What’s For Dinner? Simple & Fresh Flavors

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Meshell McKinley

Flavors From Your Past

Growing up in Glendale, California there was no shortage of Persian and Armenian markets. It was convenient for me to get everything I needed to make the Persian dishes I grew up on. For my boyfriend it’s been a little harder to find that taste of home. He grew up on the East Coast with an Italian deli always in close proximity. He went to college in Boston, where he could grab his Italian favorites. Living in L.A. was an adjustment, but with the opening of Jersey Mike’s and Rita’s Italian Ice he felt a little more at home.

Anyone who cooks dinner multiple nights a week will tell you that it’s easy to run out of ideas. Coming up with a new menu plan for the week can become challenging after a while. I look for inspiration every where. If we go out to dinner, and enjoy a meal I will attempt to recreate it at home. While attempting to plan this week’s meals I looked for inspiration from my boyfriend’s time in Boston. Many times he spoke of this amazing sandwich he loved from the East End of Boston. The sandwich sounded simple, and easy enough to make. To make this sandwich more than ordinary it would take fresh ingredients. Fortunately I know of an Italian Deli in Glendale. Mario’s offers many Italian imports, serving everything from fresh bread to gnocchi and homemade marinara. I was able to pick up everything I needed, plus some extra pastas for just $20.

Follow the simple instructions below to make a light and easy meal. This sandwich travels well too, making it the perfect meal for a lunch in the park or office.

What you’ll need:

Fresh French Bread
Fresh Mozzarella
Organic Basil
Organic Tomato
Prosciutto sliced
Olive Oil
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Balsamic Vinegar

Preparation:

Make sure to rinse all your produce and pat try with a paper or clean hand towel
Slice tomato into thin slices
Cut bread loaf in half
Slice Mozzarella
Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over your tomato slices, mozzarella slices, basil, and the inside of the bread slices.
Sprinkle pepper over the mozzarella and tomato.
Sprinkle garlic salt over the tomatoes.
Stack your sandwich any way you like, piling up your ingredients.
Slice and serve! It’s that easy.

Enjoy 🙂

For more simple recipes visit the Feed Me portion of the Meeshme.com website.

Happy Dining XOXO

Pork Chops & Pasta? It Happened

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Meshell McKinley

What’s for Dinner?

Sometimes you have to force someone to take a chance, even if it’s just to experiment with food. We can get so set in our ways when it comes to what we eat. Visiting the same restaurants, ordering the same dishes, cooking the same meal night after night. We grow up on certain types of food depending on our cultural backgrounds, then grow up and find other types of foods intimidating. While the foods you grew up on were amazing, you’ll miss out on some great meals If you never try new things.

My boyfriend’s sister was kind enough to send us a giant package of meat from Omaha steaks for his birthday. Among the amazing steaks were a few pork chops. I knew my boyfriend would love them, despite his hate of pork. My mission would be to cook the pork chops in a way where he couldn’t deny their amazing flavor.

I chose to apply my fail-safe marinade to the pork chops, and fix a side of pasta to go with them. The recipe for these bomb.com pork chops is below.

Ingredients:

Pork Chops (Amount depends on who you’re cooking for. My boyfriend was able to eat 3 in one meal)

Pasta (I used regular spaghetti noodles, you can use any type of noodle you prefer)

Marinade:

Balsamic Vinegar

2 tablespoon Oregano

1 tablespoon Red Pepper Flakes

1 tablespoon Pepper

1 tablespoon Garlic Salt

Olive Oil

Pre-Cooking Instructions:

The night before I coated the pork chops in olive oil. Take a tablespoon of olive oil and rub it into the meat.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl: garlic salt, oregano, red pepper flakes, and pepper.

Sprinkle the mixture over the pork chops and pat down compacting the dry ingredients.

put the pork chops into a plastic Ziplock bag, and add the balsamic vinegar.

Put into the refrigerator, and let sit over night.

Cooking Instructions:

Heat your oven to 200 F

Add a teaspoon of olive oil to a sauce pan, and add your pork chops

Place the pork chops into the oven without a lid.

Let cook for 10 minutes then flip the pork chops, and let them cook for another 10 minutes

Take the pan out of the oven and put it on the stove top over high heat.

Cook the pork chops on either side for 1 to five minutes depending how brown you want the outside.

Take a piece of aluminum foil and loosely tent the pan letting the pork sit for 10 minutes

This will save the pork juices, preventing drying.

Pasta:

Boil Water

Add salt and teaspoon of olive oil

Add pasta when water comes to a boil

Cook aldente and drain

Remove pork chops from the cooking pan

Do not clean the pan.

Place pan over medium heat, and add pasta.

Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and tablespoon of olive oil

Mix the pasta with the drippings from the pork chops

Cook for five minutes or until mixed.

Plate with pork chops and serve!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe. Come visit us here at Meeshme.com again soon!

Halloween: Create Your Own Look

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Meshell McKinley

I love Halloween, because it gives me a reason to be creative. Sure you can buy a costume in a bag at any local Halloween shop, but the results are always the same. A baggy, ill-fitting, too short costume is not the way to go. After a few disastrous Halloweens during my early 20s I decided to start adding my own personal touch to costumes. If you can’t sew like me, you can create an easy costume using items in your closet. With the right dress all you really need are some Halloween accessories, which won’t cost you much at all. In need of costume accessories? I found mine here.

Each year I put together two costumes, a different costume for each of the nights I go out. This year the theme was good vs. evil. For my first look, I decided on the evil queen. I drew my inspiration from the hit TV series Once Upon a Time. In the show Regina plays an evil queen with killer style. With each episode I watched I grew ever more jealous that I couldn’t wear her outfits in my day to day life, but on Halloween we can be as glamorous and sexy as we want to be.

To recreate Regina’s look I went for a black laced halter corset found here. Next, I searched for a skirt that would be fun and sexy, but still fit in with the theme. I knew I could do better than a typical tutu, and found this high-low fairy tale skirt in black online here. The crown would be the most important part of the costume, without it people would have trouble figuring out what I was supposed to be. I found this amazing crown at Amazon.com here. The crown is definitely my favorite part of this costume. Wish I could wear it every day lol!

Every little girl dreams of being a Disney Princess. Cinderella was one of my favorite movies as a little girl, and still is to this day, so for my second look I chose to recreate Cinderella’s iconic look. My boyfriend had purchased the crown for me from Disneyland several months back, and Halloween gave me an opportunity to wear it out in public without seeming like a lunatic. To recreate the rest of the look I started with this white corset from Frederick’s of Hollywood. Although Cinderella’s dress is often depicted as blue, it always looked white, and glittery to me. The shine in this corset was perfect. I paired it with a white maxi skirt I had in my closet purchased at Foreign Exchange for less than $40. To complete the look I’ll be wearing full length white gloves, and a black choker similar to the one found here.

No matter what your fairy tale dreams are you can make them come true on Halloween. You don’t have to look unshapely in a costume from a bag just because you can’t sew. Putting together a costume isn’t as hard as you might think, and the results are always better.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Halloween!

MeeshMe

Monthly Archives: October 2013