Things we eat: August 2009 Archives

I go back to work tomorrow, so you won't have to hear nearly so much about my attempts at housewife-ness. But until then...

Here's another recipe! This one's super-zesty, which is what I love about it. It's honey spice-rubbed pork tenderloin, and it's from Kraft's Food & Family magazine, the spring 2008 edition.

Here's the final product:

And here's the recipe:

- 1 pork roast
- 1/4 cup Catalina salad dressing
- 1 tsp. red pepper
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp. Season Salt
- 1 Tbsp. honey

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place meat in a baking pan and brush meat with 2 Tbsp. of the dressing. Mix dry ingredients and rub onto the roast. Mix remaining 2 Tbsp. dressing and the honey; set aside.

Bake 15 minutes; brush with the dressing mixture. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until the pork is cooked through. Remove the roast from the oven; cover it with foil and let it stand about 5 minutes before slicing.

Once you slice it, it'll look like this:

And it will be yummy!! I especially like the ends, which have lots of the spicy rub on them.

My week off has really given me a chance to explore my domestic side. Not only is my house as clean and organized as it's been in a long time, but I've been cooking regularly.

Saturday night's dinner was a favorite of mine, bacon cheeseburger pasta, and I thought some of you might like the recipe.

Here's the finished product:

The recipe is from what used to be called "Quick Cooking" magazine, back in 2000. Here it is, with a few subsitutions of mine:

- 8 ounces uncooked pasta (tubes or spirals are best)
- 1 pound ground beef
- 6 bacon strips, diced
- 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed tomato soup, undiluted
- 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Cook the pasta according to its package directions. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook your ground beef over medium heat until it's no longer pink; drain. Then, cook your bacon until it's crisp in the same skillet and drain again. Drain your pasta, then add it to the skillet, along with the soup. Mix it well and heat it through; then, add the shredded cheddar cheese. Cook (the original recipe says covered, but I do it uncovered) until the cheese is melted, then serve from your skillet.

The recipe says it makes 4 to 6 servings; usually, I make mine with a whole box of pasta, which is 12 to 16 ounces instead of 8, so it makes MANY more servings for pretty much the same cost. It's just a little less juicy, and that's fine with me!

Anyone have any other one-dish recipes to share? Casseroles and skillet meals are my favorites because I'm basically lazy - the fewer steps and dishes, the better! But I get tired of just pasta as the base, so if you have one that uses potatoes of any kind, my mother - who hinted today that I need to branch out - would really appreciate it!

Have you missed me? I took this week off to celebrate my daughter's first week of fourth grade. Boy, I'd love to be a stay-at-home mom; this week has just been awesome.

Tonight's adventure in domesticity was a particularly good one. Lest you think that all I do is eat at the various dining establishments of York County, no, I do make food at home too, and here's proof - a photo of Sarah making homemade ice cream tonight.

It's not quite done chilling yet, but it soon will be. It's cookies and cream, and we're really looking forward to trying it!

So what are your favorite ice cream flavors? I need suggestions for the next time we make it!

I had a cavity-free visit to the dentist at noon today, and of course, I hadn't eaten beforehand, so I was starving by the time I finished!

My dentist is in the South York area of York Township, so I headed almost across the street to a favorite lunch spot of mine, The Festive Board deli in Queensgate.

The sky was just starting to get super-gray, so I knew I'd be eating my lunch in a storm. But once I went in, browsed for a while and ordered, I realized that their indoor tables didn't really give a great outside view, so I went and sat at a small table outside, underneath the shopping center's overhang, just as it began to rain. By the time I was halfway through lunch, it was a total downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. I wasn't at all afraid - in fact, I loved it, though I admit one particularly ominous clap of thunder with a straight-down lightning bolt just in front of me had me wondering if I should reconsider.

But I stuck it out, and all in all, it was a really interesting way to spend lunch. They're doing a lot of work on the Queensgate center, so there were a lot of crews trying to work despite the rain; the lightning chased the sign company men on their metal ladder down too, thankfully, and they headed into The Festive Board as well.

Here's what I had:

A ham-and-provolone sandwich on a kaiser roll with mustard, plus the largest dill pickle I've seen in a long time. Altogether, it cost $6.63 with the soda (diet, of course), so I thought it was a good deal.

While I was wandering around inside, debating what to order, I just had to take a picture of the deli case for you guys:

Besides thinking that many of the foods in there looked good - especially the ham salad at the bottom right - I had to snap the photo because there were "purple eggs" - which the deli labeled as red-beet eggs. Guess we know how they'd vote in the pickled vs. red beet poll!

Whether you call them red-beet eggs or pickled eggs, I think you can agree that they are indisputably purple eggs!

See? Purple. Photos were graciously provided by my "unofficial Only in York County staff photographer," Jo, who sent them to me with a note: "The real McCoy! No red food coloring. No Photoshop 'adjustments.' And they are surrounded by York County red beets and some will be lunch today."

Jo, hope you enjoyed your lunch! Jo, by the way, is in the minority in our egg poll... she says these are definitely pickled eggs. Unfortunately, of the 27 votes cast, 70 percent opted to call them red-beet eggs instead. (And my father-in-law, who clearly does not know his York County eggs, called them deviled eggs. My goodness.)

More on the great egg debate to come, including recipes! Do you have a recipe for either deviled or pickled/red beet eggs? Comment please! Otherwise you are stuck with whatever I turn up!

Remember when I posted about the cake disaster that only an editor could love?

Well, my friend Megan then told me about CakeWrecks.com, a site dedicated to showcases cakes, well, gone wrong.

It cracked me up! Do yourself a favor today and check it out. And, just because I like to talk about food, post me a comment and tell me what your favorite kind of cake/icing combo is (and where you buy it, if you don't feel that buying a cake is some kind of sin against humanity.)

Important note: The cake pictured here is decidedly NOT a wreck - it was decorated in 2007 by Mary Jo Sturgill at her home in Dover Township, and I picked it for the blog because my daughter loves cake AND ladybugs! So, this one's for Sarah. :)

So after making you think so much in yesterday's post, here's a fun and easy one that I thought I should get to before summer picnic season winds down... what do you call these eggs?

(Image from RecipeZaar)

I had lunch at Epex Pretzels on Route 30 this week, and guess what I had?

Aww, come on. It's not even a challenge. What food do I always order?

HOT DOGS!

Sarah had a "pretzel cheese sandwich." They piled on a lot of American cheese, which is good considering it's all she eats! Next comes my hot dog on a pretzel roll, with ketchup and mustard. Finally, there's Hubby's mild smoked sausage with mustard. (I tried to talk him into onions, too, but he was on the way to work and said he'd give our coworkers a break.)

Those are Sarah's Utz cheese curls in the background, by the way. They came free with her sandwich. I like that - a local business supporting another local business.