spice overload

The Asian Pork Salad I had for lunch today turned out spicy, but not too spicy for my tastes, surprisingly.  I ate it slowly to avoid spice overload, and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.  I think the black beans helped tone down the spice.  This is definitely a salad I'll make again!

Tonight for dinner, I made Cajun Smothered Pork Chops for dinner (online recipe slightly different).  I did something dumb though.  Even those this recipe calls for one "jalapeño chile, seeded, chopped," I for some reason decided I didn't need to seed it.  So I chopped up the whole jalapeño chile and added it to my skillet.  This is possibly the worst thing I've done so far in my cooking escapades.  THE SEEDS ARE THE REALLY REALLY HOT PART.  And an entire jalapeño chile is too much spice for me.  My mouth was burning!!! I managed to move most of the pieces of jalapeño to the side and finish the pork chop, but oh man... it was spicy.  Definitely will have to re-make this recipe at some point, jalapeño's seeded!

Does that salad on the bottom half of my plate look familiar?  Well, I had lots of leftover cole slaw mix, so I re-made the dressing from the Asian Pork Salad (but with a little less chili puree!) and had a side salad!  Delicious.  Now it's time to get ready for an early Friday night bed time - we are running at 7:30 tomorrow morning!  Wish me luck :-)