Baked Chard Stems, Asparagus, & Shrooms

A leafy red chard plant started growing in the carrot patch (I have no idea how it got there), and not having ever prepared chard before I made up a little dish with what I had available and it turned out really tasty. It would be great as an appetizer - its filling and rich even in small doses.

Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Separate chard stems from leafs (mixed leafs with other greens for a salad that was pretty good too) and trim chard stems into 2 - 3 inch lengths
• Boil chard stems in salt water for 5-ish minutes
• Drain and place chard stems in baking dish
• Mix in Asparagus also in 2 - 3 inch lengths in the baking dish (it was popping up in the garden, so I had to do something with it)
• Add in mushrooms (not necessary, but there was a can there and it seemed logical at the time)
• drizzle olive oil (or butter)
• Then cover the whole thing with Parmesan Cheese. I tried it another time with a mix of Colby Jack and Parmesan, and that was good too
• Bake in oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is brown

Ribs...

Tuesday:
Breakfast:

• 1 hard boiled egg (17 calories, 3.6 protein, 0.2 carbs)
• 1 scrambled egg (17 calories, 3.6 protein, 0.2 carbs)
• 2 pieces of peppered bacon (90 calories, 5 g protein, 0 carbs)

Lunch:

• Salad from the grocery store with mixed greens, grilled chicken, real bacon bits, tomatoes, and fat-free Italian. VERY DISAPPOINTING LUNCH :(. Should have brought my salad from home.

Dinner:
Pork Ribs Southern Style Cut. I grew up in Barbeque country but I don't have any predisposition as to how it should be prepared. I made up a dry rub primarily based on the Southern Heritage spice I'm trying from Reid's Fine Foods and Sea Salt and plopped the ribs on the grill for a few minutes on each side to sear in flavors, then I plopped them in a roasting pan, covered it with foil, and threw it in the oven for 1.5-2 hours at 275 Convection. I ate the first rib at the 1.5 hour mark, and the second at the 2 hour mark - both equally tasty.

BIG PROBLEM though... I made a rooky mistake and slathered on some Sissy Sauce BBQ sauce, which is a sweeter kind (my wife was smart and went for vinegar based) - it had 13g of Carbs! That messed me up. The other problem is that I picked out fairly lean ribs, as these things go, but the wifey felt like it was too fatty and gave the meal a rather weak thumbs up...


Wednesday:
Couldn't sleep until 3:30am, woke up at 7:15, sucked down 1 hard boiled egg, 4 cups of coffee, likely hitting Chipotle for lunch and leftover ribs for dinner...

Day One - Premium Slow Carb - Lamb Souvlaki

Monday:
This was the first day. We had 1 scrambled farm fresh egg and 2 slices of bacon each for breakfast, and a salad from our garden for lunch. I cheated and had a turkey and spinach dog mid afternoon because I was starving. For dinner, though, we had a really immaculate dish (well, my wife didn't like it because she has some aversion to lamb that I don't understand or approve of).

Lamb Souvlaki-kinda:
1lb of Loin Chops (not enough for two people as it happens, in a bag on the night before along with a tablespoon (or 2) of lemon juice, 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil, some coarse sea salt (fine salt should not be added overnight, and even coarse is better to add right before cooking so it doesn't suck all the juices out), teaspoon of minced garlic, freshly chopped green onions from our garden and a spice mix I'm trying from Reid's Fine Foods that just says Southern Heritage on the label (I'll try to come back and add more details). Grilled this until medium on Monday.

Tzatziki-kinda:
I made Tzatziki for the first time and frankly felt like there might be too much cucumber in it, but I based it loosely on several recipes. I basically blended 1 peeled raw cuke with 1/8th teaspoon of fine sea salt, 1 cup of greek plain yogurt, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice (white wine is a good substitute I read, but I drank the last glass of white wine while I cooked), 1 teaspoon of dill (I used 2 because the dried dill smelled kind of bland), and 1 teaspoon of minced garlic.

We also had 4 or 5 Asparagus each, and I separately cooked some chunks of a bell pepper which my wife doesn't like. It was not quite enough food, but it was really tasty.

Before bed, I had 1.5 glasses of red wine with a friend who stayed over on his way through town. So, I kind of cheated, but I couldn't be a bad host.

Salmon Wellington

Some times you have to try some frozen food because it just looks that tasty, and the Salmon Wellington from our grocer's frozen seafood section lived up to the pretty pictures on the packaging.

Ingredients:
1 2-pack Frozen Salmon Wellington :)
Asparagus
Left-over Hollandaise

Cooked the Salmon Wellington for 35 minutes in a convection oven @ 375 degrees (instructions were for 30-35 minutes at 400), but had to finish it off another 10 minutes.

Breast of Lamb, Asparagus, and Pinot Noir Reduction

Unfortunately there are no succulent pictures of dinner from Friday night, but we had what I consider a top notch meal. Not everyone agreed.

I didn't follow any strict recipe and instead just used what we had on hand - rosemary, oregano, sea salt, a half glass of pinot noir at the bottom of a bottle and merlot, and butter. That probably violates some cooking law of mixing products, but there you have it.

For the main course, I bought a breast of lamb, and asparagus for the side.


I seared the meaty side of the lamb for 2 minutes or so in a skillet, then rubbed the sea salt on it and sprinkled it with rosemary and oregano. Then I stuffed it in the oven for around 2.75 hours at 375 degrees. It cooked a little faster than what I timed it for, so maybe it was 2 hours.

Next we sat around and talked about food for long time, and then in the last 1/2 hour I came back and prepared the asparagus by drizzling some olive oil on it and sprinkled it with lemon pepper, then wrapped it in foil and stuffed it in the oven.

For sauce, I prepared some hollandaise for the asparagus - and yes, I used a little pouch of powder to kick this one off. Baby steps.

For the lamb sauce, I threw some chopped green onions in and sauteed them in the skillet, next I mixed in the wine that was on hand (think it would've been even better if I'd just used Pinot Noir by itself) and any leftover oregano and rosemary, and reduced it - in hindsight, I should have reduced it further and longer until it was more syrupy, but it was close to being correct. I added a dab of butter and the juice that had kicked off from the lamb breast. It turned out really good.

A colleague of my wife, who doesn't eat lamb, and his girlfriend had stopped by while we were preparing and shared some of the meal. It got good reviews from her, but he didn't try it and my wife felt like it was too fatty. I loved it.