Coming over in 20 minutes?!

I had a not so good day at court today (yeah, I know, that sentence was awkward but I wanted to start out positive). Sigh. I don't even want to recap what happened. Thankfully, my friend, Nicole, decided to make a trip over to my apartment for lunch instead of hitting a swanky downtown restaurant. I've been so busy since we've gotten back from Maine that I hadn't had a chance to hit the markets to get produce so we're completely out of anything green and healthy. Fortunately for me, Nicole hates vegetables so the lunch I cooked up for her was perfect minus carrots and sweet potatoes. What's up with all these roots I've been saving up?!

Before I left for court this morning, I threw out some cod fillets and marinated pork chops to defrost. On a plus note, they're both fairly fast and straightforward proteins to cook (yippee). I immediately put on a small pot of brown rice on the stove and began to chop. Nicole was also bringing over some chicken in black bean sauce (courtesy of her boyfriend's restaurant) so I knew we were going to have plenty of protein.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees.

What a beauty??



I lined a pyrex pan with tin foil (b/c i didn't feel like scrubbing later) and placed the cod fillets in it. Added ginger, scallions, chili peppers, and soy sauce. Fast, easy, delicious, and Asian. Baked in the oven for 15 minutes.



After 15 minutes... the fish was so flaky. In a good way.



On the stove, I browned some pork chops that I had marinated (maybe 1 T fish sauce & 2 T sugar) a while back and froze for an emergency day. Like today. I don't remember exactly what I put in it but whatever it was - it was good. I also threw in some sliced carrots later on to cook in the pan with the syrupy sauce.



I sliced some sweet potatoes to throw into the oven with the fish. Even under pressure, I'm still energy efficient. :D Lucky for Nicole, these bad boys took a bit longer to cook and she didn't have to use the line, "it's not my favorite".



Then Nicole showed up with her chicken. I love the taste of food cooked in a super hot wok. There's just that unique taste to a dish that's been thrown around in a super, super hot wok. I love it!



We ate. We chatted. We even watched Pretty Wild. Nicole had some tapioca pudding I made the other day, and I had a little too. An hour later, she returned to work and I wrote a few more emails, made some phone calls, then treated myself to this yummy thing. Peanut butter on whole wheat toast w/ cinnamon. YUM!!!