Good food!

This week I wanted to post about what Devin and I had for dinner, last week.  I felt like we ate pretty decent and thought, why not!  Last week, a couple of our meals were: Gallo pinto, pork chops, steak and sausage/potato soup.

Devin and I eat a lot better during the summer months.   I’m not saying that we eat terrible in the winter either.  I just think that in the summertime, you get a lot more fresh foods that I feel like are easier to work with.  I feel like in the winter, our side dishes for every meal are either some kind of a potato…or rice.

In the summer, we eat a lot of “summertime” salads.  Apple salad, broccoli salad, pink salad, green salad etc.  We eat A LOT of vegetables too.  Whether we grow them in our own garden, or get them at the grocery store – I just feel like the months of May-September is easier for me to cook dinner.

I’ve been trying so hard to eat healthy.  But unfortunately for me, I am a carb lover.  I love all things carbs! Bread, potatoes, chips, crackers…all things bad for you.  I’m trying my best to eat healthier.  I know that carbs aren’t very good for you, because they turn into sugars.  But I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with eating potatoes or rice every now and then.  With that being said, any of your favorite side dishes, would be appreciated!

Gallo Pinto:  Devin served his two year mission in Nicaragua.  One of his absolute favorite meals from there is gallo pinto.  Translation: Rice and beans.  We’ve made this a couple of times, and each time we make it we get a little bit closer to having the authentic, Nicaraguan taste that he dreams about.  He tells me about when they would fry up the rice and beans, scramble an egg sunny side up, and then slice an avocado with it.  I love seeing his face when he describes things like that from his mission, so I always try my best to replicate it to my best ability.  Ever since coming home from his mission, he can’t eat some fresh fruits.  A lot of fresh fruits upset his stomach.  Fruits like raspberries, fresh peaches and avocados really hurt his stomach. (Yes!  Avocado is a fruit!)  So for dinner last week, we settled with just gallo pinto and a fried egg.

Pork Chops:  There are a couple of different ways that I usually make pork chops.  I will either pan fry them, or bake/crockpot them in apple juice.  Apple goes SO good with pork in my opinion.  This week I decided I’d fry them up.  I put one of the McCormick seasonings as a rub on the outside of them.  Smoky Applewood Marinade is what I used as my rub.  I rubbed them lightly with the powder, and pan fried them on the stove!  They were pretty good!  Not my absolute favorite, I’d definitely pan fry them again, but maybe not with that specific rub.  I’ve been on a green bean kick lately too.  They seem like “wintery” food to me.  We ate the pork chops with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Steak: As I mentioned above, most of our side dishes lately have been mashed potatoes or rice.  Lucky D got to eat mashed potatoes AND green beans, twice last week.  Poor guy!  The only difference between these two meals, was literally the meats.  Since Devin’s dad has the cows, he butchers a steer every year.  He has been very gracious in sharing the meat with us.  That being said, we get steaks!  We decided to grill some tenderloins that we had from the last steer we killed.  Since it's a little bit too cold to be outside grilling, we decided to pan fry these tenderloins in butter and with some rosemary sprigs.  Oh my delicious.  Devin has become the steak pro!  I am not even kidding.  When ever I’d go out to a fancier restaurant and get steak, I was just in heaven.  Restaurant steaks now, just do not even compare!  There is only one other place that can cook steaks decently close to Devin’s.  Devin’s are better, but Texas Roadhouse’s are pretty close.

Sausage potato soup: We decided to try and make a new soup.  As posted before, Devin and I are very much soup people.  Devin found this one soup on Taste of Home’s website.  It is a sausage potato soup.  It has sausage, potatoes, carrots, and celery in it.  It was different than any other kind of soup I’ve made.  There was no roux to be made. (That means no flour!)  You can find the link to that recipe, here.

I have told D multiple times, that if I could be anything in the world, I would be chef.  I love food!  I watch all the food network shows. (Beat Bobby Flay, Guys Grocery Games, Chopped, Worst Cooks in America, you name it, I’ve probably seen it)  Now I’m not the best cook in the world, but I’m definitely not the worst! I’m grateful for Devin and his patience when I see some fancy recipe on food network, or the internet, and want to try and do something similar.  I know this isn’t the best written blog and maybe the food isn’t that impressive, but it is definitely a work in process and I look forward to trying to cook a little bit better every day.