Spicy Green Beans and Omaha Steaks Ribs

A while ago I received a gift card to Omaha Steaks. With that gift card, the hubs and I decided to buy some steaks and some baby back ribs. Tonight was baby back rib night. I knew the hubs wanted the perfect risotto with it, but I felt like I needed a vegetable (I'm a bad girl and don't eat veggies with all of my meals). And if you read my blog regularly, you know I like spicy food. Something you may not know about me is that one of my favorite vegetables is green beans. But canned green beans don't cut it - there was a time when they did - but those days are long gone. I learned about fresh frozen green beans and have been using them. But today I wanted REAL fresh green beans. So I stopped at the grocery store and grabbed some from the produce section. After sauteing these beans with a little bit of EVOO, chili oil, garlic, salt and pepper, the end result was fantastic! And get this - fresh, raw green beans are so much easier to cook than those frozen ones. Ok, ok, you might've known that already, but I didn't and am glad that I do now.

A note on the Omaha Steaks Baby Back Ribs: For the price ($42.99 for 2 lbs), it wasn't really worth it. They come fully cooked, and tasted good, but not as great as what I can get at an Outback or Longhorn Steakhouse restaurant for half the price - with no mess in the kitchen.

SPICY GREEN BEANS

Source: me

1/2 pound fresh green beans, ends trimmed, and rinsed

1/2 tsp EVOO

1/4 tsp Mongolian Fire Oil

1/8 tsp minced garlic (I uses jarred)

crushed red pepper to taste

salt/pepper to taste

a few Tbsp of chicken broth

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1. Heat EVOO and chili oil in medium sized pan over medium heat.

2. Reduce heat to low and saute garlic until fragant (about 20-30 seconds).

3. Add green beans to pan. Season with crushed red pepper, a pinch of kosher salt and a few cracks of pepper and toss to coat.

4. Saute about 1 minute then add about 1 Tbsp of chicken broth. If this dries up pretty quickly, add another 1 Tbsp of chicken broth.

5. Continue sauteing, stirring frequently, until tender crisp or to your desired doneness.

Parmesan Pork Chops w/ Creamed Spinach

Hello! Long time no blog! It's been a whole month since my last blog post. I honestly hardly cooked at all in that time! Have you ever gotten into a total food rut? Well that's what happened to me. But I was finally able to pull myself out of it, so hopefully my blog posts will be more frequent now.

The dish to pull me out of this most recent food rut was Giada's Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops. I've only heard rave reviews over this dish, one from my friend Lindsey over at Noodle Nights and Muffin Mornings, and it did not disappoint! Seriously, when I took the leftovers into work today and heated them in the microwave - 2 people asked, "What smells so good?!" Followed by, "I'm just gonna go get my plate," and "so you'll come by my house tonight to cook dinner, right?" I think that's one of the bests compliments you can get on your cooking.

PARMESAN-CRUSTED PORK CHOPS
Source: Food Network

For ingredients and directions, visit the source link as I followed it exactly.

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Now, when I was thinking of a side I knew I wanted some simple buttered noodles. I really like Ronzoni's Healthy Harvest extra wide noodles with a touch of Smart Balance and parsley. But I needed a vegetable. I thought of some creamed spinach that I recently had from a local bbq joint. I'm usually not a fan of cooked spinach, but it was so good! So I found a lightened up version from Cooking Light and gave it a test drive. I found that it was relatively simple and easily halved, however I would drastically reduce the amount of shallot. Here's the halved recipe (serves 1-2) with my recommended changes noted.

CREAMED SPINACH
Source: Cooking Light

1 10 oz. bag of spinach
cooking spray
1 Tbsp minced shallot (I would only use 1 tsp)
1 tsp all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
pinch of nutmeg (excluded)
1/4 fat-free milk
1/4 reduced fat cream cheese

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Remove large stems from spinach, and rinse with cold water; drain. Place a large Dutch oven over medium heat, and add spinach. (Spinach will need to be tightly packed into the pan to cook all of it in one batch). Cover and cook 5 minutes or until spinach wilts; stir spinach well after 2 minutes. Place spinach in a colander, and drain well, pressing spinach with the back of a spoon to remove as much moisture as possible.
Place pan coated with cooking spray over medium heat until hot. Add shallots; sauté 2 minutes. Combine flour, salt, and nutmeg; add to pan, stirring well. Cook 30 seconds. Add milk and cheese, stirring with a whisk; cook 1 minute or until thick. Add spinach; cook 30 seconds or until thoroughly heated.

Ribs

The hubs and I were craving ribs lately so I decided to make them this weekend, along with an au gratin potato recipe I've been wanting to try. When I went to get the ribs I was able to find some boneless ribs, score. So this is the method I used to cook them:

1. Boil a large pot of water. Add ribs to the boiling water. Gently boil for 1 hour.
2. Remove from pot and drain on paper towels.
3. Season with garlic salt and pepper.
4. Set the oven to broil. Line a pan with aluminum foil. Place ribs on foil-lined pan and baste with your favorite bbq sauce.
5. Place pan under broiler for about 2 minutes. Remove, flip ribs, baste again, return to broiler for about 2 minutes. Repeat for each side and enjoy!

This method of cooking ribs is a combination of the way my family did it, and the method I found in Katie's blog.

To go with the ribs, I used Ashlee's potatoes au gratin recipe. It was really easy and good. I can imagine how great they would be if I didn't use low-fat cheese and if I would've doubled the amount of cheese.

Ribs would also go great with some homemade potato salad. Look for that in the blog this summer!