A 30-minute meal

Tonight’s dinner was epic – it hit my “trifecta” of requirements – quick, tasty, healthy.  I’m a happy girl   Salt and vinegar mash is a HUGE favorite of mine – modified from a Rachel Ray recipe a few years back.  It makes my tongue happy, and is a healthier alternative to those wonderful chips…

Bacon-wrapped Cod with Salt and Vinegar Mash and Roasted Broccoli

Here is what you need:

2 cod fillets

4 strips bacon (preferable from your organic Iowa hog)

broccoli

olive oil

salt

4-5 medium taters

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T butter

1 T sour cream (used lowfat – it is what we had)

Peas, if you wish

Here is the flow:

Preheat oven to 400

Get a saucepan of water boiling on the stove for the taters.

Chop your broccoli, toss with olive oil and a bit of salt, and throw in the oven to get roastin’

Wrap Cod in bacon – nice and tight, it shrinks as it cooks! and throw in the oven.

Wash and chop taters, throw in the boiling water.

(At this stage, I put the husband on “stir the broccoli, boil the peas, and watch the taters and cod duty and took Austin outside to play.  A beautiful day must not be wasted!)

When the taters are tender (after 20-ish minutes), drain, and mash with the vinegar, sour cream, and butter.  Salt to taste. Broccoli are done with florets start to crisp and brown slightly.  Fish is done when no longer translucent in the middle – I have no qualms about cutting it up to check because I have to cut it anyways for the wee one.

Serve it all up and enjoy!  Serves two hungry adults, and a wee one (with enough leftovers for the wee one’s lunch the next day).

P.S. – Austin LOVE broccoli like this – I had a hard time getting him to eat the rest of his dinner because he wanted to keep chowing down on the broccoli.  Such a problem to have!

Actually, he’ll eat any veggies when roasted with olive oil and a dash of salt.

Lentiladas

This was pretty much the perfect meal – very tasty, easy to make, cheap, healthy, and loved by all – meat-eating husband and 19 month old alike.  The penta-fecta! (just watch, soon everyone will be using that word…)

Lentil Enchiladas

1/2 cup green lentils

1 yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic, mashed

olive oil

3 carrots, diced

2 T tomato paste

2 t cumin + 1 t (heaping)

1 t (heaping) paprika

water

salt

1 small can diced green chilis

sour cream, cream cheese, or cottage cheese – about 1/4 cup

tortillas

cheese to top

Boil lentils till tender, about 25 minutes.

In the meantime, saute onions, garlic, and carrots in olive oil (1-2 t) till starting to soften, ~5 minutes.  Add tomato paste, 2 t cumin, and paprika, stir to combine.  If you aren’t cooking for a wee one, add chili or cayenne if you wish!  Add about a cup of water, and let the mix simmer down.  If it starts to dry up, add more water to keep the mix saucy – I probably ended up adding 1 to 1.5 more cups of water.  Simmer about 20 minutes, until veggies are very soft.  Whir the mix in the food processor to make your enchilada sauce – taste test and add salt as you see fit.

Drain the lentils, and mix in a medium bowl with the green chilis, extra cumin, and your choice of sour cream, cream cheese, or cottage cheese (I used about 1 T cream cheese – using up the dregs taking up space in the fridge – and then threw in cottage cheese to make it creamy).

Pour some of the sauce down in a glass baking dish.  Spoon lentil mixture into tortillas, roll, and place seam-side down in your dish.  Slather with the rest of the sauce, top with cheese, and bake at 350 till cheese is melty.

We served them with chopped romaine, fresh guac, and sour cream.  Yummy!

These are even better leftover – if you can wait, cook them a day ahead and then reheat in the oven.  The lentils absorb the flavor and it becomes Mexican heaven!

What a Crock…

My husband and I bought a pig.  Half a pig, actually, and it is currently sitting in our MASSIVE freezer in the garage, waiting to be turned into delicious meals.  I’m all about this – we know the farmer who grew, fed, and cared for the pig, know what the pig ate, know that is was butchered properly and as humanely as possible, and can feel good that if we are going to eat an animal, we did it in the best way possible, both for the environment and for our health.  And…buying pigs this way comes out to less than $2/lb., which is a steal for organic meat.  The only problem?  I don’t know my way around a pig!  I can handle bacon (duh!) and sausage, but what exactly do you do with a “fresh ham steak” or a “pork roast?”  I’ve never cooked these things before…

I can google with the best of ‘em, and google I did…but it turns out that there is a difference in how you cook an “uncooked” ham vs. a “cooked” one, and I have no idea which one we have.  So…I did what you do when you have no idea what to make for dinner.  Throw it all in a crock pot!

Crock ‘o Pig:

1 fresh ham steak (upon examination, I would say this puppy was definitely not “cooked”)

1 medium/large sweet potato, sliced scallop style

2 medium potatoes, sliced scallop style

3-4 carrots, cut into thin sticks (I used carrots that a good friend – with a green thumb – had just pulled out of her garden.  So sweet and yummy!  A bit smaller than your standard store kind, so I just used a big handful)

1 cup frozen peas

splash of wine (I think both red and white would work – I used white – probably 1/4 cup?)

2 T whole grain mustard

sage leaves

heaping 1/2 T brown sugar

1 T or so apple cider vinegar

drizzle maple syrup

How it went down:

Throw the potatoes into the crock pot, top with carrots.  Smear the veggies with 1T or so of the mustard.  top with the ham steak, and smear on the rest of the mustard and the brown sugar.  Crumble in some sage leaves, drizzle with the maple syrup (you can skip this or just use a dash more brown sugar) and vinegar, and splash on the wine.  Throw in peas (don’t spill half of them on the floor, like I did).  Cover, crock for 8 hours or until the ham steak is done.

The verdict?  It was great – when doused with sweet chili sauce (for me) and BBQ sauce (the hubby).  The “ham” tasted more like plain pork, without that salty, smoked, sweet ham taste, and thus the need for the extra sauce.  Next time, I would DOUBLE all of the spices at least, or just dump in some sweet chili or BBQ.  This completely blows my theory that you can dump anything in a crock pot and have it meld into a fantastic dinner…