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Fried Beef w/ Sweet Plantains & Shepherds Pie

Wednesday after putting more Christmas decorations up and finally taking our tree down, I decided to make a dish I loved to eat in Puerto Rico (other than the fried pork chops and sticky white rice).

Fried beef chunks and sweet plantains, which are ripe plantains... And it's definitely not the same as fried bananas. I don't really care for bananas.

The flour mixture included salt, cumin, adobo, and garlic powder.

I tossed the prepackage cuts of beef in the seasoned flour then fried them .I will remind myself to cut up my own beef because the sizes of the pieces were inconsistent and mostly too small. Lesson learned.

The sweet plantains were frozen and I just had to warm them up. Some day I will go to that Pilipino store my mom used to go to so I can make my own fried sweet plantains!

Today Jeremy decided to cook Shepherd's pie... by the time I got home he already seasoned and cooked the meat in some onions, peas, and carrots. I know that he used salt, garlic salt, rosemary, and probably pepper.

Then he smashed some potatoes up that were boiling in some herbs and I topped the meat off with them and some cheese. He baked it in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes and we had a lot of food leftover! I like that my passion for cooking rubbed off on him.

 I promise I'll be better about posting. I've just had a tough week at work, but I still do love it. My next posts will have my DIY Valentine's decorations! Having a new house just makes me want to decorate for every months events! Goodnight.

Crockpot Carnitas

This has been one loooong, & tough week for me! Work has been very busy & our patients have been driving me insane. Thankfully, I have my workout classes and sangria to kill my stress... I have been slacking on my posts, but I haven't stopped cooking!

Monday I prepped the meat to make the carnitas so I could start up the crockpot Tuesday morning before work. Crockpot meals are so great if you don't have a lot of time for cooking, especially if you work & have kids. One of my favorite meals to cook in a crockpot is beef stroganoff, I'll have to post that one some time.

For the carnitas:

I poured the chicken broth into the pot

I rubbed salt/pepper, cumin, oregano, and ancho chili powder on some pork loin. I cut up half of an onion & smashed some garlic cloves. Threw it all in the pot then let it sit overnight.

Tuesday morning I started the crockpot at 7am and came back this:

I took the meat out and laid it out on a pan to broil for a couple of minutes in the oven.

I thought to use these "healthier" tortillas... It's always good to replace something each day with a healthy item. They were pretty good, but nothing will ever beat a buttery fattening flour tortilla!

I bought this local salsa a few months ago & finally got to try it out. It was good, and very spicy! I really like to by local products because a lot of the people who make these foods really put a lot of thought into their ingredients.

Tada! And this is the final product. The tacos were really great, & I was happy to know my dinner was 90% finished when I got home from the gym.

Garlic Chicken & Potatoes

What a Monday... All I could think about is what to cook tonight. So I looked around at a couple easy quick dishes to make at lunch. Most of the time I like to base what to make off of what I have at home because I hate to waste. I knew I had potatoes that were going to go bad soon so here it is...

 

I used our new peeler today & it's pretty dangerous, but very efficient. I kinda sorta peeled up the potatoes. Mostly where there were a lot of darker spots.

 

 

 

Then I thought, why not add some bacon?

 

I threw it all into a baking dish and drizzled a little bit of oil, then cracked some salt and pepper in. Tossed it all together & put it in the oven at 425 degrees.

 

I chopped up some garlic, probably a little more than what I needed but, I love garlic. I also chopped up some parsley I had leftover in the fridge.

 

I put a little bit of oil in a pan, & just barley browned it before I took it off the heat. Garlic is so easy to burn and it can really ruin a dish.

 

So once the pan was off the burner I added a little bit of brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and lime.

 

After the potatoes were in the oven for about 5-10 minutes I took them out so I could add some thinly sliced chicken breast. I seasoned the chicken with salt and topped it off with the garlic mixture. Then I let it sit in the oven for another 25-30 minutes.

 

And then finally, we ate!

 

I started to workout today... I haven't really been in my normal rhythm since early fall and I am determined to get back on track. I can definitely feel my body is more tired at an earlier time tonight. But cooking and working out are my two favorite things to do. I'm hoping this week goes by fast. Goodnight.

Pizza Friday/ Saturday Morning

Yesterday I stopped by SPROUTS to pick up a few things after work. And one of those things was a Basil plant. I have always wanted a bunch of plants/herbs in my kitchen, so I'm starting now.

 

 

Once I saw that basil plant at the grocery, I immediately thought about pizza. So I started gathering ingredients for toppings. Once I got home, I didn't just want to make the normal pizza dough we regularly use so, I made a whole wheat dough.

 

 

After making this dough, I think Sunday I'm going to bake a whole wheat loaf for the week.

 

 

Once the dough was almost done rising, I started the pizza sauce. I had been researching different sauces to make and I ended up mixing a couple of different recipes together.

 

The pizza sauce came out really good, I was very happy because it was my first time making my own.

 

 

 

All you do is mix all the ingredients together in a sauce pan, then season to taste.



Ingredients:

tomato puree

chicken broth

garlic powder

onion powder

marjoram

Italian seasoning

dried oregano

salt/pepper

 





 

We usually like to use fresh mozzarella, but I ended up trying whole milk mozzarella cheese. It was good cheese, but fresh mozzarella can never be beat! I also found a salami that was uncured Italian dried, & it was tasty. Last, but not least, I just had to use my fresh basil. After I put the pizza in the oven, I wondered why I didn't make a basil sauce! I'll definitely make that sauce soon.

 

 

 

The crust was nice and crispy. I was worried about it being soggy towards the center. Thankfully the pizza was a success. Pizza once a week does the body good... I need to start looking up different toppings so we can have a good variety of pizza recipes.

 

 

This morning I had a pistachio muffin for the first time. It was pretty good, a little too sweet for me but, the coffee balanced it out. Made me realize that I should start baking sweets, even though baking doesn't come very easily to me, I do want to get better at it.

 



 

I am behind on this series, but my husband and I are on season 6 of Dexter. It really is a good show, and very addicting. I'm glad it's all on Netflix so I don't have to stop watching it! We will probably be done with the series mid next week. I'm not sure what I will do!

 

 

Later on today we went to Kirkland's to buy more house décor. We really need to start looking into buying more furniture but we will get there.

 

We got a memo board, I though it looked really cute to hang up. I just need to figure out where to put it! I'll make sure we pin on lots of nice things on this board. 

 

 

Have a safe night!

 

Spicy Chinese Five-Spice Chicken Wings with Greek Yogurt Sauce

It's the second day of the year! I decided to make wings today, but it's the first time I make them like this. I love the Food Network "In the Kitchen" app. They have tons of ideas and make it easy to use in the kitchen with an iPad. So, this recipe was by Dave Lieberman... I didn't use the same creamy sauce recipe that it featured, but it's pretty similar.

 

So here it goes:

 

 

I started with whole chicken wings. They're cheaper if you cut them up yourself AND you can use the wing tips for making a broth. So I chopped them off and threw them in the freezer for later. Maybe I'll make some homemade broth this weekend, the temperature will be dropping this Sunday!

 

The seasonings were pretty simple: cayenne pepper, Chinese five-spice, salt & pepper.

I've noticed I don't ever measure anything anymore... It really surprises me how far I've come with cooking, and I love it!

I baked these wings at 500 degrees in the oven for 25 mins

 

Now for the yogurt sauce:

 



 

I ended up using only one lime, Greek yogurt, parsley flakes, salt, & pepper. I really love using Greek yogurt because of the consistency, and the tangy flavor it gives off. It's great for cooking and baking. And a plus to using the yogurt is that it is healthier! Greek yogurt has less calories, is higher in protein and in vitamin B-12 (helps with energy production, hair & nail growth, & skin). We bought Himalayan pink salt from Costco awhile back. We originally only got it for the color, but the salt is actually really great.

 

So I mixed it all together: 

 

 

And the end result:

Crispy, perfectly seasoned wings. I love fried wings, but baked wings are just as yummy.

 

If only more people would actually step into their kitchens to cook something instead of microwaving a meal, or ordering out. Some of the excuses I hear: I hate doing dishes, I don't know how to cook, I don't have time.

1) Dishes are my enemy, I throw those in the dishwasher!

2) You don't have to know how to cook, there are so many websites that have all types of recipes & different levels of cooking.

3) And the last excuse, you don't have time... there is time. This took me only 10 minutes to prep & 25 minutes in the oven gives you 25 minutes to do whatever you need to do.

 

So no excuses people! We need more people in the kitchen!

Cooking Up Good Luck for the New Year

Another year has gone by and new food items are on my mind. To bring in the new year we went with a bone in ribeye, and cabbage with salt pork.

Pork signifies abundance & plenty of food. Pigs also root forward into the ground, which symbolizes progress.

Cooked greens, which look like folded dollar bills, are believed to bring money and prosperity for the new year.