Giada’s Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops with Bobby’s Greek Potatoes (and pie!)

This afternoon, I tried to drink a slimfast. The three year old slowly came towards me, licking his lips: “Is that called chocolate milk, Jenn?” He whimpered and crept closer.  I took a drink. He eyeballed me. The six year old corrected him: “No! It has protein. It makes Jenn strong.”

I just sat there and wondered if it would be ok to lock myself in my bedroom for the rest of the day.

Instead of running away for the rest of the afternoon, we took the kids to the park to play.  We amassed a snail army, ate blackberries we found, and took turns down the fireman’s pole.  and when we got home, I made Parmesan crusted pork chops, Greek potatoes, green beans, and a fairy pie (also known as a raspberry lemon refrigerator pie).

The kids wolfed it down. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Recipes are linked above. Changes I made were minimal. I added frozen raspberries to the pie to make it pink and that was about it.

 

Roast Chicken Dinner

I got a lot done today. Kids up, fed french toast, clothed, and sent to church. Grocery shopping and battling every senior citizen in Eugene at Winco. Three homework assignments for my Master’s program. All of the laundry (with lots of help from Henry). And a roast chicken, sausage cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy dinner. And I still have work to do before Breaking Bad. I think I have some journals to grade.

The chicken was roasted with a mixture of whole grain mustard, honey, garlic, butter, and salt and pepper slathered all over it. It was good–but next time, I’ll do something differently. Be careful to not burn the bird–that honey colors the skin FAST.

Cornbread stuffing mix + onion + celery + fresh Italian sausage…it was perfect and homey. The potatoes were of the red variety. Mashed, simply. The gravy was thrown together without the pan drippings from the chicken. The mustard/honey was a little strong.

Anyway. Whew. There’s nothing like a Sunday dinner.

Rosemary Mustard Beef Kabobs and Vegetable Tian

School starts tomorrow. PowerPuff Girls is on. Meat is in the fridge, marinating, and the oven is preheating. I still have homework to do for my Master’s before the night is over. But laundry is done, the five year old starts kindergarten tomorrow, and it’s so muggy in this apartment. Ugh. I’m all over the place. But dinner will be good.

This recipe is adapted from a grilled chicken recipe. I just slathered the marinade on some beef and I’ll grill that instead. 

Ingredients:

• some sort of protein
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• juice from one large lemon
• two cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced, fresh rosemary

Grill the marinated meat. The end

Tian:

Ingredients:

• Some combination of veggies. I chose sweet potatoes, red potatoes, onion, summer squash, and zucchini.
• 2 T butter
• 1 T rosemary
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Method: I caramelized the onion first. Then I sliced all of my veggies about a 1/4 inch thick. Then I layered them in a casserole dish. Then I dotted them with butter, salted and peppered them. Then layered the onions on top, with the rosemary and garlic sprinkled on top of that. Then, cover tightly with foil and bake in the oven for 35 minutes. Take the foil off, add some Parmesan cheese to the top, and bake another 30 minutes, uncovered.

 

 

Potato, Spinach, and Sausage Casserole

I am not a big casserole person.  But this looks so warm and comforting. And slightly trashy. And I’m sick, so don’t judge. You’re just lucky I didn’t top the whole damn thing with biscuits.

I’m not sure if I’ll make any changes; well, knowing me, I probably will.  I think I’ll just take the concept of potatoes, spinach, and sausage and put it together however it best makes sense to me.

Ingredients:

• 8 potatoes (7 russet, 1 sweet)
• a bunch of spinach
• 1 onion
• garlic
• 1.5 pounds country style, bulk sausage
• cheddar cheese
• milk and butter
• salt and pepper

Method:

Peel, chop, boil, and mash potatoes. Add milk and butter, salt and pepper.  Wilt spinach into mashed potatoes. Saute onion, and garlic.   Brown sausage. Make a roux and add a bit of milk to the roux and sausage to make a bit of gravy. Spread a layer of potatoes and spinach in a casserole dish; top with sausage gravy; top with cheese.  Bake until heated through–bubbling and brown on top.

Interesting Food Links, News, and Recipes

• Panda Express is expanding to… China?! “We’re working on some angles,” they say. . . 
• And the frenzy continues:  someone found a jelly bean that looks like Jesus…I mean Kate Middleton. 
• Drug Resistant Bacteria Found in Half of U.S. Meat
• I’m always looking for new ideas for lunches to pack for work.  Here is a list of 10 from one of my favorite websites.
• This recipe for Baked Pineapple Casserole is simultaneously intriguing and revolting.   Pineapple, cheddar cheese, and ritz crackers?  Really? How can something so strange sound so…good? 
• Thai sauce for beginners
• Blue Cheese Scalloped Potatoes with Chipotle and Bacon

Dinner Tonight: A Husband’s Dinner

Spicy Bratwurst and Potato Soup

• 2 bratwurst, sliced
• 1/2 of a pasilla pepper (what I had in the fridge), chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 3 stalks of celery, chopped
• 6 potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 amber ale–minus three or four drinks
• Some vegetable or chicken stock, nearly a can
• several glugs of milk
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons butter
• a cup (?) of shredded chipotle cheddar cheese

Saute vegetables–brown sausage.  When the vegetables are soft and the sausage is browned, make a roux in the same pan (Butter, flour. Makes a paste. Slightly caramelizes.  Absorbs liquids.  Thickens.). Add liquids.  Slowly, until each small addition absorbs into the flour. Add just enough milk, stock, and beer.  The soup could be made with just beer and milk, but I decided to add stock as well.  Add potatoes.  S & p to taste.  Simmer, just under a boil, until the potatoes are tender.   Add cheese.  It will gently melt.  Ladle into bowls.  Watch husband grin.

Sunday Menu Planning

Jeff and I have decided to cook around themes each weekend, in order to learn more about different cuisines and to cook and eat foods we might not otherwise try.  So, last weekend, everything I cooked was Mediterranean inspired and this week, I decided to narrow the focus a bit and cook Greek dishes.

All of the recipes on the menu this weekend come from the same website: Closet Cooking. I’ve blogged a little bit about this website and blogger before–and I can’t say enough about how much it inspires me to try something new each time I visit the site.

From this website I’ve chosen:

Spanakorizo

Baked Shrimp and Feta Pasta

Lemon Roasted Potatoes

Melitzanes Papoutsakia

I’ll post the process and progress either today or tomorrow.

Oh, one last thing:  As many of you know, I used to be a vegetarian.  Now, I’m not.  I haven’t really posted any sort of explanation or given much of you insight into this change.  I don’t intend to do that here and now, but I do have an idea for you to consider.  I have been reading Anthony Bourdain’s new book Medium Raw and Jeff and I religiously watch No Reservations on Netflix.  I love, love, LOVE Anthony Bourdain.  His opinion of vegetarianism is pretty clear.  He writes, in his book Kitchen Confidential:
“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”

He later rants:

“To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I’ll accomodate them, I’ll rummage around for something to feed them, for a ‘vegetarian plate’, if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”

He has also said that choosing the path of vegetarianism is a “first world luxury.” This idea struck a chord with me.  I don’t know if I agree with his sentiments, but from a Marxist point of view, is he right? Are “first world” vegetarians classist? Imperialist, even?    Looking down upon their meat eating peers in their own country and abroad?

Most of the world’s population eats what they can afford and whatever is in season.  Period.  They eat what they have access to.  Most of the world cannot afford to be vegetarian.

So, if you can afford to, should you?

Sunday Morning Menu Planning

At 10:15 this morning, I have my second Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga class.  I took my first class on Thursday–a beginner’s class, the website explained.  Beginners?  By the end of the class, everyone was busting out their head stand moves–practically levitating, others were.  Head stands, levitation, chanting in Sanskrit…needless to say (the most useless phrase, isn’t it? If I don’t need to say it, why am I?), the class was a tad advanced.  Needless to say (there I go again), I woke up the next morning, with grumbling muscles I didn’t even know I had.  Back of neck muscles?  Above my elbow muscles?  Pinky toe muscles?

I have class again this morning. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself, by preparing some recipes to cook for when I get back.

Four recipes I’ve come across this week have sounded really good.  Two curries and two noodle dishes.  I couldn’t decide which two I wanted to make, so I decided to combine the two curries into one curry and the two noodle dishes into one as well.

Spicy Soba with Shiitakes +  Curry Spiced Noodles

Red Kidney Bean Curry +  Spicy Vegan Potato Curry

I also plan on making bell peppers stuffed with tempeh and some sort of grain (quinoa, bulgar, rice, etc.).