Potatoes, "Quark", a Fun Salad, and a Bit of Meat

For the today's hot spring day we did what one ought to do in summer. Eat  from the grill. Except we found that the grill wasn't working.

Undeterred we halved a mix of small colorful potatoes, submerged them in water, added a tablespoon of salt, and put them on the stove to boil.

Then we peeled 6 carrots, halved and deseeded 1 cucumber, and sliced them all into small sticks.

We tossed the veggies into a colander and added 2 tablespoons of salt.

After ten minutes we washed off all the salt and added 2 tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar and 2 tablespoons of sugar and let it marinate for 15 minutes.

We went outside to get a handful of fresh herbs from our garden; chives, parsley, and oregano.

The herbs we chopped up and added to 500g of Greek yogurt, a glug of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then we fried up a bunch of pork cutlets with salt, pepper, chopped rosemary and olive oil.

That was it. Serve

and eat. Delicious!

Pork, Asparagus and Quinoa

For this fun little quick thing we tossed 1 cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water into  a pot, brought it to a boil and let it cook for about 10 minutes till all the water was absorbed (we might try a dash of olive oil and salt the next time).

Then we prepared all our ingredients for a fast stir-fry kind of action. We cut up 1 lb of pork tenderloin, 1 bunch of green asparagus, 1 small handful of kalamata olives,  1 small handful of sun dried tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of capers (rinsed), sliced 2 cloves of garlic, and chopped 1 small handful of parsley.

These sun dried tomatoes, by the by, are phenomenal.  The only problem is that you end up eating half the jar before you even start cooking.

10 minutes before dinner time we started with the madness. First we fried up the happy pig meat in some olive oil and with some salt and pepper. When the meat was done, we saved it on the side and heated more oil to fry the asparagus for about three minutes. We nibbled on a piece or two to check if they were soft enough to eat.

Then we chucked into the pan the olives, tomatoes, capers, and garlic with a bit more salt and pepper for just a minute or so.

We added the pork and then a couple gluggs of balsamic vinegar. Then we took the pan off the stove and made the dish all good looking with the parsley.

Bam! A total winner.

(Papa was all ready for a speech that he doesn't care if nobody likes it, because he had been all mad at Lily being stubborn and all when he made the grocery list, and he was going to just decide on meals that he cared for, whatever and grumble - when lo and behold all three girls piped up and declared at the least the quinoa and pork a winner, and a little the asparagus. The original version of this we stole from The Runner's World Cookbook.)

Pulled Pork

We gave a pulled pork slow cooker recipe from the blog 100 Days of Real Food a try. And it was yummy. Our apologies for a few changes. We had to adjust it a little to fit our pantry, purse, and palate. I hope we weren't too sacrilegious. Especially since we have no measuring stick as far as pulled pork is concerned. Nor for a slow cooker for that matter. As it was all the yummy flavors were wafting through the house for the entire day, making us continuously hungry.

For the marinade we mixed up 2 tbls salt, 1 tbls paprika spice, 1 tbls pepper, thyme leaves, and 2 minced clove of garlic.

Then we added about half a cup of honey, a quarter cup of  red wine vinegar, and a couple glugs of olive oil and stirred it all up.

We cut up a big onion into chunks and tossed about half of it into a slow cooker.

We placed the first half of 2 pounds of pork chops  on top of the onions and smothered it in the marinade. (The recipe calls for pork shoulder, but we got a good deal on the happy pig chops and went for it.)

Then we repeated the procedure for a second layer, turned the slow cooker on low, placed the lid on top, and waited for eight hours.

Half an hour before dinner time, we chopped up some veggies for a salad. Since dinner was about ready and we didn't have anything better to do we added the vinegarette to the lettuce and dished up everything else seperately, so everybody could create their own perfect picky salad. (chopped salad).

We also mixed up a little bit of butter with parsley, tarragon, thyme, chopped onion, salt and pepper.

To serve we pulled the pork apart with a fork, warmed up some crusty bread, and offered the salad and herb butter. We tip our hats to  100 Days of Real Food. The food was scrumptious. The girls loved the pork. It was Mama's pick. Thanks. We'll try it again.

Rice and Pork

Even though this dish took an hour it was easy with lots of time inbetween to do other things. And on top of it it was yummy.

We chopped up a big onion and a few cloves of garlic.

While we heated 3 cups of water we fried up some pork, we had cut up into small pieces with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little paprika spice.

We removed the meat for a second to heat up the onion and garlic in the same pot with more oil. Just for a minute.

We added 1 cup of brown rice, a couple spoons of tomatoe paste and the meat for another minute, while stirring.

Then came the hot water to slowly simmer the rice. The brown rice took maybe 40 minutes.

In the meantime we chopped up 2 yellow peppers, 4 tomatoes, and a handful of parsley.

We added the veggies during the rice's cooking time. The peppers halfway through. The tomatoes maybe ten minutes before being done. The parsley at the end. Leaving some for looks when we served it.

Not knowing how all three girls would like it, we made sure to have some bread, too, for back up.

It looks soopier than it really was. More of a gullash type dish. Very tasty!