Carnitas!

I love carnitas!! There's a Chipotle a few blocks from my office and I can't resist a rice bowl with carnitas and tons of hot sauce. I finally decided to make my own. It's probably healthier and I can freeze some for leftovers (not that "healthy" is the first word I would use to describe eating a MOUNTAIN OF MEAT).  I made this in my slow cooker.  The pork shoulder pulled apart very easily; it was so tender.  I will definitely make this again!  I didn't think ahead and so I had nothing to serve it with except salad.  Ideally, I'd use this as a filling for tacos or enchiladas.  The fresh orange juice and Mexican oregano added both sweet and savory components.  The flavor was mild and a squeeze of fresh lime juice really brought it all together.  I added some cheddar cheese and made a quick approximation of pico de gallo with a random tomato, lime, and some left over red onion from last week.

Coconut and Orange Snowballs

I made cookies!  And my house is still standing!  I don't bake terribly often.  I feel like baking has to be so precise.  I can't just cover up my mistakes with garlic.  I think the last time I made cookies was for my friend Maggie's cookie swap last year.  Fitting that I made them this year for the same party.  This year I decided to branch out and try a recipe with more ingredients.  They turned out so well that I made them twice!  And the second time I was willing to feed them to my parents, so you know they were good.

Proper Christmas dish provided by my mom.  I just use ziplock because I'm lazy like that.  

Quick Dinner! Pork Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce

This dish is super fast.  It needs to marinate for 20 minutes, but you can make the sauce in the meantime.  Serve it with a quick salad or some store bought tabbouleh and you're good to go!  I made the tabbouleh in this picture because I had the extra time. Here's the recipe I use. It took me about half an hour to make the souvlaki and tzatziki, including the marinating time.  In addition to being a quick dinner for a work night, this dish tastes great.  The lemon and oregano make the pork interesting and the simple grilled onions add some extra flavor.  As always, I served it with some extra lemon wedges.  Even though I halved the amount of pork because I'm cooking for two, I made the full amount of tzatziki because I wanted extra for my pita.

Chicken Scarpariello - Amazing!

It's not very often that I want to put a dish into my regular rotation after making it just once.  I'm making an exception for this dish.  It was fantastic!  The peppers had just the right amount of kick and the addition of a little lemon juice made it perfect.  The garlic cooked long enough in the pan to soften and taste like roasted garlic. The rosemary blended nicely with the rest of the sauce and made it feel more rustic.  The sauce had just the right consistency: not too watery, not too thick.  The chicken was juicy.  There was relatively little chopping.  I wouldn't call this a quick dish but it didn't take forever either.  It's totally doable on a work night.

As you can see, I had bad aim with the sauce. 

Butternut Squash Stuffed with Bulgur and Chorizo

Butternut squash is a controversial food in my house.  I love it and my husband can't stand it unless it's prepared a certain way.  This was not it.  If you're a squash-hater, you should probably skip this post.  If you love squash, this is a cheesy, sort of spicy dish that goes nicely with a quick salad.  

I always try to buy cheese in the proper amount so that I don't waste any.  I couldn't get 2 ounces of manchego and I didn't want to pay for a giant block of it.  I used some nice aged cheddar instead. The basic recipe was good, but it definitely needed a little salt and some extra cheese.

One thing I love about Wegmans is that they sell pre-cut vegetables.  I bought the squash already halved and seeded, which saved me a little time.  I would bake it in a little more water next time, the squash wasn't as tender as I would have liked.  This recipe isn't very quick, the squash has to bake for 30 minutes and then it bakes for another 10 with the stuffing.

Overall this is a good dish if you want to eat healthy foods like butternut squash and bulgur.  The whole dish could be considered healthy if you didn't add a ton of extra cheese like I did.  The recipe is very basic and could definitely use some improvement.  If I made it again I would consider adding a spice or two to the mixture and maybe something else.  Nuts? garlic?  It needs something.

Butternut Squash Stuffed with Bulgur and Chorizo (and extra cheese)!
From Real Simple
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 acorn squash, halved and seeded
1/4 cup bulgur
2 ounces manchego or cheddar, grated (plus extra!)
2 ounces cured chorizo, chopped
1/8 cup chopped fresh parsley
1.5 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Method
1) Heat oven to 450 F.  Place squash halves cut side down into a baking dish.  Add about 1/2 inch of water and cover with foil.  Bake for 30 minutes.
2) While the squash is cooking, cook bulgur according to its package.  Then combine it with the cheese, chorizo, parsley, and olive oil.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3) Turn the squash cut side up and fill with the bulgur mixture.  Bake again until the cheese is melted and the filling is heated through, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Serve with a side salad.

Spice Glazed Lamb Chops with Red Wine and Coffee Sauce

I love coffee and red wine.  So putting them together in a sauce sounds amazing.  I've used ground coffee in spice mixes and rubs but I've never brewed up a pot of strong coffee and poured it into a sauce.  I was skeptical at first because I thought it would be bitter, but it was really good!  I couldn't taste anything that was identifiable as coffee.  It was a wine sauce with a nice earthiness to it.  It's definitely important that the coffee be strong.  I used the "strong" setting on my coffee maker and it worked fine. The ancho chile powder added a little bit of heat but the sauce as a whole blended really nicely. Next time I'd serve it over polenta or rice pilaf or something.  Normal people would probably make mashed potatoes (ew).  I used more pearl onions than the recipe called for, it seemed silly to use half a bag.  Plus they went really well with the sauce.  This dish wasn't actively quick, but it didn't take terribly long.  I would say it's doable on a work night if you aren't very busy.  I will definitely make this again because the sauce was fantastic.  I made a full recipe of sauce and didn't use it all.  

The asparagus was completely an afterthought.  

Latkes!

I used to loathe potatoes (the devil's tuber!) but I really love latkes. Mashed potatoes are still gross unless they're filled with garlic or a gallon of sriracha sauce to make them taste not nasty.  But latkes are awesome.  This recipe comes from my mother in law.  My husband is the primary chef for this recipe, he's in charge of the frying pans.  That's right, pans.  He's so badass that he uses two frying pans at once!

Before I looked at her recipe, I had issues with my cut potatoes turning brown.  She suggests soaking the potato pieces in a bowl of ice water to preserve their color and it works really well!  These are great when they're crispy, I would definitely err on making them too crispy versus too soft.  I prefer my latkes with some sour cream mixed with fresh dill and topped with sliced green onions.  I served them with a salad so I could pretend that at least part of this meal is healthy.

My husband and I don't make these terribly often.  Usually we make them right when the weather starts getting colder.  At the bottom of this post, you can see a comparison picture of the first latkes we made.  These are much improved!!  The first attempt was crispy around the edges and kind of mushy in the center.

This recipe supposedly serves two people.  We did eat all of the latkes we made.  However, I'd argue that this recipe serves three or four people because it made eight latkes and I completely stuffed myself because I ate four.