So for Lent, I decided to give up grocery shopping. This may seem silly, but I have somewhat of a grocery store addiction. I wish I could show you my pantry... it's STILL slightly out of control, and Lent is now halfway over. You should have seen it before Lent started. And don't even get me started on my freezer. But, as Lent has progressed and I have attempted to a) eat healthier and b) eat up the things I have in my kitchen, I have had to do some improvising. I am a creature of habit, so changing up what I eat with what and how I prepare things has been tricky.
A few nights ago, I was rummaging through my freezer trying to figure out what I could come up with for dinner and I came across a lone pork chop. Oh yeah! I remembered those pork chops. They came in a pack of 2, so I know there's another one in there somewhere just waiting for me to find it and eat it. That will be a good day. In the mean time, I cooked up this pork chop on the stove. It was about an inch thick (woah baby!) so it took a little longer, but was worth the wait. I also made some rice pilaf & steamed broccoli to go with it.
How I cooked my pork chop:
1. Defrost in a bucket of hot water in my sink because I forgot to take it out of the freezer before I left for work.
2. Sprinkle some celery salt, garlic powder, and some other mix that I had on each side. Generously, people.
3. Heat a skillet with some oil in it and 2 tbsp. BUTTER - this is a crucial ingredient! Get the skillet reallllllly hot.
4. Cook on side 1 for about 7 minutes
5. Cook on side 2 for about 7 minutes.
6. If you're me, get impatient and cut into pork chop only to see that it isn't done and you can't eat yet.
7. Cook on side 1 for about 3 more minutes.
8. Cook on side 2 for about 4 more minutes.
9. Cut into it some more because you are paranoid about eating pork after this whole swine flu outbreak.
10. Realize you are crazy and just take it off the heat and eat your freakin' food.
So, you could probably cook it in approx. 5 steps, but it took me 10. It's fine, I like to do things my way.
Then, I was on a roll so I kept cooking. I really wanted some chicken tortilla soup, and I didn't really like the recipes I was finding on the internet (and I didn't really have ALL the ingredients...) so I improvised.
Katie's Chicken Tortilla Soup
about 2 chicken breasts worth of meat (more or less is ok just use whatcha got)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 can of chicken broth
1 can of rotel
1 can of corn
1 can of mexican corn (but only if you like it spicy!)
1.5 packets of taco seasoning (you can use just 1 or you can use 2, I use it out of a large canister so I don't know how much it actually was.. enough to taste right!)
1/2 c. rice
Sour cream to put on top later
Shredded cheese to put on top later
Dump it all in a crock pot. If you don't have 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, use 1. If you don't have cheddar cheese soup, don't use it. It'll be fine, I promise.It might even be better, who knows! I know my soup was a little thicker than I would have preferred, so I tried to add in more chicken broth at the end but it's still kinda thick. Oh well, it tastes AWESOME. And I didn't even eat any when it was done, just put it all in individual soup containers, froze half and refrigerated half and called it a night. Who knows when I'll eat 9 containers of soup, but eventually they will get gone.
So now I have zero plain frozen chicken, I am down 3 cans of soup and a couple cans of corn, and I used up a half-used container of chicken broth that was in the fridge. Oh yeah and I only have like 2c. of rice left. So, I'd say that was a pretty successful day of sticking with my Lenten sacrifice. But... I really miss the grocery store.
that all sounds so yummy!
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