I love when the unexpected turns out great. Yesterday Andy and I wanted to have an easy dinner without a lot of fuss. He was talking about Taco Bell, but I had just gone major grocery shopping the other day. Plus, ever since we've made friends with our neighbor Mathilde, Taco Bell just doesn't sound that great. Mathilde's authentic Mexican food is to die for! So I talked Andy out of Taco Bell and set out to make something easy. I knew I needed to use up some ham, but I was tired of my regular leftover ham recipes. Instead, I looked around and came up with this curry noodle dish. It was amazing: one of the best pastas I've ever made and oh so simple. The egg noodles have great substance and the scent of the curry powder will make your house smell great! If you want yours to have a little more bite, add some red pepper to your dish. Enjoy!
Curry Noodles with Summer Squash
Ingredients:
8 oz Egg Noodles*
2 Cups Chopped Ham
1 Medium Yellow Squash
1 Medium Zucchini
1 and 1/2 Cups Water
1 TBSP Dried Minced Onion
1/2 TBSP Curry Powder
1 and 1/2 TBSP Cream Cheese
3 Oz Plain Yogurt
2 Chopped Roma Tomatoes
1. Put water in a medium sized soup pan on stove top and bring to a boil.
2. While water is starting to boil, chop ham, squash and zucchini. Put in a separate medium sized soup pan. Add water, dried onion, cream cheese, yogurt and curry powder to pan. Turn heat on high right before putting egg noodles into boiling water. Bring to a boil and turn down to medium heat. Continue stirring while cooking so sauce won't burn on the bottom.
3. Follow directions on egg noodles. Cook until al dente. When finished cooking, drain water and put back into pan. Turn stove off under noodles.
4. Right before mixing sauce in with noodles, take out a large spoon full of sauce and mix a teaspoon of flour with liquid to form a paste. Pour paste back into sauce and bring sauce to a boil, stirring frequently. (This will thicken your sauce up a bit.) Pour sauce over noodles, turn heat back on and bring to a boil, stirring. Turn off heat and let sit covered for 5 to 10 minutes.
* I used specialty, dried egg noodles (from Aldis). If you don't have these, I reccomend the type you buy from the freezer.
I made a Bacon-Wrapped Pork Loin on Valentine's Day for my little family, my parents and my brother. It was huge! We had about 1/2 of it left. So last night's dinner was a dish made with leftover pork loin and tonight's will be too. Growing up, my mom used to make a great beef stroganoff. It wasn't fancy, but it was really good. She made it with hamburger, but since we had so much pork leftover, I made a version of it with pork. We had some friends over for dinner last night and they seemed to really enjoy it. I hope your family does too!
Remember, you can make any recipe provided by What's For Leftover's healthier by using low-fat and fat free ingredients.
Pork Stroganoff
Ingredients:
1 1/2 Medium Green Peppers- Chopped
1/2 Cup Finely Chopped Onion
1/2 Cup Water
1 Can Cream of Soup (I used celery)
1 Can of Milk (use the cream of soup can)
1/4 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Spaghetti Sauce
1 1/2 TBSP Sugar
2 Squirts of Ketchup
1 TBSP Minced Garlic (refrigerated kind)
3 Cups Chopped Pork Loin
Salt
Pepper
2 Cups Uncooked Pasta (3 cups cooked)
Cook Pasta in a separate dish.
In a large frying pan, saute green peppers and onions in water. Cook until water is almost gone and onions start to become translucent. Next add cream of soup, milk, sour cream, spaghetti sauce, sugar, ketchup and minced garlic. Cook until sauce thickens up. Generously season with salt and pepper. Add pork loin and continue cooking. After pork loin is heated, add cooked pasta and cook until dish is nice and creamy.
