Tonight, I Outdid Myself

I'm talking pork here, people. Not that kind of doing and not that kind of pork, but good nonetheless...

Tonight I made asian spiced pork, patty-pan puree, citrus vinagarette salad and vanilla ice cream with spiced mandarin sauce. The best part? It was all part of a low-fat meal I was making for my uncle who has promised himself a new truck if he loses 70 pounds. It wasn't the lowest calorie meal, I'll admit, but I was conscious of not making it the highest calorie meal, either. I don't have pictures (which is what makes any food blog entry interesting, I know), but I have rough recipe ideas if anyone is hungry for low-fat and de-ricious.

Asian spiced pork:
Get some pork tenderloins
Mix together some brown sugar, chinese five spice, salt, black pepper and some cayenne pepper (if you're nasty). It's about 3 parts brown sugar to one part chinese 5 spice with the others to taste.
Heat up a heavy bottomed pan on med-high (cast iron works great if you have it)
Pre-heat oven at 425F
Rub the sugar/spice mix on the tenderloin
Sear tenderloin on all sides in pan.
Put seared tenderloin in an oven safe dish and bake for 15-20 minutes.
*Remember -- most Americans completely overcook pork. It doesn't need to be grey to be done, it just needs to reach 160F. And even if it doesn't, most US store-bought pork won't do much harm even if it is undercooked a bit. The pork I cook comes out a little pink and it's fantabulous.

Glaze for pork:
In a small sauce pan, combine a heavy dose (about a 1/2 cup) of apricot preserves (orange marmalade will do in a pinch or even in combination), something salty/savory like soy sauce or worcestershire sauce, a pinch of sugar, some salt and maybe some cidar vinegar (if you have it).
Bring whatever you combined to a boil, then let it simmer til it thickens to a sauce. Even if it's runny, though, it''ll taste good. Just dump it over the pork and whatever you use as a vegetable base (I used the squash puree listed below).

Patty-pan squash puree:
Peel and seed 1 large patty-pan squash
Boil in salted water until completely rendered (fork meets no resistance)
Drain squash and dump into a blender with butter ( I used about 1 tblsp. to one cup squash), sour cream (2 tblsp. to one cup squash) and fat free cream cheese (1 to one squash ratio).
Add about 2 tblsp. fresh thyme leaves if you have them. If not, add some dried italian seasoning, basil, oregano, etc.
Salt liberally.
Puree to a pulp then reheat if necessary.

Citrus vinaigrette salad:
This salad is basically baby greens/spinach mix, toasted sweetened nuts, goat cheese, red onions and the vinaigrette. We added some chopped roma tomatoes because we had them - if you don't, no biggie. Use a sweet vinaigrette that you like -- mine is just a made up thing that I'll probably change based on what I have, but here is what I made:

Can mandarin oranges in juice (or light syrup if you can't find the juice)
2 tblsp. fresh, fruity extra virgin olive oil (if you are not going to cook the olive oil, you need to do some taste testing to find the one that works for you. That Bertolli stuff is not the end-all-be-all even if the package looks fancy.)
1 peeled, cored apple (it does not matter if this apple if old and bruised and mealy -- its main purpose is to add some volume to your dressing)
2 tblsp. fresh thyme (again, if you have it. If not, use italian seasoning or something.)
a good dose cider vinegar (another vinegar will work, but you have to keep an eye on the tartness -- cider vinegar tends to be mild in that regard [almost sweet] so don't overdo it if you substitute something non-fruity)
Salt to taste
Blend everything in a blender and let it sit for at least 15 minutes so the herbs can mature a bit, then season to taste.

Toss the salad greens with onions, goat cheese (crumbles), and dressing. Woot!

oh, and the dessert...

I chose Breyers fat free vanilla ice-cream. It's creamy and smooth, and doesn't taste like frozen skim milk, so I think that's a winner.

For the mandarin sauce...

Puree another can of mandarin oranges in juice (light syrup if you can't avoid it)
Add about 1/2 tsp of ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg (or just a good dose of pumpkin pie spice or all-spice or whatever sweet-spices you have on hand).
Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer until syrupy.
Pour sauce over ice-cream.

Enjoy like it's 1999

Peace Corps Loves Us, Finally

Well, Matt and I are gearing up to leave for Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps in just a few weeks. For those who don’t know, we are scheduled to begin staging on August 17^th in Washington D.C. and we actually leave for Kazakhstan in the evening of August 18^th.

Staging is PC slang for pre-departure orientation. We’re basically supposed to learn some need-to-know info about what to expect as soon as we get into KZ. For those of you who are interested in stalking us or for future PC applicants who can’t get enough of stalking PC blogs (trust me, we understand), the schedule looks like this:

KAZAKHSTAN Staging Event

Holiday Inn Georgetown

2101 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20007

Phone: 202-338-4600

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

12:00 PM

Registration

Official registration as Peace Corps trainee -- turn in completed forms

2:00 - 4:25 PM

Who We Are

What's Expected of You

4:25 - 4:45 PM

Break

4:45 - 7:00 PM

• What You Expect

• What's Next

• Closing

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

12:00 PM

Check out of hotel

12:30 PM

Bus arrives for loading and departure to Washington Dulles Airport

5:45 PM

Flight departs for Kazakhstan

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ITINERARY:

18 AUG 10 - Wednesday

Washington Dulles to Frankfurt

Air United Airlines FLT:8826

LV Washington Dulles at 545PM AR Frankfurt 740AM (on the 19th)

19 AUG 10 - Thursday

Frankfurt to Almaty

Air United Airlines FLT:9116

LV Frankfurt 145PM AR Almaty 1205AM (on the 20th)

Notice that we have a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt. Word on the street is that we can’t leave the airport during that time. Oh. Joy.

We don’t have a lot of expectations for our lives in KZ. We like to travel like that. When we went to Japan, we just didn’t know what to expect and I think that actually prepares you to be ready for anything. The people I met in JP that had the most trouble were those who had fixed notions about the country. It didn’t matter whether the notion was that the entire country looked like Tokyo or that everyone sat around watching anime in their kimono while eating sushi or just that everything was going to be generally wildly exotic. Real life is real life everywhere you go and sometimes, it’s just not that thrilling, which can be a real downer for people. Soooo, we’re just expecting to meet some people, do our jobs and freeze our asses off 9 months out of the year. Sounds like a good plan to me!