   This is a dish I get tired of if I make it too often, and generally don't enjoy as left overs, so I try to make this when I don't need to have left overs.   Actually, my wife ended up to doing the cooking tonight.   She did a great job and we had another healthy and delicious dinner.

   

Chili-Glazed Tofu

Chili-Glazed Tofu is a delicious vegetarian dish, that before tonight, I have not made for several months.   Many months ago, this was my go-to vegetarian dish but I think I made it too frequently and got tired of it.   I definitely enjoyed it for dinner tonight and it tasted better than I remember.

The only problem with this dish is the high sodium.   I started a diet yesterday to lose some weight and I really want to get the sodium down as well.   This dish has about 1,000mg of sodium per serving!   This is mainly due to the soy sauce.    Even reduced sodium soy sauce has close to 800mg of sodium per tablespoon!

I did use 25% less soy sauce than the recipe called for which helped a little, and next time I make this I will try to use half the soy sauce.   It is a really delicious, low calorie, filling, and vegetarian dinner and I would like to keep this dinner in my menu rotation.

In general, I am surprised at how much sodium is in many of the foods I eat.   I mean those foods have a lot of sodium if I am going to try to keep my daily intake below 1,500mg.   I was shocked to discover that a slice of white bread has almost 200mg of sodium per slice!   I am thinking about buying a bread machine so that I can make my own reduced sodium bread.

Tomorrow I am planning to make Lemon Oregano Lamb Chops

Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

In one week, I will have recorded two months of meals I have made for my family.   After I hit the one month mark, I realized that it would not be too difficult to go two months without repeating the same meal over the two month period.   Now, I am shooting for three months.   My goal is to use a unique recipe every time I cook, over a three month period starting from when I started this blog.

So, far I have cooked 32 meals and we have either gone out to dinner or ordered take out 3 times.   Since I generally cook 4 dinners per week, in 3 months, on May 16, I will have made 53 meals (assuming we do not go out to dinner on a night I would normally cook).    Even if we do go out once or twice, it will still be over 50 different main dishes.

In order to meet this goal, I am going to have to try several new recipes.   Tonight was a new recipe and it turned out great, although it did not make enough for left overs for tomorrow night.

Tonight I made Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup.   This is a Cooking Light recipe from myrecipes.com and it is very easy to make.   Chop up some bell pepper and mushrooms, mince some garlic and fresh ginger, stir fry, throw in coconut milk, chili paste, fish sauce, and chicken broth and simmer for a bit.   Then throw in some roasted chicken breast and then put green onion and chopped fresh cilantro on top.   Squeeze a couple of limes and put the juice in.   That's it.   It is super good. 

The recipe is supposed to make 4 servings, but each serving is only 1 and 1/3 cup.   My wife and I had close to 2 cups each for dinner along with some fresh spring rolls I picked up from Thai Orchid in Campbell, California.   So, like I said earlier, there was not enough for leftovers for dinner tomorrow night.   I might cook something else tomorrow night or it might be an "on your own" night. 

I was going to make the spring rolls myself, but Whole Foods in Campbell did not have any rice paper for the rolls.   The rools look like they might be pretty easy to make.   If they turned out looking anything like the spring rolls from Thai Orchid, they would be impressive.   Spring Rolls are definitely going on my "learn how to make" list.   The peanut sauce from Thai Orchid was also really good.   Peanut sauce makes these rolls great, so if I decide to make the rolls at some point, I will also need to make the peanut sauce!

Thai Beef Salad

A Thai salad is often a great choice when we feel like we want something "different."   The combination of fresh mint, cilantro, and fish sauce give this Thai Beef Salad a really fresh and exotic set of flavors and aromas.   This is another Cooking Light recipe from myrecipes.com.

I made this dish once before and it turned out well.   Tonight's version was probably a little better than the first time because I marinated the steak a little longer and I used New York Strip instead of flank steak.   I also added rice noodles to the salad which makes the meal more filling.   Its a little too light without the extra calories added by the rice noodels.

When I grilled the Tandoori chicken the other night, I banked all the coals in my charcoal grill around the outside of the grill which seemed to create a more optimal grill temp in the center of the grill.   I did that with the steak for the Thai salad tonight and it worked well with the steak cooked almost perfectly on the inside and just a little charring on the outside.   I think I can do even better with the grilling if I continue to work on it.   I realize now, after the last two meals, that I have been putting way too much heat on the meat.

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Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Zucchini

Tonight's dish is something I have been making for years.   The original version of this dish is a delicious vegetarian recipe from Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin.   After I started eating meat again, I adapted this recipe to include diced chicken.   The original recipe calls for asparagus, but if I cannot find decent asparagus at the grocery store, I will substitute zucchini.   Also, in order to reduce my sodium intake, I use reduced sodium soy sauce and about half the amount of soy sauce called for in the recipe.   If you are looking for good, easy vegetarian recipes, I highly recommend Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures.   This cookbook is what I started with when learning to cook.

Here is the basic idea behind this dish... saute vegetables and scallions with garlic and ginger.   Then saute the diced chicken with garlic and ginger.   Make the sauce or dressing which is 1 part soy sauce, 1 part rice wine, 1 part sesame oil, a dash of chili oil, and 1 part vegetable stock.   Pour the sauce over cooked spaghetti noodles, mix in the chicken and veggies, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Its a delicious meal that always turns out good.   My wife and I always enjoy this dinner.

This is a one night meal... no plan to have left overs.    Below is a breakdown of the cost of this dinner.  I shopped at Whole Foods.

Garlic... $0.10
Organic Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (.95 lb @ $6.99/lb)... $6.69
Ginger...  $0.30
3 Organic Zucchini (0.7lb @ $3.69/lb)...   $2.58
Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, Rice Wine, Vegetable Stock....  $1.25
Green Onions...  $1.49
Spaghetti... $3.20
Sesame Seeds... $??

Total:   $15.61

Makes two servings... so each serving was  at least $7.80

Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp

I often try new recipes on Saturday night.   I don't usually plan to have left overs from a Saturday night meal, so if the recipe doesn't turn out well, then I haven't ruined dinner for two nights.

Tonight I made Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp.   Like most of the recipes I use, this is a Cooking Light recipe I got online at MyRecipes.com.   I have had more success with Cooking Light recipes than any other publication.    I think Cooking Light does a better job of testing their recipes.   I usually pick recipes that have several good reviews.   Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp has 18 reviews and the average is 4 or 5 stars, so seemed like it could be a winner.

I made some modifications.   I used peanut oil instead of canola oil.   I know the peanut oil isn't as healthy but I like the taste a lot better.   I also substituted red bell pepper for the celery.   Other than that, I followed the recipe closely.   Well, it was bland.   It seemed to be missing something.   My wife thought it needed some green veggies like broccoli or zucchini.   I served the dish over white Thai Jasmine rice.

I thought this was the first time I made the Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp, but after going back and looking at the reviews, I realize that I reviewed this dish back in October of 2012 and I gave the dish only 3 stars.   (I think I should change that to 1 star).    I guess I forgot that I made it before and that it wasn't that great the first time.   I need to remove this dish from my saved recipes.

My daughter is 9 years old and she is somewhat allergic to shrimp and doesn't like anything spicy.    For her, I made some poached salmon.    She loves salmon.   She dips the salmon in olive oil and lemon juice and can put away almost a half pound of salmon.    Its about the only thing I can think of that she likes enough to eat that much of.   I usually buy wild caught king salmon, fresh if its available.   I try to limit the salmon to twice / month because of concerns about mercury in fish.