30 Nights of Salad - Day 9

Pork Chop salad? It's whats for dinner! Grilled pork chops (thin sliced or thick cut) are so delicious. We throw them on the George Foreman grill and in a few minutes we have completely cooked through - tender delicious pork chops. Grilling your meat instead of frying it is a great way to maintain crunch but with way less calories, fat, etc. Alas my Grill conked out recently so I am using olive oil to fry my chops. I used less than 1 tablespoon to fry 4 thin Pork Chops and of course I drained them on a paper towel after they were done. Pork is a fun alternative to our everyday fare of Chicken - chicken breast, chicken wings, ground chicken - ugh. And it pairs really nicely with apples and cranberries, so I used this as an inspiration for my salad. It came out amazing and neither of us left food on our plates! And our daughter loved this salad - even the cranberries. Here's the ingredient list - Enjoy!

Pork Chop Salad
-4 thin sliced pork chops (seasoned to your taste)
-1 tablespoon of olive oil (Omit if using a grill)
-1 onion, sliced
-1/2 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
-1/2 apple sliced (I prefer Gala)
-scallions, chopped
-dried cranberries, handful
-lettuce

***I cooked the pork chops in less than 1 tablespoon of olive oil and drained on paper towels. You can also grill if you like. Also I prefer my onions cooked, so I fried the onions in the remaining oil. Feel free to grill these also or leave raw - however, cooking them just a bit brings out the natural sweetness in onions and goes well with the chops! Wash & assemble the remaining ingredients and voila! Pork Chop Salad!
I used the raspberry vinaigrette on mine and it went so great! Although hubby does not like the raspberry pits - I barely notice them.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Fresh Peaches

My supermarket recently received the most beautiful picture perfect peaches and I couldn't help but grab a couple just because they were there and looking gorgeous. So this morning I cut into one and oops! not ripe enough, but that's okay! I had a plan. I cooked them with a little drizzle of honey and a pat of butter (a thin slice of butter). The honey balanced out the tartness of the not so ripe peach. Then I baked some Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits and spooned the peaches over the top. It was simple, it was easy, it was yummy. I'd rather not have cereal everyday nor do I want pancakes/bacon/grits etc. very often. So it's important to me to mix it up a bit and try something different. Hope this inspires you too!

30 Nights of Salad - Day 7

Here we are at Day 7! A week of salads! We're really doing it - show no signs of slowing down! Day 6 was basic salad, but tonight it's on in the kitchen! We used the remainder of the baked Honey BBQ Salmon and put it to good use tonight. I'll let the picture speak for itself and of course the recipe is below:



Honey BBQ Salmon Salad
-Baked boneless skinless Salmon fillets in Honey and BBQ sauce (please see here for recipe)
-1 Mango, skinned & chopped
-1 small avocado, chopped
-1 Roasted Red Pepper, thinly sliced
-Mixed Greens

***Toss together! I used the remaining sauce for a dressing, about 3 teaspoons for myself.

Father's Day Picnic

For Father's Day, I wanted to show my husband how much he was appreciated, so I put together a little picnic for us and took the gang to the Park. It was a gorgeous day today, a little hot but lovely nonetheless. We took our daughter out on her bike and rolled down the hill to Riverbank State Park. We were lucky to find a spot in the shade considering how crowded it was, but it all worked out! I made something he loves, Fried chicken wings with mango washed down with raspberry lemonade iced tea and for dessert! Ah dessert! We had chocolate pudding from a wonderful bakery called Sugar Sweet Sunshine - this pudding is amazing ohmygoodness out of this world and their Banana pudding is better than that! It's a treat and an indulgence we try not to overdo. But it was necessary for today, a small token of thanks to my man, an amazing husband and truly a wonderful father! The recipes are below! Enjoy!

Yummy fried chicken with mango
-15 Chicken wings
-Seasoned salt
-Bells seasoning
-Garlic Powder
-Onion Powder
-Badia complete seasoning
-some olive oil

***I fried these in canola oil very slowly. Low medium heat for about 10-15 minutes on each side.
***I use the amount of seasoning that I'm comfortable with. Try it your way and feel free to add or omit any ingredient!
***MANGOES!!!! Cut up some Mango slices and out them in a tupperware on top of the chicken so that the juices drip onto the chicken and flavor them that way! YUM!