Friday 7 November 2014

10-Minute Stuffed Pork Loin

Week nights are always hectic getting dinner on the table.  In the early years we relied on things like chicken fingers, frozen pizza, and pork chops smothered in mushroom soup (my hubsand loves it, although I find it icky).  Anyway in my quest to rely less on commercial products, I came up with the quick recipe.  I usually have most of the ingredients on hand as you only need feta cheese, spinach, and roasted red peppers.

Ingredients:
1 boneless pork loin - pre-seasoned if the have it.  Otherwise season it with Italian seasoning.
1 cube of feta cheese
1 handful of spinach 
1 roasted red pepper (I use the jarred) cut in strips
toothpicks

Lay pork on a cutting.  Slit it down the middle but not all the way through.  I think they call this butterflying.  Spread meat as wide as you can.  Place a layer of spinach down the middle of the meat.  Then  sprinkle with feta.  Top with strips of pepper.

Step 1 - fill with spinach, cheese and pepper
Once you have filled your pork pull both end of the meat back over.  Take your toothpicks and bind your two sizes together.
 Bake at 425 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.
Step 2 - bind two sizes together with toothpicks
Remove from oven.  Let sit 5 minutes.  Remove toothpicks,  Slice and serve.

Step 3 - Size meat and serve

Sunday 2 November 2014

$10,000 Kitchen Renovation - Part 1

We are about to jump on the Grey train.  But I'll get to that later.  I thought since I do all my baking in my kitchen, I would share our renovation.  We moved into our house in 1995.  It was built in the 1980's and done cheaply.  Right from the get go, I hated the kitchen.  It's only saving grace was that the cabinets were white laminate.  But newly married, money was tight and we could not afford a renovation (I don't know how all the young couples do it these days).  So, it being the 90's, I put up bright wallpaper and we lived with it for a LONG while. It had a really ugly floor when we moved in.  We did replace that with a soft green laminate.  We had a newborn and wanted something soft on the floors.  We also ripped the carpet of our the family room and put down laminate.  Back in those days you had to glue laminate which trust me that sucked.  My poor husband lost a lot of his hair that day (and it never came back  :) ) This is how it looked.  It is open to the family room.  However, it had weird walls going up the middle of the room.  Must have been a 80's thing.