Issues with the grill

I have been looking through this Vietnamese cookbook that my husband bought me for weeks now. Pondering what I'd be cooking as my very first dish. I decided to go with a type of pork soup which looked super marvelous in the photo provided with the recipe. I purchased everything this weekend and had planned on making it for dinner tonight when I came across a bit of a dilemma; all the meat in the meal was required to be cooked on a grill of some sorts. Normally this wouldn't be an issue because our grill is located right out side our door but due to the "Snowpocalypse" the grill is currently hibernating under 2 feet of snow.  So this whole discovery messed up my dinner plans because I was stuck with 2 pounds of pork shoulder blade meat that needed to be cooked and I wasn't sure what to do with it. So I racked my brain and finally came up with a solution; Id make some Teriyaki pork with pineapple and long grain rice with peas and carrots on the side. It turned out swell and I even decided I would take some photos to share it in all its glory!

Well, that's it. In all it's glory. It was very simple to make. I just made it up as I went along which made it even easier. 

               Just for laughs, here's the recipe:

Teriyaki pineapple and Pork

2 pounds Pork shoulder trimmed of fat and bones

2 Tablespoons oil

2 cans crushed pineapple in their own juices

1/2-1 cup San-J GF Teriyaki Sauce (Can substitute for any Teriyaki sauce I'm sure)

pepper 

salt

rice of your choice

1. Trim fat and bones off the pork if not already done, and slice into bite size pieces or strips. I did a combo of the two just because of how my bones were located in my meat.  

2. Add oil to an electric skillet that is set on medium. Once oil has heated, add the pieces of pork one at a time until they are all covering the bottom of the skillet.

3. Brown the pork, flipping the pieces so that each side gets evenly browned. The time will very based on the size of your pieces (but if there is still pink on the outsides don't worry it will finish cooking in a later step)

4. Remove pieces into a bowl as they finish browning.

5. Once all pieces are done and in the bowl, add the pineapple including juice to the skillet and cook for a few minutes then return the pork to the skillet as well.

6. Add the Teriyaki sauce into the rest of the ingredients stir and bring to a boil, once boiling reduce the heat to a lower setting, cover and let cook until there is no longer any pink in any of the meat (This took me about 15 minutes)

7. Salt and pepper to taste and serve over rice of your choice. I added a can of peas and carrots as well but you can add whatever you'd like. 

Well there it is. I've never written out step by step instructions before so I hope its not too hard to follow. My family enjoyed it and I hope yours does as well. I enjoyed taking the photos too. The first photo is actually off my rice and new rice bowls my husband purchased from me from pier1 imports. I love them to death. First time using them as well and they are splendid. 

okay, so I'm addicted to rice...

Valentines day will be here soon. I have looked around for things on line to get for my husband but decided that I'd take a trip to the mall with a good friend of mine to look at all the wonderful things there in hopes that I would find something that he'd like. Living in Michigan, you get used to random and very strange weather so when we over herd a few store employees talking about 2 inches of snow dropping in a matter of minutes we were not overly worried because hey, this is Michigan after all. So we continued to look around for Valentines day gifts for my husband and her fiancé. 

After being at the mall for 3 hours, we decided that it was about time we should head out. What we saw when we stepped outside was a huge surprise. Around a good 6-7 inches of snow covered the already massive piles of snow from our previous weeks snow storm and my friends car. We sort of laughed as we cleaned her car off thinking how we thought there was no way that the snow would have really done much damage considering we had about 18 inches on the ground already. We were slightly wrong. The drive from the mall normally takes about 10 minutes to get back to where I live, it took us around 35-40 minutes to get home due to the weather. 

We didn't actually buy anything for anyone for Valentines day but we did buy some things for our selves. 

Now I normally don't wait till the last minute to buy gifts for people. I ordered a few things off one of my favorite sites, Etsy.com for my husband for v-day along with a few other things for myself because lets face it, that site, is amazing. I have yet to find someone on there that wasn't super friendly and super helpful. You can find anything from photographs to edibles to cuff-links and clothing. Most of the sellers on here will also do custom orders so if there is something your looking for and you can't find it but you like the other products a seller has, chances are they would love to make something custom for you. 

I found a few other things on the site today for him so he's done and I didn't have to chance going out into the snow again looking for something that I most likely wouldn't have found. 

I tried a new product over the weekend as well. Its this tablet called affresh and what its designed for is making your washer smell better. I believe they have them for the dish washer as well but since I don't have one, I only bought and tried the washing machine one and I have to say, its fantastic. My washer was purchased used and it's had a very odd oder since we've owned it. Now it has no smell whatsoever. These things are super easy to use, simply run hot water into your empty washing machine, drop the tablet in, and let it run on normal cycle. Smelt totally clean once it was done and there was no left over residue on the inside of the washer (Although the instructions claim that it can happen, I had none). I totally love this product and for around 9 dollars for 3 tablets (one tablet per month) so thats around 40 bucks a year for a clean, fresh smelling washing machine. I'm pretty down with that. Their website is www.affresh.com if you want to see the video of a demonstration for either the washing machine or dish washer. I love how my washer smells and plan to continue buying their product. 

Another new purchase in our house hold this weekend which should have been bought years ago was an electric rice cooker/steamer. I have to say I have always done my rice on the stove in boiling water but this rice maker makes things so much easier. 15 minutes inside the rice maker, stir the rice, then wait for the timer to tell you its done and there you have it. Perfect delicious rice in minutes and you don't have to take up a burner on your stop top. I have found that being gluten free has introduced a lot of rice consumption in our house so this makes things just that much easier. Plus the fact you can make any kind of rice to include spanish or steam up some veggies to add to your meal. I love it. I used it the moment we got home and I plan on buying some industrial sized bag of rice now because I would be okay with eating rice with every meal. My husband bought me a Vietnamese cook book and I love it. Now that I have my awesome super fast super easy rice maker, it'll make things that much less complicated when I actually start making dishes from the book, which will hopefully be sometime this week. I think I'm going to start with a soup and work my way up. I'll be sure to post about it once I actually start. 

 

First..

Hello and salutations!
I have decided after days and days of thinking that I would start a blog. First thing I needed to do was decide what I would blog about which was the hardest part. I have a lot of opinions on different matters; life, religion, war,food; so I thought I'd leave most opinions out and write about something more personal.

I have been a mother for a little over two years now (this of course is not counting the 9 + months I carried my tummy baby around).  I have a wonderful, spontaneous, very free willed 2 year old daughter who makes my life wonderful, exciting, and at times a bit overly frustrating.

In the summer of 2010 I discovered that I had Celiac disease; this is a disease which is classified as an auto immune disease because your body is unable to recognize gluten that is digested so your body ends up attacking its self. This results in damage to your lining of your small intestines there for making your body unable to absorbing the nutrients you need to be healthy.  The only way you can protect your body from further damage is to live a gluten free life.

So after thinking and thinking I decided that I would blog about the two hardest things Ive gone through recently in my life. Trying to live gluten free and raising a child.

I have to be honest when I was told that I needed to live gluten free I was rather happy to hear that all my pain could be solved with a simple change in diet. I thought to myself that this would be such an easy thing. Just cut out the bread, cake, pasta, you know normal things that have wheat in them. No sweat right?

I think I had my first break down a few weeks after I had to go gluten free. When I realized, it wasn't that easy. LOTS of things.. and I do mean LOTS of things that you wouldn't even imagine would contain gluten actually do which caused a lot of frustration trying to cook for a family. How do you tell a 2 year old that you can't have a cookie with them because Mommy can't eat wheat? You can't. It's the same as trying to go to a restaurant that doesn't even know what gluten is and trying to order. It's on the lines of impossible if they don't understand or if you don't give them step by step instructions on how to do it with out getting cross contamination. It was rough trying to change habits, giving up food that I've eaten since I was a child. Being born and raised in good ol Missouri, I grew up with some major habits in the drenched with oil and batter dipped/fried department. Not that I'm saying these habits were good for me, they were not healthy at all. But you can't beat fresh fried pickles or pan sausage gravy over biscuits :)

So I had to make changes, LOTS of changes. So did my family. My husband had to deal with eating things that he may or may not like and giving up eating some of the things that were major staples in our normal weekly eating habits. I felt so bad for the longest time. Why should my whole family be punished for something that is my problem and my new life style that was thrown upon me. They shouldn't.

I'm lucky that my husband is such an understanding guy.We have been married for almost 3 years and he is very supportive, he stands by me, he helped me try to find things I could eat and even downloaded applications to his phone to help scan labels to see if they contained gluten (this app did not work at all btw). He tried to do everything he could to help make new life change easier for me. And he did, and sometimes he would forget that I couldn't have certain things or he wouldn't read labels. It happens. I still forget from time to time to check labels and I'll end up buying something I can't eat. Something simple like a salad dressing or even dried fruit. (yes, dried fruit can contain wheat).

My husband has 2 sons from a previous marriage. A 5 year old and an 8 year old. He had to explain to them why we couldn't cook certain things and why I couldn't have bread or cake or cookies. Why I couldn't eat their birthday cake with them. Its hard stuff. Explaining gluten to young kids is hard. I have not had my daughter tested because she doesn't show any of the signs of Celiac disease and I hope she never does since it is a hereditary disease.

So as far as first introductions go, I hope that this is a good one. My first blog may be a bit back and forth since it is my first time I'd like to excuse myself and say that I plan to try to make the next one much better.
I hope by blogging to help people understand more about Celiac disease, introduce them to some great new gluten free foods, and just share the awesomeness that is my family.

Thanks so much and can't wait to talk again soon.