Breakfast Frittata

This is one of my "go to" breakfasts lately.  I make it the night before and reheat it in the mornings for a quick on the go breakfast before I go workout.  I've been getting up a lot lately at 4 am for my Crossfit workouts which sucks in itself.  So I don't want to have to wake up extra early to make breakfast when I don't really want to eat at 4 am.  So I reheat a slice of this and eat it as I'm walking out the door.  I get sad everytime I run out and have to run to the store to immediately make more.  I don't know why I haven't been making this for myself for years!  I do make my own homemade sausage to go in it but you can use store bought sausage too.

Sausage and Vegetable Frittata

4 eggs
4 oz. sausage
1 c. spinach leaves, torn
1/2 tomato, diced
4-5 button mushrooms, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1 tsp. olive oil 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cook your sausage in a skillet and remove with slotted spoon and set aside.  In the same saucepan add your diced onions and peppers and sautee until just tender.  Add in your mushrooms and sautee another minute or two. Now throw in your tomatoes and spinach and once stirred to combine dump your whisked eggs over the top and stir just enough to get everything coated and spread the egg out evenly.  Toss the entire skillet in the oven and bake about 20 minutes or until eggs are firm.  Slice, garnish with avocado and enjoy!

Herbed Pork Tenderloin - Paleo

So I was going to make chicken for dinner.  I ran to the store to grab some and they were out.  I wasn't in the mood for red meat so I grabbed a pork tenderloin and had no thoughts on what I was going to do with it.  It was 4:00 and I was standing in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do with this meat since I had so little time to make something.  I whipped this up, let it rest for 30 minutes and cooked it.  It was AMAZING!  My entire family loved it, and asked that I make it again for them.  It was super simple and really pretty quick and best part was it fit my new diet guidelines.

Herbed Pork Tenderloin

1 3lb. pork tenderloin, sliced thinly

Marinade-
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. lemon peel (dried)
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1 tsp. parsley
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. thyme 

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, it'll be a bit thicker than a paste but not as runny as most marinades. Pour over pork in a ziplock bag and massage into meat until all is covered.  Set aside for about 30 minutes.  

1 tbsp. olive oil 
1 cup chicken stock
3 cloves minced garlic
Salt

Add remaining 1 tbsp. olive oil to a medium-high heat pan.  Toss in the pork and get all pieces nice and brown.  Once cooked just about all the way through turn heat down to a medium temperature and toss all the minced garlic into the pan with the pork and allow to sautee until just golden.  Salt your pork to taste. Remove  pork from pan with a slitted spoon allowing most of the garlic to remain in the pan to be a part of the sauce but you don't need to actually brush it off the pork.  Set pork aside.  Add in the 1 cup of chicken stock to the pan.  Allow to cook with the garlic a minute and it also will get all the herbed marinade spices left in the pan into the sauce.   Serve sauce like gravy for the pork.

*Note - Because of my current diet I have eliminated all grains from my diet and so I am not thickening my sauce with butter or flour.  You are welcome to use flour to make a proper gravy if you wish.    

Spicy Italian Sausage - Paleo

-Hmmm, not sure what is wrong with the color background on here, will have to fix that later!

So I can't eat regular sausage anymore because of my new diet.  It has added sugar and nitrates which are a big no-no.  So since I can't live without sausage I decided to make my own.  My husband and I looked at a ton of recipes and found bits and pieces from different ones we decided to use to come up with our own sausage recipe.  I use lean pork with vinegar and spices and it is absolutely divine.  I could eat this all day and all night.  I will honestly never buy sausage again.  I make this in big batches and freeze them in logs like the ones you buy in the store.  That way I always have sausage on hand.  Since I'm unsure of the fat content in the ground pork at my grocery store I buy a pork tenderloin and grind it myself then I know it is a lean meat.  I bet this would be really good with ground turkey as well.   

Spicy Italian Sausage 

1lb lean ground pork
3 tbsp. red wine vinegar
3 tbsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. salt
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1-tbsp. fennel seed
1/8-tsp. crushed chili peppers
1-tbsp. paprika

Combine all ingredients and allow to rest at least 30 minutes before cooking.  Or roll into logs in plastic wrap and freeze for later use.  

Katsudon

I made Katsudon last night for my first time ever.  It is one of my absolutely favorite dishes I get quite often here in Japan.  It was simply to make and so good. The fried pork cutlet on top is called Tonkatsu.  Then you have sticky rice and a slightly sweet sauce with onions and egg over the rice.  We use Japanese eggs because here in Japan they eat raw eggs quite often so they have much higher standards for their eggs.  We can cook them less or not at all if we prefer but using American eggs I'd cook it through.  You'd be surprised at how quickly you can get use to eating raw egg.  A year ago I would have said "no way", but now I do it often and enjoy it and actually sometimes prefer it that way in certain dishes.  This makes 1 bowl of Katsudon.  Just double or triple how you see fit to make as much or as little as you need.  I usually make it for two and use two separate skillets so the egg cooks for just that one bowl in that one skillet but you don't have to do it that way. 

The egg you are pouring into the liquid at the end needs to be just barely beaten.  You want it mixed but not like you do scrambled eggs.  Just enough to pop the yolk and give it maybe 4-5 mixes then you are good to go.  For sticky rice use a good sushi rice in a rice cooker on sushi setting.  You can usually find hon-dashi in the Asian section of supermarkets.  Instead of making a batch of dashi stock fresh this is the granulated way to do it.  Similar to how you use chicken bouillon for chicken stock if you don't have chicken stock or don't want to make it from scratch for just a small amount.   

Tonkatsu:

Pork Chop (Boneless)
1/2 c. Panko
1 beaten egg
1/2 c. All-Purpose Flour 

Sauce:

1 tbsp. mirin
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar
1/5 tsp. hon-dashi
1/8 c. water
1/2 onion thinly sliced

1 egg, very lightly beaten

Start your sticky rice.  Preheat your oil to 375 degrees.  Dredge the pork chop into flour, egg then panko and drop it hot oil and cook until golden brown and cooked all the way through.  It takes about 3 minutes a side roughly.  Place on paper towels and allow to cool while making the sauce.  Mix all sauce ingredients in a small skillet that has a lid.  Allow to come to a boil and turn down to a simmer for 5 minutes with lid on.  Cut the tonkatsu into slice and place into the simmer liquid.  Pour the beaten egg over the top and around the edges of the tonkatsu into the sauce and cover with the lid again.  Allow to cook for 45 seconds.  Remove lid and pour entire skillet of sauce, egg and tonkatsu over your sticky rice.  Enjoy!      

Grilled Honey-Lime Pork Tenderloin

So not the most flattering picture but that is what happens when my husband carves meat and takes a picture of it.  He was less than impressed when I told him I needed pictures before we ate dinner.   This is an Alton Brown recipe and it was really tasty.  I love the honey in this it really shines through.  I'm a huge fan of adding honey into marinades for meats and this really was a winner.  I got the recipe from Food Network.

Grilled Honey-Lime Pork Tenderloin

1 whole pork tenderloin, approximately 1 pound
1 lime, zest finely grated
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 chipotle chile pepper in adobo sauce  (*optional)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Trim the pork tenderloin of any excess fat and silver skin.  Place the lime zest, lime juice, honey, salt, and garlic powder in a small, lidded jar and shake to combine. Pour half of the marinade mixture into a 1-gallon resealable bag, add the chipotle pepper, and move around to combine. Add the pork tenderloin to the bag and seal, removing as much air as possible and place in a container to catch any leaks. Marinate in the refrigerator for 6 to 24 hours, rotating the bag halfway through the time. Place the remaining marinade in a covered container and refrigerate until ready to use.  Remove the tenderloin from the bag and allow to sit at room temperature while preparing the grill. Remove the reserved marinade from the refrigerator.  Fill a large chimney starter with natural lump charcoal and light. Once the charcoal is ashy and white, approximately 30 minutes, dump the hot charcoal onto the lowest grate of the grill and spread into an even layer using extra-long tongs. Place the cooking grate back on the grill and cover with the lid; heat the grate to medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes.  Brush the grill with vegetable oil. Remove the tenderloin from the bag and place in the center of grate. Discard bag with marinade. Cover and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, turning every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, until the tenderloin reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees F.  Remove the tenderloin from the grill and place on a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil folded at the edges to create a basket, and pour on the reserved marinade. Wrap tightly and rest for 10 minutes. Remove to a cutting board and slice. Garnish with cilantro and serve.

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

First, when I say baby back ribs I'm talking about pork.  Pretty much all my favorite BBQ items are all pork.  Pork ribs, pork butt, pork shoulder, pork, pork, pork, yum!  I wasn't sure if I wanted to do these ribs since we don't have our charcoal grill and smoker anymore but I decided to suck it up and give it a shot in the oven and see how they turned out.  To start with you need to remove the membrane off the back of your ribs.  Place them on a large piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  Then generously sprinkle and rub the dry rub into your ribs.  There should be plenty left over for another use.  Allow the ribs to sit in the refrigerator overnight or at least a few hours.  Then you need a really good BBQ sauce.  You can make a homemade one or your favorite store bought.  I'm from a specific part of the South that uses a mustard and vinegar based BBQ sauce.  You can't really get it anywhere else in the entire country.  If you do go to a place that claims to have it, it is wrong, I promise you!  I've tried some of those "mustard vinegar sauces" from BBQ places in Connecticut and Washington state and they are nothing like what we have in South Carolina.  This BBQ sauce is so unbelievably tangy that it takes a very special kind of person to even be able to eat this type of sauce.  Melvin's BBQ in South Carolina has the most magnificent BBQ sauce I've ever tasted.  Not to mention the most amazing BBQ too.  So I did my best to recreate Melvin's Mustard BBQ sauce by memory and came up with such a winner!  I'm not even going to post the recipe for the sauce though because it is my super secret special recipe.  The only recipe I've never really given out and that I am more proud of than almost anything else.  Plus, most people really just cannot appreciate the potency of this sauce and I'd die if someone who wasn't really familiar with this Carolina Yellow tried it and hated it!  These ribs came out amazing and we will definitely be having them more often now that I have a successful baked rib recipe!

Removing the Membrane

Dry Rub:

1 1/2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. black pepper
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tbsp. onion powder
1 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. chili powder
1/2 tbsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Put ribs in aluminum foil and before sealing pour about a cup of BBQ on the ribs.  Bake on 300 degrees for 2 hours.  Then add another cup of BBQ sauce and leave the aluminum foil open and bake another 1 hour.  Allow to rest about 10 minutes before serving.   

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