What I Made (Wednesday):
Stir Fry Vegetable with Pork
As I mentioned it would be yesterday, it was really easy because I just use the big bag of frozen stir-fry veggies from Costco. However, before throwing them in the skillet (we don't have a wok) I heated a little bit of EVOO and some fresh grated ginger root. Then I threw in the veggies. After they were done cooking, I added the pork that I had previously grilled with a little garlic powder rub. After adding the pork to the veggies is when I added the stir-fry sauce. I had also added a handful of slivered almonds to add a little bit of crunchiness to the stir-fry. All this combined made it taste almost identical to the bottle of Kikoman's Stir-Fry sauce we had used before.
What I Learned:
Adding fresh grated ginger root to the oil before the veggies will not(!) make the ginger flavor too powerful (yay!)
I need to review cooking temps and times for pork chops before the next time I grill it. I think I cooked them a little too long because they were a little firm. Fortunately, they tasted fine (I think the garlic powder was a nice touch, and was Corrina's idea) and I chopped them into bite-sized pieces after cooking and before adding to the veggies so it wasn't that big of a deal.
What I Made (Thursday):
Soy-Glazed Salmon Steaks and Steamed Vegetables
So, I was a little worried I was going to fail tonight because, for various reasons, I didn't think about dinner til this afternoon. I found a fairly simple, and yummy-looking recipe for a meat loaf that I thought about trying, but when I mentioned it to Corrina, she pointed out that there wasn't going to be enough time to thaw the beef and cook the loaf :-( So I went onto supercook.com (which was suggested to me by Amanda Dyck) and entered a bunch of the items we have on hand. We happened to have some frozen Salmon fillets so I added that to the list and this was one of the recipes that bounced back. Can you say super easy! The glaze is 3 ingredients that you whisk together and then you just brush it onto the salmon and broil it. The veggies were another bag of Costco frozen veggies, Normandy-Style this time. I cooked those in the micro-steamer while the fillets were broiling and added a little bit of butter to them in the last minute or two. My wife and I aren't big fans of fish, but we have found some yummy recipes for salmon, and this is one that I think I'll add to the repertoire, with a minor change which I'll discuss below.
What I Learned:
I CAN'T BROIL AND, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN! This isn't the first time I've tried and every time I have, I can't get it to work right. If the recipe says broil for 5 minutes, it ends up taking 10-15 and the extra juice/sauce/glaze run-off inevitably burns and smokes up the the place. That is why the minor change in repeating this recipe will be to brush the glaze on both sides and throw it on the George Foreman grill.
I also learned that I love ginger in cooking. It added nice flavor to the stir-fry last night and added nice flavor to the salmon tonight, didn't even need lemon juice. My mother-in-law is very allergic to ginger, so that would be a problem when she visits. However, when she visits, she usually cooks because she is so much better than me. :-)
Sneak Preview for Tomorrow:
Can we say bacon?!
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