1 day before Ike: Fried Rice

This is the best fried rice recipe I've ever tried. You can adjust all of the ingredients to suit your tastes. My husband doesn't like many veggies, so I just have onions, bell peppers, and bean sprouts in mine. You can add carrots, broccoli, or any frozen stir fry mix (without the sauce). The trick is to used cold, cooked rice. I used the left over pork from the Savory Pork Roast (previous post), but you could used cooked chicken, beef, or shrimp instead. It's great for almost any leftover meat!!

Fried Rice

This photo isn't very good!!

1 small onion, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup green pepper, finely chopped

1/2 cup green onions, chopped

2 tbsp. veg. oil

3 eggs, beaten

2 cups cold, cooked white rice

4-5 tbsp. soy sauce (or however much you like)

1/2 cup bean sprouts

2 cups cubed, cooked pork

salt and pepper to taste

Heat one tbsp. of oil over medium heat in a large, nonstick skillet. Add the onion and saute for 1-2 minutes (you still want them to be crisp/tender after all cooking, so only cook for a few minutes). Add the green onion, bean sprouts, and green pepper; continue to saute until all veggies are crisp tender. Remove the vegetables and set aside. Heat remaining tbsp. of oil over medium heat. Add eggs; cook and stir continuously till set. Break up the egg while cooking, so you get small bite size pieces. Add the meat, rice, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and vegetables into the pan. Cook and stir until heated through. Enjoy!!

Notes: I usually don't have leftover rice in the fridge, so I usually make 2 cups of instant rice at the beginning and throw it in the freezer while I prep the veggies. You might need more time for it to get cold if you prep faster than I do. I hope you try this one!!

2 days before Ike: Savory Pork Roast

My husband went nuts over this dish and it couldn't be easier. He didn't believe that this was the 3rd or 4th time I had made it. He swore he had never eaten it before. Anyway, it's great tasting, and it makes plenty for leftovers, as you'll see in my next post.

Savory Pork Roast

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp. dried marjoram

1 tsp. sage

1 tsp. salt

1 boneless pork loin roast ~ 4 lbs ( Not pork tenderloin)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the seasonings; rub over roast. Place on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. Let stand for 10-15 minutes before slicing.

Notes: Ok, the trick to making this a great dish is using a thermometer. I don't know about you, but I don't always buy a 4lb pork roast, so mine are usually smaller, and therefore cook for different amounts of time. Just buy whatever size you want, and then cook until it has an internal temp of 160 degrees. It is so juicy, but perfectly crisp on the outside. The other note I'd like to mention is to wait till pork loins go on sale!!! They are too expensive otherwise. I usually wait till they are $1.99/lb. I'll buy one smaller pork loin for this dish, and then I buy two more and have the butcher cut them into pork chops for free. That usually lasts me until they go on sale again, or longer.

I'm back!!

Sorry to the few ppl who read my blog for the long delay. Hurricane Ike has come and gone. My family is extremely lucky. My husband and I didn't have any roof damage, although almost every house around us does. It's crazy to drive through a neighborhood and see carpet and mattresses laying next to the street all around you. We lived on Galveston island for the last 7 years and just moved to Houston a few months ago. Can't believe how close we came to possibly losing everything. By the way, we now have renter's insurance as well.

We moved into our new house at the beginning of July, and it's the first time I've used a gas stove/oven in my life. I wasn't convinced that it was any better than electric until Ike knocked out the power!! So, we have been cooking/eating during our power outage. We spent the night of the hurricane in the walk in closet with our 2 cats. We didn't come out till about 6am. We didn't eat breakfast because we were too tired from being up all night. We mostly ate potato chips that first day. On Sunday morning, my husband cooked up some sausage and we had sausage and cheese bagels for breakfast. We realized that all of our food was already thawing that morning. So, we loaded up everything frozed/refrigerated, and took it to my dad's house. We spent the night there (tv, ac, and internet included). On Monday, we got the call that our power was back on, and we loaded up to come home.

As I said before, we are so lucky. My mom and some friends still don't have power. School will resume hopefully next Tuesday for my school district. Things are slowly starting to get back to normal. I even got gas today without waiting in a line!!

Garlic Ranch Chicken with Potatoes, Peas, and Pearl Onions

I've been really busy with school starting so, I haven't been able to keep up with this as much as I'd like. Also, I haven't been cooking as much as usual because we've been going out a lot lately. My birthday was a little over a week ago, and we have finally finished celebrating. Margaritas at Gringo's!!! So, now it's back to the kitchen. Right now I'm praying that Ike stays away. I sure would hate to lose all of the food in my freezer. I've been working on my food stockpile for 3 months!!


Okay, so as for tonight's dinner... it was worth trying again, but not amazing. I need to work on it a little to make it great. Both of the dishes were new, so it was just a test run.

Garlic Ranch Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. minced garlic

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp. ranch salad dressing mix

1/8 tsp. pepper

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. butter

Flatten chicken slightly; set aside. In a shallow bowl, combine milk and garlic. In another shallow bowl, combine the flour, salad dressing mix, and pepper. Dip chicken in milk mixture, then coat with flour mixture. In a large skillet, cook chicken in oil and butter over medium heat for 6-8 minutes on each side or unitl juices run clear.

Potatoes, Peas, and Pearl Onions

1 package 20oz of regfrigerated red potato wedges (or about 1 1/2 lbs of red potatoes cut into wedges yourself)

1/3 cup water

1 1/3 cups frozen pearl onions, thawed

3 tbsp. butter

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/3 cup chicken broth

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 can peas, drained

3 tbsp. chopped green onions

Place potato wedges and water in a 2qt microwave safe bowl. Cover and microwave on high 8-10 minutes or until potatoes are tender; drain and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute pearl onions in butter for 2 minutes. Add the cream, broth, salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5-7 minutes or until onions are tender. Stir in the peas, green onions and reserved potatoes; heat through.

Notes: I really liked this dish, but I wanted the sauce to be thicker. I think that I'll let the cream mixture boil for a few minutes next time until its thicker, before I reduce the heat and simmer.

Veggie Lasagna

Don't knock it till you've tried it. This was a really easy lasagna recipe without any meat. Although, you could very easily add meat to it if you like. I conveniently left out the word "Veggie" from my meal plan posted on the fridge, and my husband never even realized the meat was missing. This recipe is a little different, considering it calls for green beans in the lasagna. But, in my family, we always ate green beans as a side dish with spaghetti, so it wasn't as much of a stretch for me.

Veggie Lasagna

9 uncooked lasagna noodles

1 egg

1 egg white

1 15oz. caton reduced fat ricotta cheese

2 tsp. dried parsley flakes

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. pepper

4 cups garden style spaghetti sauce

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 or 2 cans cut green beans, drained (add as little as one can or as much as two)

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook noodles according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the eggs, egg whites, ricotta cheese, parsley, basil, oregano, and pepper; set aside. In a 13x9x2 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray, spread 1 cup spaghetti sauce. Drain noodles; place three noodles over spaghetti sauce. Layer with half of the ricotta mixture, 1 cup spaghetti sauce, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, three lasagna noodles, and the green beans. Top with the remaining ricotta mixture, 1 cup spaghetti sauce, remaining lasagna noodles, spaghetti sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over each. Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until bubbly and edges are lightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Notes: This really was a good dish, but I had to make some changes to it. I went to buy the garden style Ragu spaghetti sauce, but after reading the ingredients, I realized it had mushrooms in it. I swear my husband can smell mushrooms from a mile away, and he hates them. So, I settled for the Ragu Chunky Tomato, Onion, and Garlic sauce. It had great flavor, but it wasn't very chunky, and there was a distinct lacking of veggies in my veggie lasagna, except for the green beans. I think I will definately try this again, but I'm going to saute some green peppers and onions, and add them to the spaghetti sauce.

Baked Chops and Fries

This is a wonderful meal that I thought was going to be a total disaster (it almost was). I think I've worked out most of the bugs though. It is a creamy casserole with pork chops, potatoes, and green beans. What more could you want??? (Sorry, the pictures I took were just too bad to post)

Baked Chops with Fries

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp paprika

4 pork chops (1 inch or thinner, bone in or boneless)

2 tbsp. veg oil

1 can cream of celery (or mushroom) soup

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tbsp. milk

1 tsp. dried parsley

4 cups frozen steak fries, thawed

2 cans green beans, drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine salt, pepper, and paprika; sprinkle over both sides of chops. In a large skillet, cook chops in oil on both sides until just done (don't over cook). Remove chops and keep warm. Drain skillet, then combine soup, sour cream, milk and parsley in the skillet. Cook and stir until heated through (shouldn't take long). In a greased 11x7x2inch dish, lay the fries in a single layer on bottom. Spread green beans over top of the potatoes. Pour the soup mixture over the green beans as evenly as possible. Top with cooked chops. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover; bake 5 more minutes or until meat is tender and vegetables are heated through.

Chicken Soup with Mashed Potato Dumplings

Mmmm, Mmmm Good!! This is the greatest soup. My husband usually complains when I cook soup, but he was sad that he missed this one. It's great for leftover mashed potatoes, but if your house is like mine....you don't ever have left over mashed potatoes (they're my husband's fav). So, I keep a box of instant mashed potato flakes in the pantry just for this dish. I've made it with instant and homemade mashed potatoes. We couldn't taste a difference. This soup is good as leftovers, but the dumplings kind of dissolve, so you just get a great tasting thicker soup.

Chicken Soup with Mashed Potato Dumplings

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp. veg. oil

6 cups chicken broth

2 cups cubed, cooked chicken (can use canned chicken in this one)

2 celery ribs, chopped

2 med. carrots, sliced

1/4 tsp. dried sage

1 1/2 cups biscuit/baking mix

1 cup cold mashed potatoes

1/4 cup milk

1 tbsp. chopped green onion

1/8 tsp. pepper

In a large saucepan, saute onion and garlic in oil for 3-4 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir in the broth, chicken, celery, carrots, and sage. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until vegetables are tender. In a small bowl, combine the mashed potatoes and milk. Then, add the biscuit mix, green onion, and pepper. Form into small quarter size balls. Drop each ball into simmering soup. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a dumpling comes out clean. DO NOT LIFT LID WHILE DUMPLINGS ARE SIMMERING.

Notes: As stated earlier, canned chicken will work in this soup. I usually make the instant mashed potatoes in the microwave and throw them in the freezer while I'm preparing the other ingredients, so that it's cold when I need it. Also, I've started leaving out the green onions. I haven't noticed a difference in the flavor of the soup.