What's For Dinner #5

I sure haven't listed a lot of green vegetables on here! I don't love many vegetables on their own, so I try to incorporate them into the meal. But, I always keep on hand bags of frozen vegetables that my daughter likes and will heat up a small portion of thse for her each night. She also loves cold carrots and cucumbers (without Ranch) and eats those as her veggie or a big helping with her snack and then skips the extra veggie at dinner.

This week's meals include:

Meal #1
Pulled Pork over Mac and Cheese

I always have pork tenderloin on hand. You can buy them in a four pack for around $20 at Costco or Sams and I just divide them into quart baggies and freeze them. We make sandwiches with them or I love it over mac and cheese. I have leftover mac and cheese from my favorite recipe in the fridge, so we'll be having it with that this time around. This recipes makes a ton- so I half it and we still eat it twice!

Meal #2
Chicken Pot Pie

I'm trying this one for the first time. I love that it uses rotisserie chicken and that it makes two. Perfect for the freezer when we have a busy week.

This is also the perfect hide all the vegetables meal! I love pot pie and have a number of recipes I like. If you haven't had this Turkey Pot Pie, you must change that. It is so so good!

Meal #3
Baked Penne with Garlic Bread

I am using my favorite Pioneer Woman's spaghetti sauce for the penne. I just thaw the portion I had frozen perviously and then stir it in with boiled penne noodles and some mozzarella cheese and bake it until warm and gooey. It is super simple meal for homework night!

We are also having leftovers one night and dinner out because it is girls weekend! Hooray for a fun friend filled time!

Pulled Pork for Pork Chile Verde Soup

I love each season when it starts and am normally so ready for the next by the time it is over, but I will miss soup season. We have been over 70 degrees most each day this month and this is our "cold" month in the Texas Hill Country. So, spring and grilling is just around the corner.

Before soup season ended, I whipped up a new soup thanks to my good buddy Pinterest. We made Heather's Pulled Pork (served on hamburger buns) last week and then used the leftover pork for Pork Chile Verde last night. Love this soup- it tasted like soup you would have at a nice restaurant. We paired it with little cheese quesadilla wedges. Delicious!

Eat Drink and Be Merry!

 My refrigerator is overflowing with so many yummy leftovers I may not have to cook for a week!

When you host family for any extended period of time, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. You make a long grocery list after detailed meal planning of your very favorite recipes and then you over prepare, make lots of food, eat too much, and start the next meal as soon as the dishes are down. Don't get me wrong, I show love through food, so I am happy to cook and bake all through the holidays.

Here is a glimpse of our holiday weekend....

For Christmas Eve lunch, my Dad and step-Mom brought pizza! It was unexpected and perfectly simple for our casual lunch and gift exchange. I made a big salad and Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings.

For dinner on Christmas eve, we needed something simple since we were attending church services just before dinner. I made my favorite roast in the crockpot, green beans with brown sugar, and a pasta made from spinach and garlic. We were eating within 30 minutes of arriving home!

For breakfast on Christmas morning, we had monkey bread and migas. I don't know if migas are a regional food, but they are yummy! Eggs mixed with onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, corn tortilla strips, and cheese! 

I forgot to snap my plate at lunch on Saturday (bad blogger!), but we made Bunco Buns, veggies with Ranch dip, chips and guacamole and ate lots of leftover desserts!

For dinner, we had the easiest and best pulled pork with homemade potato salad. The BBQ sauce we used this time for the pork was a sweet sauce and I think I like it even better!

For dessert, in celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, we made Pioneer Woman's Tres Leches cake. It is a wonderful moist cake with whipped cream on top. We covered it in sugar sprinkles and used the baby Jesus from my daughter's Little People nativity. She LOVED singing to her little baby Jesus!

 We have had a wonderful holiday with lots of time at home playing and watching TV in our jammies! We are celebrating with more friends and family 3 nights this week, so our Christmas is still in full swing!

Any favorite foods from the holidays in your kitchen? I'd love to try something new!

So Simple Pulled Pork

I love Pulled Pork and I do an awful job making it, until I found this recipe. I'm so glad I didn't give up on it.

So Simple Pulled Pork

(from Pinterest I think!)

Pork Tenderloin

1 bottled root beer (16 oz)

1 bottled BBQ sauce

Place tenderloin in crock pot and pour root beer on top. Cook on low until done (mine was about 4 hours). Shred with fork and toss with BBQ sauce.

Enjoy!

Did I Pack Elastic Pants?

The food! Oh, the food of Savannah was amazing!

Marcus and I had our first meal and realized how much we have adjusted our eating to our 2 year old! We ate that first meal so quickly and with little conversation! The remainder of our trip we slowed down, enjoyed dinner, and talked about real life adult things. It made the meals all the better! I had done research and made us a daily agenda that included our meal functions. We made a few on-site adjustments, but for the most part, we followed our plan and were so impressed!

Our dinner at Broughton and Bull was divine! The bread and oil before dinner was so tasty! We had this meal just after our private carriage ride. The location is wonderful for entertainment all around and is clean and modern. I'd highly recommend the lasagna, best I've ever had!

I love bar-b-que, so I had to have Georgia BBQ and see how it compares to Texas. I went with pulled pork and was impressed. The sauce was sweet and a nice compliment to the pork. I loved that they offered fried pickles as a side item. So much better than cole slaw ;)

I also tried an olive and cream cheese sandwich as part of our foody tour. It was salty and a unique experience. I don't think I would order it in the future.

Our lunch on Monday was comprised of 2 hours and 6 locations! The foody tour was a highlight of our trip. It was just us and a tour guide walking around sampling the best of the little known places inside the historic district. She knew everyone everywhere and they had a table waiting for us. We had chocolates, cupcake, shrimp and grits, collard greens, cornbread casserole, olive and cream cheese sandwiches, ice cream samples, and bread pudding.

Of course we had to visit Paula Deen's place! Monday through Saturday, you have to make a reservation, but on Sunday it is first come and first serve on the buffet. After visiting a historic church in the area for service, we had the buffet lunch. We had roast beef, fried chicken, creamed corn, lima beans, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and more! Every person at the table gets a garlic cheese biscuit and a hoecake. A hoecake is like a cornbread pancake and is best warm with syrup. It was so good! Crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. For dessert, we tried the walnut butter gooey cake and the banana pudding.

She also has a great store attached to the restaurant with merchandise. I bought a few spices and souveniers. She had baby shirts that said, "got butter?" instead of "got milk?". So stinkin cute!

Our first night in Savannah we had dinner at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House. Uncle Bubba is Paula's brother and his seafood restaurant is just a little outside of town on the marshlands. It is rustic, casual and wonderful! We shared chargrilled oysters (his specialty), a crab and shrimp cheesy dip, and fried pickles. That left us just enough room for these divine desserts. My shortcake was sweet and tart! Oh, and the sweet tea at Uncle Bubba's was the absolute best and I tried it all over town. The fresh mint and lemon wedge sold me and I'll be planting mint at home soon.

I loved every bite of Savannah and am glad I packed elastic pants! We ate all around town!

Easy Pork Empanadas

As a born and bred Texan, I really hesitate to call these empanadas. They are really good, but not traditional empanadas. Ironically, I pulled this receipe from a newspaper in Michigan while traveling on business. Michigans consider this an empanada!

Pork Empanadas

Mix together:

1 cup pulled pork (I buy it pre-done and refrigerated in the meat section of the grocery store)

1 T diced green chiles

2T taco sauce (found on the mexican food aisle)

Scoop meat mixture onto biscuits stretched out

Fold biscuit over.

Brush 1 beaten egg or melted butter over all biscuits to help with browning.

Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.

These are great alone or dipped in salsa or queso!