Easy , but delicious

So what's on the menu for this week? Chicken creamy pesto pasta, more tri tip, baked chicken and carnitas!
To make the cramy pesto, just mix pesto sauce with a little alfredo.
This week's baked chicken is an easy way to get the bbq taste without a bbq! I use thighs and legs, but you can use any cut of the chicken - bones or no bones. Just mix 1 cup of bbq sauce, 1/2 cup of orange juice, 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of honey. Use a wire wisk and get it all mixed up good. Place the chicken in a baking dish and put an orange or lemon slice in between each piece. The lemon or orange should be touching 2 pieces at once, so put them close. Pour the sauce over the top and bake covered for about 1 hour for bone in and about 40 minutes for boneless. I will serve this with rice and broccoli. An easy and different rice recipe: Use chicken broth instead of water and throw some crushed garlic and green onion or chives in with the rice. Do everything else according to package directions - I'm not talking Minute Rice here! Regular rice is just as easy, it just takes a little longer and tastes WAY BETTER!
For the carnitas I use a pork shoulder - which is on sale at Raley's this week (until Tuesday) for 97 cents a pound. I put the meat in my Pampered Chef stone bowl with lid. I just put a heavy dose of garlic powder and black pepper all over the pork and put it in the oven at 250 degrees all day. When you get home from work, sprinkle some hot sauce over the top and bake for another hour or so. Take the meat out of the oven and take off all of the fat. Then separate the meat with 2 forks to make a stringy type of look. You can add a bit of the juice from the bowl if you think it is too dry. I serve this meat on corn  tortillas from Raleys that look homemade. They are in the tortilla section - some even come flavored. I put chopped tomatoes, pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese, cilantro, lime, lettuce, chopped onions, quacamole, and canned corn out as additions to the meat and tortilla. Yummy!
As for the tri tip, this is the easiest thing to make. I use Montreal seasoning or Pappys rub on both sides of the meat. I prepare my bbq for indirect heat and cook the meat for about 40 minutes, turning it every 10 minutes. After you take it off the bbq, let it sit for about 10 minutes so that the juices don't run all over when you cut it. I buy several tri tips at a time when they are on sale, so I always have one in the freezer. I vacuum pack them always. My friend Sally puts the Pappy's rub on the meat before freezing - I'm going to try that the next time I buy some! This week I will serve tri tip with baked potatoes with sour cream and chives (from my herb garden outside my kitchen door) and a salad with tomatoes from my garden.
Speaking of garden, we are ready to plant out broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts. I can hardly wait for that first bunch of broccoli!