January 5

Breakfast:

soft boiled egg
tea
pecans

While my egg was cooking and tea was brewing I had a few pecans.

Lunch:

I finished the leftover Paleo spaghetti with a quarter of an avocado and was still hungry so I started on the macadamia nuts and coconut flakes. Fat makes you feel full, so I was adding some fat to my meal. The problem with macadamias is that it is too easy to sit there and eat one after another.

Snack:

A few bites of leftover salmon.

Dinner:

Porcupine with baby bok choy

My oldest son calls pork porcupine, so when I asked him what he wanted for dinner and he said "porcupine! I wasn't too shocked. I have been buying pork from Cheryl the Pig Lady for a couple years, she has a farm near where I live and is at the farmers' market when they are happening (April to October). The freezer is decently stocked with her pork chops, sausage and some lamb. Dinner was as easy as going to the freezer and then to pick up some bok choy at the store.

Recipe:

1 onion
4 pork chops
Szechuan peppercorns
ground ginger (no sugar!)
clarified butter
some chili flakes
6 or so baby bok choy (halved or quartered)

I sauteed the onions in clarified butter until soft. While they were cooking I ground the peppercorns in the coffee grinder we use for spices. It smelled spicy and sweet so I decided ginger would go nicely with that. If you read last nights post you know our minced ginger in a jar has sugar and lots of other crap, so that was out of the question. I cleverly used some ground ginger from the spice rack. Problem was I used too much-about equal parts peppercorns and ginger. It made for a very floral flavor.

So, throw the pork chops in the pan with the onions (or take the onions out if your pan is too small for all to fit). Sprinkle the peppercorn/ginger mixture on the pork chops and flip and do the same on the other side. At this point I was getting wafts of hand soap so I thought I should spice it up to take away the powerful ginger flavor. I added some ground black pepper and chili flakes.

Once the pork chops were done I took everything out of the pan and placed it on a plate with another plate on top to keep it warm. I added more clarified butter to the pan and sauteed the bok choy until the leafy greens were wilted. I threw in some chili flakes in too-not many but enough to give them quite a kick.

I wouldn't make the ginger Szechuan combo again, or I would use about 1/10th the ginger. It wasn't awful, it was just not that great. My oldest ate a whole chop and my youngest gnawed on the bones getting them incredibly clean. Bok choy is great, crisp at the bottom, leafy on top. It's good for dips when you're snacking.

After dinner (and before) I had some macadamia nuts. This is really beginning to look like an addiction so I will try to lighten up on those delicious nut in the future.