Pork Chops with Spicy Apricot Mustard Sauce

I love having frozen fruit on hand, and the best place for me to buy it is either Wal-mart of Sam’s Club.  On my last Sam’s Club run, I bought a 3 pound bag of blueberries for $5.98!  I ended up making another breakfast parfait by making my own fruit sauce.  So easy – any combination of fresh/frozen fruit for 1 cup.  1 cup water mixed with 1 tsp. sugar and 1 tsp. corn starch.  Heat over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until the frozen fruit is defrosted and the sauce is thick.  It only takes a few minutes to cool and I am ready to build my parfait – the fruit sauce, a slice of fresh banana, and 1 container of Chobani plain Greek yogurt.  That by itself is only 3 WW points (2 for the yogurt, 1 for the sauce), but I added 1/4 cup of granola for an extra 4 points.  I wish granola wasn’t such a point suck, but I guess that’s good because I could literally eat a whole container in one sitting without realizing it.

And Roz, Christina pointed out the random heart in the middle – I didn’t even notice it until she pointed it out on Instagram.   I loved this parfait because it wasn’t too sweet at all.  I licked that mason jar clean!

I went to the post office yesterday to turn in my passport stuff, only to realize that you need to make an appointment.  Gah.  So I go again today after my Weight Watchers weigh in.  The post office I was at was near my old office, and I remembered there was a pretty trail back there, so I did a quick 45 minute walk.  Too bad it was so cold out – I think it was 43 degrees and pretty windy.

I would have liked to walk longer, but it was too cold, so I finished up my workout at the gym.  I love the choices it gives you on climbing up landmarks.  I walked up the Eiffel Tower yesterday for 100 floors and it took me 44 minutes to do that.  After I hit that “done” button my name went to the second place for most floors walked that week.  I can’t imagine climbing another 75 flights to get into first place!

Because of my excellent cleaning skillz of the fridge earlier in the week, I realized I had leftover beef and veggies from when the kadults and I went out to eat on Sunday.  Score!

Still not the biggest fan of cauliflower, but it’s growing on me.  I ended up with 3 ounces of beef (2) and only added zucchini from my fridge to add to the stir fry.  I mixed it with 1 cup cooked thin spaghetti (5) and I found this stir fry sauce at the store that is only 7 calories a tablespoon.  Yep, you read that correctly and I’ve even double checked online!  Ying’s brand – I found it at my regular grocery store, so hopefully you can find it too.  Mixed with 1 tsp. of sriracha, it’s a delicious zero point stir fry sauce.

I had to hit up the store to get the stuff to make my fruit tarts for Cooking Club tonight.  Jewel also has a discount rack – it’s near the back of the store by the bathrooms.  They have everything from alcohol, to stuff from the Osco side (think shaving cream, etc.) but also some good food deals.  I ended up picking up 5 bottles of this Stubb’s BBQ sauce because it sounded amazing, is only 10 calories a tablespoon, has sriracha in it (duh!) and each bottle was only .82 cents, marked down from $3.99!

On their website they said you can marinate meat with it for an hour before grilling, or baste with it while grilling, or just as a dipping sauce on the side.  Can’t wait to try that.

Another food find?

Yeah, that’s right – chocolate peanut butter powder!  That 6.5 ounce container cost $4.99 at Jewel, which seems like a lot – but a serving is 3 tablespoons mixed with 2 tablespoons of water for 2 smart points, so it would last a while.  I love drizzling that stuff over apples for a sweet treat.

I have to give a shout out to my Cabot Cheese peeps!  I got my spring package from them, so now I am fully stocked with Cabot cheese!  I have been thinking about mac n cheese for a while made with almond milk, so we’ll see how that comes out. 

I also got noticed by Jennie-O on Instagram yesterday – I have been working hard trying to get some paying work with big brands for recipe development and it’s not easy to get heard among the millions of other food bloggers out there who are way more talented than I am.  But for now, I’ll take coupons!

When I meal plan for the week, I usually try to take into consideration everyone’s likes and dislikes, but to tell you the truth, that rules out stuff that I normally like to eat – like pork chops.  Jacob loves them, but he feels sick after eating them and Hannah, well, you know how Hannah feels about certain cuts of meat.  So when I declared I was making pork chops, the kadults told me that they would figure out their own dinner.  Which they did – by going to Culver’s. 

My chop was 8 ounces, but once the bone was cut out, it was 6 ounces for 6 smart points.  I highly recommend cooking any meat on the bone – it has so much more flavor.  While I would have loved to grill, it was cold and pouring rain outside.  I am contemplating finding a construction guy who wants a side job to build me a BBQ shed in my back yard so it doesn’t matter what the weather is and I could still grill.  Kind of like this!

Ha – could you imagine?!  How cool is that to have the grill in the middle of the fricken table like that!  Nope, low budget is what I am looking for – something like this:

So while I’ll dream of a BBQ shed, I used my trusty cast iron Lodge skillet and did my chop in there.  I knew I wanted a pan sauce, and I had Plochman’s mustard in the fridge that they generously sent me.  I used the angry yellow mustard which is so spicy flavorful.  I took 1/2 cup water, 1 teaspoon mustard, 1 teaspoon cornstarch and 1 teaspoon powdered chicken bouillon, and added that to the skillet after taking the chop and zucchini out.  I let it cook down for a couple minutes, and when I took a taste, it was almost too vinegary.  I had apricot preserves on my counter for the glaze for my fruit tarts, and added 1 teaspoon (1 smart point) of that to the sauce, and that brought it all around.  Tangy, vinegary and then a sweet kick at the end with the apricot preserves.  Not gonna lie, I literally licked my plate clean with that sauce it was so good!  And, since the fryer was still on the counter, I made 5 ounces of fries for 4 smart points – so my dinner was 11 smart points.

Not the pretties picture, but this was delish.

So excited for Cooking Club tonight at Courtney’s.  Word on the street is that our head Chef tonight, Tina, is making halibut!  Astute readers will realize that I hardly ever cook fish.  Like ever.  And especially since Tony passed away – he was really the only reason I made it.  But I think probably because I don’t really know how to prepare it at home, and some of that fish can be expensive.  I do take that back, I do love Chilean Sea Bass – I’ve had it in restaurants and it’s a meaty, not overly fishy tasting fish.  But turns out at my store, that’s one of the most expensive pieces of fish to buy at $24.99 a pound.  I’d hate to spend that kind of money only to ruin it once I brought it home and cooked it!

I am happy to say that the fruit tarts that I linked to yesterday?  They turned out really good.  Like really really good.  I made mini ones for portion control, but I made enough for people to take two – each one comes in at 5 WW points, which for a fruit tart isn’t too bad.  I’ll give you a sneak peak on how they turned out, but will take better pics today.  I’ll be posting the recipe tomorrow and a recap of the night.

The apricot glaze really brings these tarts over the top.  Mom, I can make these for you for Mother’s Day! 

Alright, time to jump in the shower and see how I did on my first WI of the week doing meetings.  I know I shouldn’t have, but I stepped on my scale earlier in the week and was down 1.5 pounds – today it looks like I am up 2 pounds, which makes no sense to me, but I will go with whatever the WW scale says.  Wish me luck!

Make it a great day!