Ham Polynesian

When I went to decide what meals I would be making for the upcoming week I realized that I was (and still am) totally craving comfort food. I blame it on being emotionally sick over the past few weeks.
Well, alas I chose to make comfort foods I grew up with. So the first one I made was Ham Polynesian.

First I gathered together all the ingredients (as you can tell from the picture I am not an extremely brand loyal person).

Then after cooking (remember this is only my second post so forgive me for the small number of pictures) - I imagine I will get better as time goes on.

So Voila!! The finished product plated and ready to eat:

The recipe is as follows and honestly I have absolutely no clue who to attribute the recipe to besides my beautiful mom.

Ham Polynesian

2 cups diced ham (any variety works - I just had sandwich ham on hand)

1 or 2 bell peppers, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

Saute the above ingredients in at least enough margarine to coat the pan. (use the largest fry pan you have - if not you will have to cut the recipe down)

1 15 ounce can crushed pineapple, undrained

1 can of water (use empty pineapple can) with 3 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in it

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (you can actually use any type, but I prefer apple cider for this recipe)

Add the above ingredients and bring to a simmer.

Simmer covered, stirring occasionally until thickened (15-20 minutes)

When done enjoy over rice.

The Cooking Itch

Today I got the cooking itch. I wanted to make Yorkshire pudding and well you have to have something to go with Yorkshire pudding right?!

So alas, I called my mom and got the recipe for Yorkshire pudding along with the caution that I needed to follow ALL the directions carefully or it wouldn't work. Well - I did it!! You can find the recipe at the end of this post if you are interested in trying to make Yorkshire pudding yourself.

Well as you can see from the picture above I definitely didn't have the pudding (see muffin/puff pastry on plate) by itself:
First, I bought some fresh steam-in-bag green beans and toasted some slivered almonds to go with it.
Then, I bought six really thin steaks and marinated them for about an hour in Market Pantry Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette (if you have not tried marinating steak in a fruit vinaigrette you must because it is AMAZING!!) and then cooked them in a pan on the stove.
And then, I cooked down some onions and Voila! you have the meal above.

As I mentioned previously, cooking for one usually yields more than one meal and this one yielded twelve Yorkshire puddings and two meals of steak, onions, and green beans with toasted almonds.

Well unfortunately for all (including myself) I can't find the Yorkshire Pudding recipe, but I will post the recipe as soon as I get it.

Happy cooking everyone!!

Cooking and living for one - truly an adventure in learning

Well, I actually created this blog back in January with the lofty goal of showing how I managed to cook for one.
Please note the phrase "lofty goal" because it turns out that it is REALLY hard to cook for one, take four upper division/graduate courses in school, and work almost 20 hours a week - go figure.

Over the last seven months I have found out the following truth:
Cooking for one usually involves a lot of leftovers because it is really complicated to properly cut a recipe down that was made for four or more people.
There are recipes for two, but that is pretty much the minimum.
Thus I have come to the conclusion that if I make a few different meals on a Saturday or a Sunday evening I can have some variety during the upcoming week (meaning I will rotate through leftovers rather than eating the same leftovers every meal every day for a week).

Thus on this blog I will try to post each day either a recipe I made that week or a tip I have found useful for living/cooking for one.