"Iron Chef" Orange Glazed Pork

A month or two ago, I bought a jar if Iron Chef Orange Sauce with ginger on clearance for half price. I decided to cook some pork chops with minced garlic, grated crystallized ginger and this sauce, adding water chestnuts, steamed vegetables in a light butter sauce and a can of green beans since the vegetable content looked low.

Broccoli and fish, a quick dinner

Tonight I finally sat down and listed my recipes and my ingredients needed for Thanksgiving. I have quite the menu planned... but more about that later.

I had a Target dinner, their battered pollock filets and steam-in-bag broccoli. I made a garlic, lemon and butter sauce for the broccoli and mixed 1 part Archer Farm lemon-dill mustard to 2 parts sour cream, with one teaspoon Aldi country herbs. That was a pretty cool dinner...

I also discovered that Wegmans has new escargot appetizers in the shell. I am soooo serving these for Thanksgiving.

Vegan stirfry

I didn't get a photo of today's lunch, a simple and plain affair for which a friend joined us.

I heated the Le Creuset skillet with about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed, and a teaspoon of sesame oil, swirled around the pan with my hand. I fried the last serving of homemade seitan. Added a bag of the steam-in-bag spring vegetables with citrus sauce from Aldi.

Had rice cooking (1 cup) in the steamer. Combined it in the skillet (only about half the rice). Heated and stirred. Added about a 1/2 teaspoon four color organic pepper and a teaspoon of garlic salt.

Italian Style Veggie and Rice skillet

One more day and my husband gets paid. The cupboards are getting bare, but yet are older stocked with items like eggs, flour and butter.

I took a bag of steam in bag Italian vegetables, with some sort of mildly seasoned sauce, and the last Boca burger. I threw the veggies in the microwave and fried the veggie burger in olive oil and butter and a dash of soy sauce. I chopped it up, added the veggies, a pinch of four-color pepper, and the leftover two cups of cooked white rice. Added some garlic powder and a little over a tablespoon of butter to keep the rice from sticking to the skillet and...

Voilà.

Far from fabulous. But a fairly healthy lunch.

Seitan wraps

I used my homemade seitan last night to make wraps with Aldi steam-in-bag Season's Choice Italian blend vegetables.

I fried the seitan over medium low heat in olive oil and sesame oil to make it crisper and give it some extra flavor.

This morning, we had frosted mini-wheats. For lunch I'm anticipating half tuna sandwiches on store-bought wheat and tortilla chips with mango salsa.

For dinner, I want to try and make pizza in my Le Creuset skillet. Using it like a pizza stone...

Pork Citrus Pasta/ Day's Meal Plan

For breakfast we had oatmeal with fresh blueberries.

For dinner I took the leftover chili with cornbread dumplings out of the freezer since I have class until 4, and a career fair after that.

For breakfast tomorrow, I took sticky buns out of the freezer. We have a bunch of errands to do in the a.m. and thought sticky buns would be fun.

For lunch today, there's not enough pork with vegetables from last night for everyone. So, I took the pork, and cut it into bitsize pieces and took another bag of the steam-in-bag spring vegetables in citrus sauce and made some multigrain rotini and served the whole thing over pasta.

Pork and carrots

Since I had three pounds of cooked carrots... I gathered the following:

• the carrots
• one steam-in-bag of "spring vegetables in citrus sauce" from Aldi. (Carrots, snap peas, asparagus, tiny onions and tiny bits of roasted red pepper)
• the last two one-inch thick boneless porkchops I got from Wegmans probably in December
• butter
• extra virgin olive oil

My husband sliced the pork into stir fry strips. I fried them in about 1.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. When they were just about done, I added about one tablespoon butter and close to 1 pound of steamed baby carrots. Stirred it all thoroughly.

Then I prepared the steam-in-bag vegetables as the directions stated and poured that on top of the whole mixture. Squeezed out every drop of sauce and stirred it all up until it was hot and thoroughly mixed.

The carrots tasted delicious.

Italian Veggie "Pizza"

I took some of my homemade bread out of the freezer, plain today which means 50% wheat and 50% white. I made some Aldi Steam-in-bag Italian blend vegetables with herb sauce and I plan on making "French bread pizzas" out of them... probably with some garlic bread as the base and parmesan and cheddar on top. All broiled in the oven until bubbly.

Update and Tator Tot Casserole.

I don't even know how I could have not updated this since Tuesday... Last night we had a 50% off coupon for our favorite Mexican restaurant, so today we had leftovers for lunch and fruity fred for breakfast. Somewhere on my camera, I have photos of Wednesday night's dinner which was Light Life Vegetarian stir-fry beef, sautéed in olive oil and soy sauce, sprinkled with oriental five spice and rolled into a warm wrap. With a side of fresh vegetables with dippings...

Now, I'm cooking some tator tots and I'm going to place them in a greased bread pan. I'm going to layer some thawed French cut green beans on top, with a hint of four-color pepper, and pour some Aldi brand Italian blend steam-in-bag vegetables with herb sauce.

Debating whether to add corn for sweetness...

I will probably add some crumbled boca burger for protein and cook it like a casserole. My family will love it.

Ravioli with gouda and broccoli

This recipe was designed to use up holiday leftovers from my husband's work party, primarily ham and some smoked gouda.

I started with some steam-in-the-bag just picked broccoli cuts from Wegmans, which honestly, disappointed me a tad because of the number of stems in the bag. With those prepared and about 12 large cheese ravioli cooking, I got my Le Creuset skillet and began concocting a sauce.

First, I melted four tablespoons butter, then added the broccoli, hearty sprinkles of garlic pepper, and sprinkled breadcrumbs over the broccoli. I let that sizzle a few minutes (like two). I added about 3/4 cup soy milk and 1 heaping teaspoon flour, working very carefully to keep the flour away from the broccoli until I got the butter milk and flour incorporated. I added about 3/4 cup tiny pieces of ham. Then I also added about 1/4 cup of small chunks of gouda. After that melted, I set the sauce aside and, with drippings still in the pan, added about two teaspoons extra virgin olive oil to the skillet. Then I fried the ravioli over low heat and sprinkled them with another 1/2 cup finely grated smoked gouda.

Then I returned the sauce to the pan, stirred it all up, and added another 1/4 cup finely grated smoked gouda. And served. It was fantastic.