Pork Loin

Had some pork loin in the freezer. Had some left over spinach and mushrooms so I decided to stuff the pork loin with both. It was pretty good except while trussing up the loin after stuffing the mixture started to fall out, and even more fell out while trying to brown the thing in the pot. The recipe I was adopting said to cook the whole thing on the stove top, but Jen wisely suggested to throw it in the oven. It came out juicy and tender. I made a balsamic reduction for a glaze at the end. I did not get any pics of the final dish arranged but here is the spoon with the glaze (it got thick!) and the left over loin.

Our 12th…..

Here are some pics from the meal I prepared for our 12th Anniversary dinner. Jen likes lasagna, she also likes ravioli, so I combined the two and made ravioli lasagna! I made a ground beef, spinach and mushroom mixture for the ravioli stuffing and made some marinara sauce. After I browned the beef I added the spinach and sauted mushrooms all together in the food processor with some bread crumbs and an egg to make the texture easier to deal with to stuff into the pasta sheets.  It turned out pretty good I think. I got to use the ravioli maker Jen got me for xmas, works like a charm. Enjoy the pics.

Uncle Michael makes chili

Made a few things for a Superbowl get together at my place yesterday. One of the things I made was chili for the first time using my slow cooker. It turned out pretty decent. I'd say a  7 out of 10. The folks that tried some seemed to like it, too. Although I will say that I had insanely terrible heartburn later in the night. But I think that might have been the super hot buffalo wings I made combined with the salsa rio Doritos, the cool ranch Doritos, the Little Cesears Pizza someone brought over, the meatballs someone made and the IPA beer.
I made a few changes to the recipe below. I used tomato chunks instead of tomato puree. And I drained the beans because I prefer a thicker chili compared to a soupy one.  I also like  a lot of vegtables in my chili so I added an extra green bell pepper and some more onion. And I left out the celery, because I think celery in chili is just weird. Also some of the comments said the recipe was a little bland so I upped the spice amount by about double. So I guess that's quite a few changes.
Finally I recommend making it the day or night before, as I did. Freshly made it's just not as good as it is after it has sat for a while and simmered all together.

This recipe is from allrecipes.com and is called "slow cooker chili II"

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 3/4 cup diced onion
• 3/4 cup diced celery
• 3/4 cup diced green bell pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans tomato puree
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans with liquid
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans with liquid
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Directions

1. Place the beef in a skillet over medium heat, and cook until evenly brown. Drain grease.
2. Place the beef in a slow cooker, and mix in onion, celery, green bell pepper, garlic, tomato puree, kidney beans, and cannellini beans. Season with chili powder, parsley, salt, basil, oregano, black pepper, and hot pepper sauce.

Cover, and cook 8 hours on Low.  

Birthday Feast

 

These girls love seafood and this year they were so lucky, Daddy cooked up a feast!  I cannot believe they are 7!

As Promised–Cheese Crackers

 

These were good!  The boys liked them more than the girls, but Sean and I had to watch out, these are NOT low fat!  I have found recipes that were lower fat, but I wanted to try the full version so I had a reference point.  They do go from golden to burned in the blink of a eye, beware!

		Crackers. Barrett liked them. VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL