Honey and spice sautéed pork hand tacos

Source:  porkbeinspired.com

So I have a pork problem. I'm not opposed to it. I just find it to be an awkward food. Growing up pork meant shake and bake on thick butterflies chops. Yum. That's a win in my book, even in my 30's. But that's not really my food style anymore. Now I do enjoy pork tenderloin, and hello pulled pork. We buy chips when they go on sale (hello buy one get one!), however the last several times they have seemed to be overlooked and dry. I was flipping through a magazine the other day and saw this recipe. I knew we had pork to use this week so I thought I would give it a try.  

Weather has been pretty rough here today. Like massive flooding shutting down streets. So when I came home I rushed to get dinner started and done before things got bad again. Fail. Meat was marinated but not cooked. I had electric stoves growing up and am never really comfortable but God bless gas. Out electric starter didn't work but a long lighter and the gas got us there. 

Ingredients

1 lb pork thinly sliced into strips (by the time I trimmed away the fat we had 12 oz)

1 tbl olive oil

1 tbl honey

1 tbl soy sauce

1 tbl lemon juice

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp chili powder

Methods

Mix the marinade ingredients well and add pork. Stir to coat and let it sit 15 min. Cook on the sautéed pan for a few min until cooked through (or throw on the grill in a grill pan) 

Serve taco style!

I actually ate mine with a bunch of farmers market veggies and a little cheese in classic fajita salad style. Easy. Fast. Tasty. David approved. Win. 

Sorry for the crap pic.... But we still have no power:(

Buffalo chicken enchiladas

Who doesn't live dome Mexican? Or buffalo chicken?  Why not combine them? EmilyBites did and I gave it a try. Turned out on, but I will stick with my normal Mexican. This was a but too much kick for me and really, I like my Mexican a little more traditional or just tex-mex fusiony. Even David thought these were too spicy. 

Adapted from Emilybites.com

materials

12 oz chicken, cooked and shredded  

8 oz can tomato sauce

1/4 cup buffalo sauce 

1/2 T chili powder

1/2 T cumin

1/2 T garlic powder 

1/8 t sugar

3/4 cup triple cheddar

1/4-1/2 cup minced celery

1 T blue cheese dressing 

8 small corn tortillas 

methods

Combine the tomato sauce, buffalo sauce, chili poser, cumin, garlic powder, and sugar. Take 1/2 cup sauce and mix well with chicken, cheese, and blue cheese dressing. At this point I stopped to make David's veggie free enchiladas. For mine I mixed in the celery and completed the enchiladas. Spray with a little oil and bake at 425F for 8-10 min to get crunchy. Then lower the heat to 400, top with the remaining sauce and bake for 18-20 min. 

David added plenty of extra blue cheese dressing to cool his down. Ill be using some yogurt with my leftovers for lunch.  And later this week we will just go back to old fashioned turkey and black bean enchiladas. 

Baked Cod

Nothing super special here. We bought a bunch of cod when it was on sale, but I had no idea what we were going to do with it since frying was out. I found this handy little method of cooking them in Cooking Light. It was pretty quick ad actually turned out crunchy!  I imagine we will use this method again.

Ingredients

2 cod fillets, approx 4 is apiece

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/4 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder 

Black pepper and salt to taste 

2 tbl oil (olive or canola)

Methods

Preheat oven to 450F.

I started out with mixing the panko, paprika, onion powder, and garlic powder in a bowl. Next, I rinsed the cod and patted it dry and salted and peppered to taste. Next step - obviously, dip the cod into the egg followed by the breadcrumbs. 

Add the oil to an ovenproof pan on medium/medium-high. Pan fry the cod pieces for about 3 minutes on one side (until brown and crispy). I flipped the fish over and then baked it for about 7-8 minutes in the preheated oven. 

I enjoyed with a sauce made of Greek yogurt, lemon juice, and fresh dill. Definitely the best fake fried fish I've made. 

Chickpea and Tomato Summer Salad

Lets be honest, I have a love affair with beans. It started when I was single and it was me and the baked beans. We were pretty monogamous. Then I got a little older and had some flirty times with the refried beans at Mexican restaurants. Since my vegetarian lent, well lets just say I'm a full on bean slut. I haven't really had a bean I didn't like. 

When it comes to chickpeas though, they always make me think of my mom. Her palate is a little more constrained than mine, however out I the blue when I was in high school she piled some garbanzo beans on her salad and announced that she had always lied them. I had never seen her eat them before that, but they are her bean of choice. So when I was out searching the interweb for recipes and came across this Chickpea and Tomato Salad on Eat Yourself Skinny, I knew I had to give it a try. 

I was able to use cherry tomatoes from the farmers market and basil out of our garden, making this super fresh and delicious. Winning:  Keys - fast, easy, fresh, healthy, tastes.  I enjoyed the combination of the different vinegars and the addition if honey for a smidge of sweetness. I see this being repeated agin this summer, possibly while mom is visiting.  

Ingredients:  

1 large container farmers market tomatoes

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained. 

1 handful fresh garden basil

1 tbl red wine vinegar

1 tbl apple cider vinegar

2 tsp olive oil

1/2. Tbl honey

Salt to taste

Directions 

I started with quartering the tomatoes lengthwise and added them to a bowl with the chickpeas. 

I chopped up the basil fairly finely, and added the remaining ingredients to the bowl. Mix and allow to sit for a while to mellow the ingredients. 

Salmon Tacos

You know how fish tacos left California in like 2001 and started gaining popularity around the country. Yup it's 2013 here, you can do the math. I've had some delicious fish tacos at restaurants, but they were usually battered (not exactly how i roll at home 95% of the time) or just seemed out of reach (i have an inferiority complex with cooking fish). Meanwhile,  we've had a few less than super-successful (but still edible) attempts involving tilapia and pre-packaged taco seasoning.

I pulled this recipe out of a magazine months ago and it go shoved to the bottom of a bunch of recipe cards.  I found it last week while meal planning and thought it had potential. We generally love salmon (yay omega 3 fatty acids!) and buy it whenever it's on sale. The  magazine actually gave guacamole and rice recipes, but I was honed in on the salmon. 

I thought this tasted awesome. I put mine in a hard shell corn taco with a little cheese and some guiltless guac from trader joes that is sitting around needing to be used with a little tomato on the side. I had planned to add some napa cabbage that I have, but totally forgot to take it out and slice. Oops. But back to my point, it was light, I knew it was healthy, and it really hit the spot. David also enjoyed it - giving it approval as another good way to prep salmon. I would eat this without tacos - just prepared as seasoned fish, but I love tacos. It was so easy I for see this being added to the regulars. 

Ingredients (served 2, 2 tacos for each of us)

2 salmon fillets (4 oz apiece)

Olive oil

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp coriander 

1/8 tsp salt

Pinch pepper to taste 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet  with foil. Pat the salmon dry and place skin side down. Spray with a little olive oil to coat surface of the fish. 

2 Mix spices in a small bowl. 

3.  Rub the spice mix on the salmon. Bake for 15 minutes.

4.  Flake cooked fish into large chunks and enjoy on your favorite corn or flour based tortilla product. :)

Cucumber dill salad

This is a simple oldie and goodie.  My sister makes a cucumber dill salad that is yummy. Since its the unofficial start of summer, it called to me to make this super healthy salad to go with our burgers Saturday night. It felt especially fitting since we have dill going to town this summer.  Traditional salads include red onion, but I have mixed feelings on onions, so I don't include them. Likewise i know there are a lot of traditional versions of this with a creamy base, but i prefer the healthy and super tangy version with the vinegar. A little bit goes a long way. I did use this excuse to pull out my mandolin. Every opportunity to use a kitchen gadget is a good opportunity. 

Ingredients

1 English cucumber sliced thinly

3 tbl white vinegar

2 tsp sugar 

2 tbl fresh dill. 

Pepper to taste 

I started out with slicing the cucumber up on the mandolin. 

In a small bowl I mixed up the vinegar, sugar, dill, and pepper.  

Toss the vinegar sauce with the cucumbers and let it soak up the deliciousness. They were even better the second day :)

Blue Cheese and Gingered Pear Quesadillas

Last year I mysteriously started getting Family Circle Magazine. I'm assuming its some sort of marketing ploy to get me to love the magazine and start buying it myself, or someone gifted me and forgot to tell me. This months issue had an interesting recipe at the back. I'm not sure why it jumped out at me, because its way fancy for a 'burgh girl like me and Mr Meat 'n Potatoes. 

We braved it and I deemed it a nice easy success. Meat had his without the pear, which meant more for me :). To make for it I gave him a little extra blue cheese and prosciutto - a fair trade in everyone's eyes. I enjoyed mine on high fiber la tortilla factory tortillas, so it really was just enough. I felt it was light, tasty, and just enough without feeling grossly full (needed after stuffing my face at St Nicks Greek food festival Friday and my friend Jen's birthday Sunday). David wondered who would think to put anything other than beef or chicken with Mexican cheese on a quesadilla, but never says no if it involves prosciutto. I think it's likely we will add this to our rotation.  It's basically a fancy grilled cheese in quesadilla form. Next time I might just place the prosciutto on the tortilla as a whole slice and finely slice the pear instead of dicing and then cover with a blue cheese/lime/ginger mix. 

This may have been my first foray into fresh ginger. Nor sure why I avoided it previously? 

Ingredients

1 pear, diced

1/2 tbl fresh ginger, minced

Juice of a lime

4-5 tbl blue cheese, crumbled

4 slices prosciutto, cut into pieces

4 large tortillas 

 Instructions 

Combine blue cheese, finer, lime juice, and pear. Mix well. 

Put a tortilla on the quesadilla maker or hot pan (may need a spritz of oil). Cover with half of prosciutto and half of the fruit and cheese mixture. Place another tortilla on top and grill. Repeat and enjoy :)

Both the most beautiful picture, but tasty none the less.