Schnitzel with Dill sauce with Honeyed Prosciutto Brussels Sprouts

Last night, Jonathan and I teamed up to make what turned out to be a delicious dinner! We made a pork schnitzel with brussell sprouts and cranberry sauce. Okay, the cranberry sauce was on hand, as you can tell from the perfect can-shape pictured above (thanks, Ocean Spray!).

For the Schnitzel, we used this recipe: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pork_schnitzel/ but with a few alterations:

– instead of seasoned salt, we used our seasoning favorite, Tony Chacheres’ Creole seasoning

– for the dill sauce, we added chopped shiitake mushrooms.

The Brussels sprouts were actually made with a recipe I got from my big sister, using the honey vinegar that she gave me for Christmas. If you don’t have an amazing honey store from which to buy honey vinegar, you can make your own by stirring in a spoon full of honey into apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar.

Sorry that this is more of a description than a recipe, but I like to cook with my heart rather than with measuring spoons sometimes!

All I did for the Brussels sprouts was:

wash them, and chop into quarters. Drizzle with walnut oil and honey vinegar and toss. Tear up 1 piece of prosciutto and toss. Place onto a lined cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Delish! Thanks, big sis, for the awesome gift and the awesome Brussels sprout recipe!

Meal plan!

I wanted to share my healthy meal plan, and before I go any further, I have to thank the amazing folks over at Pursuit Fitness (https://www.facebook.com/PursuitFitnessPerformance) because this meal plan comes from them. Getting organized is all me, but the food ideas for staying healthy and energized are all theirs.

Anyway, that’s what my Sunday food prep looks like! The picture shows four days worth of daytime food (food for while at work!).

Breakfast: (not pictured, served hot)

2 turkey sausage patties

1 c spinach + 1 apple juiced

Snack 1:

1 oz almonds, 1 oz baby carrots, 5 strawberries

Lunch:

Salad + oil vinegar dressing + 3 oz turkey meat

Snack 2:

2 stalks celery + 2 tbspn almond butter, 3 oz blackberries

Dinner: (served hot, not pictured)

4 oz herb rubbed chicken

salad + oil vinegar dressing

brocolli + oregano + a sprinkle of parm cheese

Dinner we shake up sometimes, and have other things, but basically a protein, a salad, and a cruciferous veggie.

I think I’m going to add in and try some purple sweet potatoes next week!

This meal plan is actually from two weeks ago. This week, instead of turkey meat at lunch, I’m going to have hard boiled eggs. And instead of blackberries, I am going to have oranges. And instead of almonds, I am going to have walnuts. But you get the picture! Planning my meals ahead of time makes life SO MUCH EASIER and food tastes SO MUCH BETTER!

Cilantro Lime Steak with Citrus Salad

I got the inspiration for this dish from here: http://www.fortheloveofcooking.net/2012/05/cilantro-lime-marinated-flank-steak.html

The steak is basically the same as in this recipe, but since my measurements were different I will still post my version below. 🙂

and this is how it turned out:

Here’s how I did it:

For the steak:

Ingredients:

2 beef chuck tender steaks (or flank steak or whatever cut of meat you prefer)

1 lime, juiced

1 serrano pepper, seeds in (you can take the seeds out to cut the heat)

1 cup fresh cilantro

2 tbspns olive oil

salt to taste

California Seasoning (basically powdered onion and powdered garlic) to taste

1 tbspn chopped garlic

Blend all of the ingredients (except for the steak). Put half of the sauce in a ziplock bag with the steak, making sure that all surfaces get coated. We let it marinade about 3 hours. Stir in 1 tbspn of sour cream (optional) to the remaining sauce. This helps cut the heat and adds a nice tang to the sauce.

We pan seared the steak to about a medium temperature (140 with meat thermometer) and then thin sliced. Drizzle the remaining sauce over the sliced steak.

For the salad, it was just fresh baby spinach, fresh navel orange segments, and slivered almonds, tossed. I didn’t put any dressing on, but a nice oil/vinegar dressing would have gone nicely. I found that the meat had such an assertive flavor that I didn’t want to add anything to the salad, just let the citrus and spinach add bright notes to the dress.