Noodles of Meat

This week I tried out a few new recipes from a cookbook called "Tapas" that I got for Christmas. Husband and I have been to Barcelona twice and we LOVE the way they eat, especially the small plates. Tapas can be made entree sized too, intended to serve many people. I tried a Pork in Almond Sauce and Fried Garlic Mushrooms. The sauce for the pork was kind of labor intensive...blanch the almonds, fry them, puree them along with bread cubes, tomatoes, and onions, and garlic that have all been pan-fried. The sauce went into the crockpot (ok this was not in the recipe but I had stuff to do!) along with the pork tenderloin and I left it for about 8 hours. Perfect. Falling off the bone tender (if there was a bone!) Husband set to "shredding" it and remarked, "Now this is how I love my meat. Like ribbons. Like noodles. Noodles of meat." Well, that doesn't sound too appealing to me, but it was true. It didn't shred like pork normally does, it really looked like noodles of meat. Anyway, we served it on a bed of wilted spinach with the fried garlic mushrooms on the side. (Super easy...pan fry the mushrooms, then simmer them with a bunch of garlic in white wine.) Can't wait to try more recipes from this book!

We came in about $10 under budget for the week- we try to do $105 for the week, breakfast and lunch, food and drink- and this is what we ate:

Sunday was meatball and ricotta pizza

Monday was curried lentil soup with grilled ham and cheese sandwiches

Tuesday was the Almond Pork

Wednesday we snacked on olives and toasted almonds and had soup and sandwiches again

Thursday we had Chinese take out, our New Years Eve tradition

Friday we had dinner at a friends, they made smoked ribs and asian slaw, and we brought shrimp cocktail

Saturday I made a lamb stew and fresh bread. I got a couple bread pans for Christmas (I have always just made flat bread) so it was very exciting to make a loaf of bread. It was beautiful and delicious and quite photogenic! Unfortunately my laptop with photos is on the fritz...so this is my first post ever without photos!

Hope everyone has a great week!