Pork Tenderloin with Salsa Verde

This was an awesome weeknight meal!  I happened to have a jar of Trader Joe’s salsa verde on hand (my favorite jarred salsa!), so this was a done deal.  The pork we had in the freezer was a loin roast, so a bit of a pain to butterfly (largely because I’m not that good at it), but worth the trouble.   Very simple and really, really tasty.  We had this with some simple steamed green beans tossed with the Penzeys Ruth Ann’s mix – we’re addicted to this one on *everything.*  The combo was great.  The pork recipe came from Chow and I didn’t do anything differently. I might double the mustard next time, just because we love mustard, but really it’s not necessary.

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Butternut Squash Soup

Shawn makes the best soups, and this butternut squash with an array of different veggies was definitely right up there with my favorites he’s made.  This makes a lot, is very adaptable, and *very* filling.  We had this with some garlic flatbread crackers for dipping, but honestly this is so filling that a side isn’t needed.  Great for lunches!

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Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Taco Bowls

While this recipe was underwhelming, it really has potential if seasoned correctly.  In retrospect, I really should have thought out how much seasoning I was using for a slow cooker recipe.  It was pretty good once it was mixed with all the taco toppings, but it would have been excellent if it had more seasoning.  I doubled the spices in the recipe below, which originally came from Gimme Some Oven.  Or, you could use a homemade taco seasoning mix – that’s what I will do next time.  I think a large flank steak might do well, too.  I used a chuck roast and wouldn’t again.

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Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja

Wow, we loved this!  I got this recipe from the really fun “My Big Fat Cuban Family” website.  I’ve had her recipes bookmarked to try forever and finally got around to this one – we’ll be doing more of Marta’s recipes soon.  This was easy and honestly, we actually liked it better sans rice (good for me and low-carbin’ it).  My only mistake was over-salting and it was still great.

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Chocolate Cake

I’m really not a huge fan of chocolate, but this cake is good.  In small slices (no, seriously, no huge slices – it’s rich).  I made this for Valentine’s Day/Anniversary for Shawn.  It’s from my favorite baking site, Joy of Baking.  See her recipe here (she also has a yellow butter cake that is just as good…yellow cake is my favorite!) – I made no changes of course, and am always happy with the results.

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Greek Marinated Chicken

This was the first recipe I have tried from Budget Bytes, and we loved it!  Simple and very tasty.  We baked the chicken, but it would be excellent on the grill.  The only change I made was to use Greek yogurt for plain yogurt, and I think it went well.  We served this with Greek green beans, one of my favorite sides that unfortunately didn’t turn out (if you use diced tomatoes, watch they don’t contain chiles 😉 ).

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Fish Fillets in Curry Sauce

This was a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that looked really interesting, and Shawn picked up some nice haddock fillets so it was a good fit.  We really liked both the simple preparation of the fish and the sauce!  I am not usually a star at breading/baking fish, but I followed this to a tee and it came out perfectly.  The sauce would also be really nice with chicken or pork as well.  All-around great recipe…pretty much like every Madhur recipe we’ve tried. 🙂  We had this with ginger-garlic broccoli on the side.

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Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Greens

Random graving for black-eyed peas and soup on one of our Polar Vortex nights led to this concoction, which we really liked – easy, filling, and really tasty.  Also not too bad for you, either – you could substitute a chicken or lower fat sausage where I used kielbasa.  You can also use any greens you like, I just happened to have kale.  Swiss chard or collard greens would be great.  Versatile and good to clean out the fridge, too.

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Spiced Roast Beef

We loved this spice crust – probably one of my favorite roast beef meals I have ever done. I changed nothing except that orignal recipe (from Bon Appetit) called for all root veggies, and I roasted carrots and brussels sprouts together – excellent with the pan drippings.  This was a great winter meal and you could conceivably do any mix and match of roasted veggies that you like.

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Oven Roasted Chicken Thighs

This was quick and easy for a weeknight (or a busy weekend), and very versatile.  You could really put any veggies in here – I am not a fan of taters, but parsnips would actually work really well with the herbs on the chicken, and you might even be able to add squash.  A nice, hearty dinner that we enjoyed, which is done quickly.  We had this with garlic roasted asparagus on the side.

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