Posts Tagged ‘recipe’
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Sage and Apple Pork Loin (and other things)
I don’t even like Justin Bieber.
But I thought it was funny at the time.
My friend Tabitha had her 30th birthday at Fast Eddie’s (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAB!) and when I looked at my neck the next day, it was a lot less funny. Thankfully, the tattoo came off easily with makeup remover. FYI.
St. Louis weather has been awesome. Last night Mark and I grilled outdoors.
We kind of winged it and made Sage and apple pork loin with asparagus.
First, I marinated the pork for about an hour and a half (not very long, I know) in apple juice, spices (sage + garlic + salt and pepper), and cider vinegar.
Then Mark did his thing on the grill.
Meanwhile, I chopped up one braeburn apple and an onion. I chopped the onion very finely – nearly a mince – and added it to a pan with oil. Then I added sage and thyme. The spices filled the air.
After the onion had cooked for 3-5 minutes (and was just brown), I added the apple. I cooked it for another 5+ minutes. I didn’t want the apples too soft, but also not too crisp.
Voila.
Mark asked me if I used a recipe to come up with this, and I didn’t. I initially came up with the recipe when I saw a spice packet for “sage and apple pork chops” and I thought – I don’t need a spice packet, I have that stuff at home. Lots of times when I cook things, I check around to see if there is anything like it to get a sense of what flavors will work together or if I’m off my rocker. Or, I get some inspiration from something I saw in a cooking magazine, cooking show, or of course, a blog.
I found a lot of recipes that involved apple, sage, and thyme and just hoped for the best. A lot of them were stuffed pork loin or pork chops and I just didn’t feel like stuffing them.
Brag time
This weekend I had one of the best long runs in a long time. 10 miles on the treadmill in 88 minutes. This is a lot faster than I normally run – usually I do around 9:20-9:30 minute miles for my long runs. In fact, it felt easy and I kept bumping up my speed and incline at the end to make it more challenging. This is crazy but I must be doing something right! I think part of it is that I have really been pushing myself speed-wise. I will just bottle this feeling and try to remember it when I have a bad run.
Now I’m off to the Tivoli to watch Oscar nominated animated shorts. See ya!
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Bacon at the spa, and your potential
This post is a few days late, but better late than never, right?
I’m in this awkward transition between a PC and a Mac. I’m using my husband’s old Macbook Pro, but I have a love affair with Windows Live Writer and Microsoft Office. For Valentine’s day, Mark put Microsoft Word on my Mac. True love.
And I got flowers. ;)
So anyway, I’m currently using MarsEdit which SUCKS compared to WLW but the reason is that I’m using RAW format on my pictures and my PC hates RAW (formatting them is a real pain). I’m in the in between! The awkward in between of PC and Mac world. Things were easier back when I used my Powershot, jpegs, and WLW. Oh the olden days.
I’ll drink to that. Ok – I know that green concoction looks weird but trust me. That Key Lime Cream Liqueur is pretty incredible. I mixed it with club soda and Malibu banana rum. It’s like a key lime banana pie. I thought I was drinking coconut rum. Until I looked at this picture 4 days later and that is definitely not coconut. Whatever, it was GOOD.
I know there are some boys reading this thinking “frou frou girly drink,” but my husband is a warm blooded manly man and attests to the goodness of my girly mixed drinks. He will also attest to my craziness … but he married me so it can’t be that bad. Right?
Right?
The glass is a toast to Boston Legal! (The only TV legal series that I have ever watched and not wanted to kick the screen)
Oh yeah, so here is where I explain that I drank that drink and made this meal a few days ago – Friday to be exact, when my friend Robin came over.
Brace yourselves: Bacon lies ahead.
Asparagus wrapped in bacon.
The asparagus looks like it’s wrapped in little bathrobes of bacon. It’s like a spa retreat for asparagus, and instead of choosing the seaweed wrap, the asparagus chose bacon.
Maybe asparagus is onto something.
On the side… Er… Rather, the main course was spaghetti squash with coconut encrusted tilapia.
I dunked tilapia fillets in coconut milk and then pressed it into a bowl of curry + shredded unsweetened coconut. Then I pan fried it until the coconut browned. I came very close to burning it (that frou frou girly drink has an effect on my attention span).
It was super yummy. I recreated the coconut curry ensemble a day later with shrimp. It’s a classic combination that works well with white fish and shrimp, but I bet I could get it to work very well with chicken too.
Look, Robin is hanging out with Jemaine and Bret! Robin asked me who my favorite is, and it’s definitely Jemaine.
Don’t tell Mark! (Isn’t Robin beautiful?)
Running Stuff
I’m excited to tell you all about how great my running has been the last few days. My half marathon plan is pretty aggressive and challenging. Just looking at last week’s workouts intimidated me:
4 x 800m @ 7:15 pace
4 miles at 8:08 pace
8 miles at 8:53 pace
Really, anything under a 9 minute mile scares me. My 9 minute mile is my comfort zone. Hell, I feel fine doing 8 minute mile paces for repeats.
But you know what? The last time I was sore from running was probably a year ago when I was running 18 -20 mile training runs for my marathon. It’s not good to get TOO comfortable. And that’s why I’m glad I chose a challenge for this training plan. I did the long run of 8 miles this weekend and was just barely sore. That tells me something – I’m training where I’m only SLIGHTLY uncomfortable and that’s great. But it also tells me that I could be so much stronger, so much faster, if I just keep pushing myself. I just need to keep telling myself that.
Really, if you think about it, our strength is a function of our current strength plus an unknown amount: Strength = Known strength + unknown increase
We can always be stronger, and faster. The question is, how much? Not knowing where my potential ends is exciting. Hell, not knowing where Michael Phelps’ potential ends is exciting. Isn’t that why we watch the Olympics?
You will never know how strong or fast you can be until you try. Just trying to complete the workouts above was fun for that fact – but even more fun was discovering that I could complete them. I was stronger and faster than I thought.
I bet you can surprise yourself, too.
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Adventures in dog sitting
This weekend I dog sat for my friends. Our house was full of activity when she was here.
They were two peas in a pod.
Running all over the backyard
Until they couldn’t take it anymore.
Two tired pups
Since you may or may not come here for pictures of dogs, I thought I would also share some food pics. Earlier last week I was craving a steak and blue cheese salad. So I made one.
Taking tips from the Smitten Kitchen, I assembled my salad and grilled my steak.I didn’t have red onions on hand, so I just used regular white – but they were just not the same – red onions just have that special flavor and I missed it. I also added avocado and green pepper. I topped it all with a “steakhouse mustard vinaigrette” as suggested in the recipe above. This was a great dressing and I definitely would use it again and again!
Later this week I have a post scheduled all about my career. Or rather, the career I left behind. Stay tuned!
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Tofu and Veggie Stir Fry
One of Santa’s elves was with us Christmas morning!
But she didn’t quite know how to open her stocking.
Ada had a good Christmas, despite the fact that we like dressing her up.
I also had a great Christmas. I always feel truly blessed on Christmas – it’s a great feeling. I missed my family this year but I was grateful to spend it with Mark’s family.
I feel ready for 2011 – anyone else? I’m ready to put 2010 behind me. It was a good year but I like that clean slate feeling.
Tonight I made tofu and veggie stir fry. If you’ve never tried to cook with tofu, don’t be afraid! It’s really easy.
I like firm tofu. First you drain the water from the package and then squeeze the tofu dry using paper towels or towels.
Then I brushed on a sauce. I used soy sauce (1/3 or 1/2 cup), crushed ginger (1 T), garlic powder (1.5 tsp), and sesame oil (2-3 T). It’s really all just to taste – use what ratio you like best.
I popped the tofu in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes, flipping it half way through.
Towards the end of the tofu baking, I sauteed the veggies in a little bit of oil. Once the veggies were just about done, I added the leftover sauce from the tofu. (At this point I also added a little bit of hoisin sauce, which I forgot that I had! That’s what having a massive spice collection will do to you…)
I then plated the veggies and then cut the tofu into squares and added on top of the veggies. I could have sauteed the tofu with the veggies, but I like the consistency of baked and diced tofu. With baking, you get neat little squares, instead of bits and pieces of tofu, like you do when you stir it up to cook.
It was a really light meal. Perfect for that Christmas food overload.
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Easy Indian Salmon
Today was my last day of work for the week. I get to relax tomorrow! The hard part will be not going anywhere – traffic is horrible right now. I’m guessing that having your Christmas gifts done in early November like myself is the exception!
Yesterday I ran on the treadmill while watching a mixture of Barefoot Contessa and Oprah. It’s a fantastic combination.
I’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows lately and I was inspired when I watched “The Spice Goddess.” The show’s theme:
Spice Goddess with Bal Arneson affirms the power of using fresh, wholesome ingredients to make delicious, simple, everyday Indian meals.
She made Salmon with Coconut Sauce and if you don’t know how I feel about coconut already, read this post.
The salmon recipe called for a few things I didn’t have on hand – namely, coconut oil, cardamom, brown mustard seed, and fennel seed. I knew that these were things I would use again so I didn’t mind crowding my spice rack even more than it is. However, I had a feeling I wouldn’t find brown mustard seed in my grocery store– and I was right. I just subbed brown mustard in.
Here I am in action.
I used frozen salmon since that’s what I had on hand.
I used light coconut milk for the sauce. While getting the salmon ready, I was roasting Brussels sprouts (with Garlic Gold of course) and making a salad to have on the side.
The flavors in the sauce were really good. It was a different, milder take on most of the Indian I’ve had. It wasn’t a bad thing though, I thought it was refreshing and I liked the flavors together.
I think Mark liked it too….
I think.
Mark and I are heading to see his family in Illinois on Christmas day. There is snow in the forecast so I think we might be getting a white Christmas!
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
