We made another family favorite meal last night. We are working on keeping our calorie intake down, so finding meals that are lower in calories is a priority for us. This is a fairly simple meal, but it does take a bit to get the pork cooked, we prefer this meal for a weekend when we have more time to prepare.

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Chinese Pork

Boneless Pork Ribs
Chinese Style Ah-So Sauce
Broccoli cut into small pieces

Boil pork on high for 1 hour.
Steam or boil broccoli until soft.
Turn broiler on on oven. Cut the cooked pork into bite sized chunks and mix with Ah-So sauce in a bowl. I usually use half the bottle (to help keep calories down), but it will depend on how much pork you have. You want your pieces to be fully coated in the sauce.

Spread covered pork into a single layer on a cookie sheet, I put down aluminum foil first for easy clean up. Place pan under broiler for a five minutes or so, turning the pork a few times while it is cooking. You want the sauce to caramelize on the pork, but be careful it doesn’t burn.

Serve cooked pork with your broccoli and enjoy!

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The longest part of this recipe is boiling the pork to pre-cook it. You could even do this the night before and refrigerate the pork to be used the next night. When you put the pork under the broiler it will warm it right back up.

Lately I have been picking up my dinner the same night that we are eating it. I swing by the grocery store on the way home. I really like doing this as it means we don’t have a lot of extra food in the house that we are tempted to eat. Hubby and I are working on counting calories to drop a few pounds, and it’s not always easy to keep our calories low. Keeping food out of the house helps us stay on track.

Happy Eating!
Rachel

How about something different today? I wanted to share a family favorite recipe with all of you. A while back I found a recipe for Taco Salad online. I was looking for something different from what I usually did for Taco Salad, which was basically tacos with more lettuce … in a bowl. I tried this recipe and it was a hit from the first go round.

If you want to see the original recipe, go here.

I have made a few adjustments to the recipe to suit my family’s tastes and just from making it a few times. Feel free to take my changes and change them again! I’d love to hear if you try this recipe and what you did to change it up, or if you kept it the same.

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Taco Salad

1 1/2 lb. ground round
1 envelope taco mix
1 teaspoon cumin
1 head lettuce, torn into bite size pieces
1 green pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 red pepper, choped
1 can niblets whole corn, drained
1 can (15 oz.) red kidney beans, washed and drained
1 bag nacho cheese Doritos
Sour cream
Shredded Cheese

Dressing
1 c. salad oil
1/3 c. ketchup
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. vinegar

Brown and drain hambuger, add water and taco mix according to the instructions on the taco mix. Set aside once finished.

In large bowl combine letuce, green, yellow, and red peppers, niblet corn, and kidney beans. Toss throughly.

In seperate bowl combine the ingredients for the Dressing, whisk well.

Add taco meat, dressing (we actually only add about 2/3 of the dressing, your tastes may vary), and cumin to bowl with the salad ingredients. Toss well.

To serve: Crush Doritos into individual bowls, add salad and top with sour cream and shredded cheese.

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I have found that by not adding the doritos with the salad as the original recipe suggests, the chips are crunchy while you are eating it. I would imagine all mixed it they would get soggy quick. I also add more cumin right into my bowl as it seems the taco flavor diminshes a bit when everything is added together.

I have to say that the Taco Salad keeps very well in the fridge. The lettuce still has a crunch to it for the next few days. In fact we almost prefer this recipe as a leftover because the flavors seem to infuse even more.

Happy Eating!
Rachel