Now what?

It has been an INSANE year. For the last 4 months our world has revolved around time with my husband's family, and ultimately our daughter's heart surgery. She is doing great! From a stint of super sleep that landed her in NICU, our baby's doctors discovered that she had multiple Atrial Septal Defects (ASD). Over the years we monitored it until, this spring, her level of pain, fatigue, and arrhythmia made it clear it was time to fix the problem that couldn't fix itself. Now that her pain is gone and energy is normal, it is time to focus on business.

Now What?

....

Lol Seriously, it's hard to decompress and feel normal after some of the trauma. We're it not for my older daughter's, husband, mom, and my husband's aunt and God daughter being so wonderful and supportive, there would be no clarity- just one big sobfest. Lol

One thing remains therapeutic, though- cooking. My honey and I went to Hy Vee for mushrooms and came back with groceries for the week and no plans. Ever had your favorite things to work with and no expectations? Lunch the next day was a yummy salad of raw spinach topped with pepitas and tuna with a simple oil and vinegar drizzle. YUM! For dinner, though, I had a little fun!

-Marinated southwestern pork tenderloin steaks with roasted potatoes and a "shallot" mushroom gravy

-A zucchini and sweet potato saute with almonds

-And a Stranger Things marathon.

I put shallot in quotes because I can't remember what the plant actually is and I'm too lazy to ask Google. It has the leaves of onions, a stock like garlic, but shoots out tiny red onions from the top? It smelled sweet, though, so I just grabbed a couple and ran with it. It was all from scratch, so I have no recipe. Oops! Hubby liked it, though. Aside from the heroic salt content (my husband's preference) in the potatoes and tiny bit of gravy, it relied mostly on natural flavors. (I admit it. I had to use 1 cup of water mixed with chicken Ramen powder instead of stock because I was feeling lazy)

Veggies cooked on low-Med heat:

1 julienne zucchini

1 sweet potato

2 tbs melted butter

1 Tbsp minced garlic

A handful of sliced almonds

Italian seasoning to taste

Seasoned salt

Pork:

2 thick pork steaks

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp olive oil

Minced garlic

Freshly plucked dill weed

Chives

2 of the "shallot" tops

1 cup of the stock (I used 1 cup of Ramen seasoning mixed with water)

And probably about 1/3 c sherry (cooking sherry is fine.

I sautéed the garlic before adding in the herbs and then the steak. Once the pork was seared on both sides, I sliced two small potatoes sprinkled with season salt and parmesan and layered them around the pork steaks in the cast-iron skillet. After baking at 250 until the potatoes were baked (frequently basting it all), I removed the steaks and potatoes to the plate and mixed in some flour water for a yummy gravy. It was delicious! Too bad I don't usually use recipes. :-(