Pork with Feta Cream Sauce

My husband texted me at 4:30 this afternoon to say that he'd be off work at five and he was starving.   Having settled into a 3rd shift schedule, I had just woken up.  I had found a recipe a while back on Pinterest for Chicken with Feta Cheese Sauce and had wanted to try it, but hadn't really looked over the recipe so assumed it was going to be complicated.  (You know what happens when you assume!)

We didn't have any chicken in the house, but I figured that it would work well with pork and I did have some thawed in the fridge.  The longest part of making this recipe is cooking the pork.  I chose to cook mine in the oven instead of on the stove top as I needed the burners for other things.  For the pork I just brushed it with a little olive oil, and threw on some onion powder, garlic, and basil.  Cooked at 350 for about 30 mins.

Other than that I followed the recipe as written.  I served it with a boxed curried cous-cous mix and some green beans.  My husband, who is often skeptical of anything with feta thought it tasted great and I really liked it as well.  A fine dinner in about 35 minutes from start to finish.  I can't complain about that.

You can find the recipe for this dish here:  Chicken with Feta Cheese Sauce

Pasta with Creamy Bacon and Pea Sauce

It seems like I feature a lot of not so healthy looking recipes in my blog.  In reality, we eat a lot more healthy than not meals, but many of those don't seem exciting or exceptional enough to blog about.  So, mostly I end up posting on the best of the best, which are often of the creamy and or fattening variety.

I found this recipe for Pasta with Creamy Pea Sauce on Pinterest and had been meaning to try it out for a while.  It combines two ingredients that I love - bacon and peas.  It also looked like it would be a quick and easy meal and I wasn't really in the mood to spend hours in the kitchen.  No lie, if you start heating the water for the pasta at the same time you start cooking the bacon, everything will be ready to throw together by the time your pasta is done.  Might not be the healthiest meal on the planet, but it's nice to have a meal that seems "special" without hours of prep time.

The recipe is fairly straightforward, add frozen peas, mint, and a few other ingredients to cooked bacon.  The recipe didn't specify to drain the bacon fat, and so I didn't, but the end result did not seem overly greasy.  I'm sure some substitutions such as turkey bacon and low fat sour cream could bring the calorie count down tremendously, but I don't think there is anything wrong with an occasional indulgence.

Hearty enough for a main dish, but could also be used as a side.  Plenty of flavor and the hubby asked this one to be put into my regular recipe rotation.

The recipe for this can be found at:  Pasta with Creamy Bacon Sauce

Valentine's Pudding for the Hubby

Homemade Banana Pudding

I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up with my blog, but I have been cooking a lot lately, so I'm going to try to do better about posting.  Life has been hectic, but I'm settling down to a routine now, so I should have more time.

My husband loves banana pudding.  Actually desserts in general, but he has a particular fondness for bananas.  I'll be honest, I've not had a lot of banana pudding myself.  I'm definitely more of a salty kind of gal.  Banana pudding is fairly easy to make, the longest part is probably waiting for it to set.  

I assumed, incorrectly it seems, that banana pudding was banana flavored pudding layers with Nilla wafers and fresh bananas.  I was wrong.  Banana pudding is actually made with alternating layers of a very rich vanilla custard/pudding, bananas, and Nilla wafers.  The end result is a very dense, rich, and flavorful dessert.    The banana flavor seems to kind of meld into the vanilla as it chills and it's really delicious.

Although this was really tasty, I don't think it will be something I make for more than a special occasion.  When I say the vanilla pudding layer is rich, I'm not kidding.  The recipe I used had half and half, sweetened condensed milk, and heavy whipping cream.  So, it's definitely a once in a while treat.  Recipe is really simple, and it passed the husband taste test, so this will probably become my usual recipe for this dish.  The only substitution I made to the recipe was using the entire can of sweetened condensed milk, and subbing half and half for the water. (I can never leave a recipe alone!)  Great recipe when you need a quick dessert that is sure to impress!

The recipe I used can be found here:  Banana Pudding