Pork, Apricot, Onion Kabobs

I was a little worried about this, seeing that pork is pretty easy to mess up if you haven't worked with it a lot.  And, uh, I haven't.  Not like this, I mean.  It can be pretty hit and miss...  so I was really excited that these weren't dry at all!  Just make sure that you do not overcook the pork.  It'll continue to cook a little bit even after you take them off, so when there's just a tiny bit of pink left, take them off the grill and let them sit a few minutes.  They should finish cooking and be perfect!

The grilled apricots were sweet and tart at the same time!  I love grilled fruit, and I think I might have to start adding apricots to my kabobs more often.

One note...  This did not fit on four skewers.  There was still apricots and some meat leftover, so we stuffed the meat on the skewers and ended up grilling the remaining apricots in the grill pan with some broccoli.  It turned out fine, but you might want to keep that in mind if you have a limited number of skewers, like me.

Pork, Apricot, Onion Kabobs

adapted from Martha Stewart
Serves:  4
Stats: ~253 cals per kabob

1-lb pork tenderloin, cut into 12 or 16 chunks
~1 lb apricots, pitted and halved (or quartered)
1 small onion
1/4 c. apricot jam or preserves

Thread the meat, apricots, and onion on kabob skewers.  Light the grill to medium, lightly oil grates with canola or vegetable oil so the kabobs won't stick.

Martha's recipe for the basting sauce is as follows:  In a small saucepan, heat jam, cayenne, and 1 tablespoon water over medium-low until jam is liquefied; season with salt and pepper.  We were low on time, so we just brushed the preserves on the kabobs directly.

Grill kebabs, turning occasionally and brushing with basting sauce, until pork is cooked through and apricots begin to char, 12 to 14 minutes.

 

I served ours with baked rice and peas (scroll down), and grilled broccoli.  I look forward to eating it for lunch as leftovers!  NOM.

delayed anniversary dinner at home: steak, greens, potato

The Saturday before our anniversary, my dad got a call that his step-father had passed away.  We had to make some last minute preparations to go to Tennessee to attend his funeral and visit my grandma.  Sadly, my grandma also only has 1-3 months to live.  It was a very emotional trip.  I have some pictures that I took in Tennessee, but I'm not ready to share them.

Anyway, we got back into town around midnight on Wednesday.  My husband had to stay home, so he'd been bach-ing it while I was gone.  He came home from work on Thursday to our planned anniversary at-home dinner...  STEAK!

Without further ado...

and we ended the evening on a sweet note...  a very miniature cake in our wedding cake flavors.

For the steak, we didn't do much to it.  Uz squeezed some lime and sprinkled it with salt and pepper as he was grilling it.  For the potatoes, I scrubbed the skins of red potatoes to clean them, put on a light coat of olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt.  I cooked them for about 80-90 minutes at 425 deg F.  The skins were VERY crispy but the insides were soft...  perfect.  The green beans were grilled in my husband's new grill pan.  Hands-on time for this dinner was minimal. 

The cake was wonderful!  A chocolate buttercream icing with chocolate fudge cake and raspberry filling.  Unfortunately I was so overcome when I was eating a small piece that I forgot to take a picture.  Oh well, such is life!

dinner: 5-14-2012 & exercise

Good morning!

Just stopping in to share a recipe from dinner last night.

When I cook, I try to use as little preservatives/chemicals/etc. as possible...  which means that a lot of my marinades are homemade with all natural products.  It only takes a few more minutes (and by a few, I mean like FIVE minutes) to make a simple marinade instead of using something from a bottle.

Lemon Garlic Rosemary Chicken (adapted from Annie's Eats Lemon Garlic Chicken Kabobs)
Stats: ~260 cals for 1/8 of recipe

2 lbs chicken breast (or whatever kind of chicken you have available)
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS sriracha sauce (you can leave out if you don't like any spiciness)
zest of 2 lemons (you need the zest of one lemon per pound of chicken)
3 or 4 rosemary sprigs, chopped
4.5 TBS olive oil
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

1.  Zest your lemon.  I like to use a peeler to have big chunks of lemon zest, but you can zest it however you like.

2.  Trim the fat off the of the chicken.  Chop into smaller servings sized pieces of chicken, or into kabobs.

3.  Mix garlic, sriracha sauce, lemon zest, rosemary, olive oil, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper into a bowl.  Whisk it to mix it well.

4.  Stick chicken in a Ziploc bag and pour marinade in there.  Mix it well so all the chicken is coated.  Let it sit anywhere from 20 minutes to 8 hours.

5.  Grill the chicken and serve!

Dinner is served!

salad of mixed greens with olive oil and raspberry balsamic, 1/2 cup watermelon chunks, small piece of lemon garlic rosemary chicken, broiled artichoke (it was a FAILURE!), 1/3 cup spinach tortellini with some shaved parmesan, 1 oz of ciabatta bread drizzled with olive oil, and homemade Passion Tea Lemonade a la Starbucks.  also, please ignore the wet spot next to my drink where I moved it over...  it kind of ruined the pretty picture!

As I mentioned in the caption, the broiled artichokes were a complete and utter FAILURE.  We tried so hard to eat them (I paid a dollar each for FOUR of them!) but, alas, we couldn't force ourselves to eat them.  They were rubbery and chewy...  maybe I didn't pick ripe artichokes?  I think I need to find a YouTube video or a better recipe with more clear explanation (and pictures!) of how to broil/roast/grill a whole artichoke.  If you have any, PLEASE share.

So that was our dinner...  and it was pretty wonderful!  You'll see some chicken and tortellini leftovers for lunch soon.

After we cleaned up from dinner, we dropped off some library books and headed over to the local walking track.  We ended up doing intervals (1:30 min brisk walking, 0:45 min running) for 3.85 miles and then a cool-down walk until we hit 4.09 miles (~53 minutes).  I felt so bad that we didn't take little Bella that we took her on a little walk when we got home, about 0.93 miles in 15 or 16 minutes.  Not bad!  The scale was down this morning so I was a happy camper.