A Week of Meat

I remember asking my brother for a recipe once and he was going off of memory saying things like

A pinch of this. A sprinkle of that. Eye ball it.

I was not impressed. I needed increments!

Because I didn’t consider myself a natural chef I relied on recipes. I liked knowing exactly what to put into something step by step.

However, I mentioned that J is low carbing and it’s really helped me to branch out and try cooking different types of meats. In a way it’s taught me how to cook. Once you understand how to cook whole foods you don’t need recipes. I still love trying new recipes, but it’s great to know that when I want to I can really on just a handful of ingredients.

Now I am the one that going off memory, adding a pinch of this and sprinkle of that.

So excuse my lack of details in the following menu examples, but here is a list of some of the meats I cook regularly. I’ll list one meat for each night of the week.

1. Steak- Cast iron skillet

My husband and I prefer the strip steak. It’s thin and has less fat than a T-bone. To prepare the steak you season both sides with salt and pepper then heat up the cast-iron skillet.

After a couple minutes when your skillet is nice and hot add the steak. Cook it for 3 1/2 minutes on one side then flip it over and cook another 3 1/2 minutes. Cut into it to make sure it’s not too rare. Boom! Done.

2. Pork Chops- Crock pot

Season with lemon pepper on both sides. Add the bone-in pork chops  to a crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 7. That’s it. It couldn’t be simpler.

3. Chicken thighs and wings- Oven

Season your thighs and wings with Italian seasoning. Throw them on a cookie sheet with olive oil. Add a bunch of cut up vegetables then drizzled with balsamic. Bake at 425 for an hour. Seriously easy and seriously delicious.

4. Sausage- Cast iron skillet

Chop up onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, spinach and a couple cloves of garlic minced. Heat a frying pan and add the garlic first then the other veggies.

After about 5 minutes add the sausages and cook for another 8-10 minutes until hot. This picture is with random vegetables from the farmers market, I hadn’t added the sausage yet.

5. Ribs- Crock pot

Slice up some onions and garlic and put in a crock pot with 2 pounds of ribs. You can season with a dry rub or salt and pepper and add a cup of your favorite barbecue sauce. Or you can buy ribs that are already seasoned. Either way cook them on low for 7 hours.

6. Pork tenderloin- oven or crock pot

Pork tenderloin is so easy and delicious. You can bake it in the oven with a bunch of roasted vegetables at 350 for one hour, or crock pot for 4 hours on low, 6 hours on high.

This is the worst picture ever, because I basically forgot to take a picture. Sorry. I am mortified by most of these pictures actually, but cooking while mothering four children takes all of my focus. I’m lucky to have any snapshots at all.

7. Salmon- oven

You may see a pattern here. I cheat and buy a lot of stuff pre-seasoned, as is the case with Salmon.

All I have to do is take it out of the freezer and put it in the oven at 400 for 25 minutes. I save this for nights that I know I’m too slammed to cook.

There you have it. A little glimpse at our low carb menu.

This post is day 20 of a 31 day series, Captain of the Kitchen. For the other 19 posts check out the table of contents HERE>