Pineapple Spam Stir Fry

My husband thought it was extraordinarily strange when I announce we were having pineapple SPAM for dinner one night. Cause SPAM is all salty and unhealthy and made from pigs toenails and earwax and all that jazz. I told him to chill out cause SPAM is an OK sometimes food. Besides the dish had fruit and veggies in it, so it totally negated any bad juju from the processed meat.

What?

That isn't how the math works in your kitchen?  How sad for you.

For those of you who like to indulge in SPAM, or like me, who got such a good deal with sales and coupons that they were practically giving the stuff away, let's talk about this stir fry!

The original recipe was from a blog called mochachocolata Rita. The directions were pretty vague, and have you baking the dish like a casserole. I chose to nix that idea, in favor for not heating up the house to burning hot million degrees infinity to the extreme. Sure the skillet got the kitchen warm, but it was loads better than it would have been had I used the oven.  The original recipe also didn't have any green beans in it.  Green beans are awesome with ham and in stir fry.  I used about 1 1/2 cups of frozen green beans.  I just eyeballed it so I'm not entirely sure.  If you like yourself some green beans, feel free to use more, or even add other veggies. Go crazy and have fun.  Here is my version of the recipe.

Pineapple Spam and Green Bean Stir Fry adapted from Mochachocolata Rita
1 c rice
2c water
1 can of spam (mine happened to be bacon flavored)
2 small onions, sliced thinly into half moons
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T minced ginger (I had jarred ginger in my fridge, but if you have the fresh stuff go for it!)
20 oz can of pineapple slices, cut into cubes (They could be chunks too, slices were what I happened to have in my pantry this particular day.)
1 c of juice reserved from the canned  pineapple
3T terriyaki sauce (or more to taste)
1 1/2 c frozen green beans

Place rice in water in a covered pot.  Simmer for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, carefully remove the SPAM from its container and cube into bite size pieces.  Fry in a skillet on medium to medium high heat.  While the SPAM is cooking, slice the onions.  Once the SPAM begins to turn light brown, add the onions.  Once the SPAM and onions are a nice shade of brown, add the pineapple slices.  Add splashes of reserved pineapple juice from the can to help everything get caramelized.  Once the pineapple begins to turn light brown add the garlic, ginger, terriyaki, green beans and any left over juice.   The green beans should start to get little black specks on them right about the time the rice is done.  Serve the stir fry over the rice.  Top with red pepper flakes and soy sauce if that is your sort of thing.

BBQ roasted chickpeas

The honey roasted chickpeas were such a hit, I thought I'd try another flavor variation.

These are Baked BBQ chickpeas from Pickles and Honey. Who doesn't love BBQ flavored anything?!  I used regular Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, but if I make these again, I think I'll use the honey chipotle flavor.  I found myself wishing the chickpeas were just a little bit sweeter and spicier.

The baked chickpeas were good, just not as good as the honey cinnamon version.  Perhaps this was because the honey poured over the baked garbanzo beans, while this recipe calls for applying the wet BBQ sauce before cooking.  It seemed like these beans took a lot longer to get crunchy as a result.  I will have to keep my eye out for a roasted chickpea recipe that has you applying the BBQ sauce after the beans are all dried out.

Baked BBQ Chickpeas from Pickles and Honey
3 C. Chickpeas, cooked (about 2, 15 oz. cans) (use the dried beans if you can, I've found they cook up better)
1 Large Clove Garlic, crushed
1/4 C. – 1/3 C. BBQ Sauce, depending on personal preference
2 T Olive Oil

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drain and rinse chickpeas and place them in a large bowl. Add the crushed garlic, BBQ sauce, and olive oil to the chickpeas and stir until the chickpeas are evenly coated. Transfer chickpeas to your prepared baking sheet and spread into an even layer. Bake for 35-40 minutes, stirring once after 20 minutes.  (Mine were not finished baking after 40 minutes, so I would take the crunchy ones out after an additional 10 minutes of cooking, until all of them were baked to my liking.)

Thankful Thurs #23

Source

1. Knowing when to stop what I was doing and lay down.

2. Blockette's tooth finally fell out.

3. School's over. (I have mixed feelings about this.)

4. The bugs that are attacking my garden haven't eaten all my plants yet.

5. Not getting bit by our cats when we attempted to clean out their ears with the solution the vet gave us. (Next time Mrblocko and I will both wear gardening gloves, or some sort of full body metal armor.)

6. Grilling=I don't have to make dinner.

7. Good news from the Dr.

8. Deep breaths.

9. The tiny sprout on the blackberry plant.

10. Blockette's new found love of weaving.

Koolaid Jello Pops

My daughter is the slowest Popsicle eater on the planet.  Seriously. I don't know what it is. She was even like this before she lost any teeth.  When she was younger I'd only feed her popsicles outside. That way I'd only have to clean the sticky mess off of her, and not the entire kitchen and dining room.  Even now, I make her eat over a plate .

I have no idea where I found this recipe for drip-less wonders.  This was in my recipe binder before I started up this blog. It's another one of those, "why did I wait so many years to test it out?" kind of recipes.  These bad boys really live up to their name.  They really are Drip-less wonders.  My child only had two small drips on her plate, and none on her hands, face, clothes, floor, etc.  They should be called drip-less miracles.

What I liked about these freezey pops is that they don't get rock hard like some home made popsicles do.  Unlike Blockette, I like to take big chomps out of my frozen treats.  You can take huge bites without having to worry about breaking off any teeth.

They do have a slight jell-o-y taste to them.  However, the jell-o flavor wasn't so strong that I didn't like them.

We used sugar free strawberry jello and strawberry kool aid.  I couldn't find the sweetened version so I added a scant 1/3 c of sugar.  For the next batch I think I'll cut it back to 1/4 c. 

"Drip-less wonders"
1 pkg kool-aid, presweetened (or unsweetened with 1/4-1/3c sugar or substitute)
1 pkg jello (same flavor as kool aid)
2 c boiling water
2 c cold water

Mix Kool aid, jello, sugar and boiling water until the powders are dissolved. Add the cold water.  Stir.  Pour into molds and freeze.  Refrigerate leftovers for easy refilling of molds. If the concoction has set up, microwave for 15-20 seconds to liquify.

May Reads

1. Spellbound: The Books of Elsewhere Volume 2 by Jacqueline West.  This is the second book in this series about Olive, a girl who moves into a house that used to be inhabited by a evil witch who can travel and trap people in the paintings in the house.  In book one Olive thinks she has stopped the witch from returning, but of course she has found another way into the world through the paintings. Olive makes friends with the neighbor next door and her grandson and discovers that not all magic is evil.  The story was set up for a third book in the series!

2. Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  This was probably the best adaptation of Cinderella that I have ever read.  It is set very far into the future.  People have colonized the moon and have been living there long enough to have evolved to have developed certain mind controlling powers.  Cinder, the main character is a cyborg who lives roughly in what is probably the current country of China, with her step mother and two step sisters. Cyborgs are considered sub-human, so when Cinder's step sister succumbs to the deadly plague, Cinder is sent off to be experimented on in attempts to discover a cure for the plague.  It is here where she begins to discover her true identity.  This was such a great book.  You could tell that it was geared toward teenage girls, but was written so well that even Mrblocko enjoyed it.  Apparently, it is the first in a series of 4.  I anxiously await the further installments of the story!

3. Mr Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Pattillo.  This was a sequel of sorts to the novel, "Jane Austen Ruined My Life."  There are a different set of main characters, but the features the same organization, "The Formidables," who's goal is to protect the image that the world has of Jane Austen.  The main character travels to England to deliver a paper written by her sister who is too pregnant to travel.  She stumbles on an original manuscript for "Pride and Prejudice."  She also seeminly stumbles into a very Darcy-esque love. Amid all this drama, the main character discovers she's been so focused on doing for others that it became a crutch and she lost the essence of who she really was.  Through this painful discovery, she finally comes to terms with her behavior and opens herself up to true love.  A great read even if you aren't particularly fond of Ms. Austen.

4.The Real Life Downton Abbey by Jacky Hyams.  This was an informative book about the lives of people in the Edwardian period, discussing both upper and lower classes.  Most of it I was able to figure out by just watching Downton Abbey, or by listening to commentaries from other movies in similar time periods.  The book was a bit dry at times, and that is saying something as I enjoy reading these sort of fact-y types of non-fiction works.  Glad I just checked out from the library for free.  It had an extraordinarily long wait list, but that was probably just due to the fact that it had "Downton Abbey" in the title

5. Heartless by Gail Carriger.  This was the fourth book in the Parasol Protectorate series.  It took me a full week to get into this story.  I've really enjoyed this series, set in a steampunky supernatural Victorian England, but it took until mid way through the book for the story to gain speed.   The previous books have been a bit of a bodice ripper, but as the main character was in the late third trimester of her pregnancy, there was none of that going on in this book.  To me, this book seemed like more of a set up for the next book which will deal with exactly what the child of a soulless and a werewolf, who gets adopted by a vampire, so the vampires won't kill it, will actually be.  Even though I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first 2 in the series, I'm looking forward to reading book 5, which I just put on hold at the library today!

How on Earth???!!!

I was battling a migraine on Friday and wound up taking a rare and much needed afternoon nap. I got myself up with about 10 minutes to spare before Blockette came home from school.  I thought, I have just enough time to go to the bathroom and get the mail.

We have a small bathroom right off of our laundry room in the basement.  I thought I'll just go in there real quick and leave out the garage door.

Heh.

Famous last words.

When I walked into the laundry room I saw poopy paw prints all over the floor.

And this:

Certainly it is not poo. 

It couldn't be.

Not that high up on the wall.

No way.

I don't even want to know what kind of acrobatics my cat was doing to get the poop on the wall THREE feet off the floor. 

Good Times.

May Cross Stitches

Only two cross stitches completed for the rest of the month of May. What can I say, I decided to read instead of stitch! Horray for books that don't suck!

This design was a freebie from a French blog.  The chart can be found here.

The design looks so much better close up than it does at a distance. You'd think this would be a good thing, but as I was planning on adding this to the rest of the silhouette cross stitches, it wound up being a complete waste of time.  As cross stitch is basically pixilated art, it's SUPPOSED to look better from a distance.  This design just gets blurry when you look at it from more than a few inches away.  Let that be a lesson to me that not everything looks good on 22 count fabric.  No super detailed monochromatic stuff.  Oh well.  Lesson learned...hopefully.


This Scandinavian Red and White style design was another freebie.  I found this one at Tom Pudding Designs.

I had so much fun stitching this design. I'm not even quite sure why. It's not my usual style, and I have no plans for the finished piece.  I guess it was one of those things where you enjoy the journey more than the actual destination.