Pork Chop Stew

A little something different:

Pork Chop Stew

4 pork chops

Salt & pepper

1 Tbs olive oil

4 potatoes, peeled & sliced thinly

6 carrots, peeled & sliced thinly

1 can cream of celery soup

1 Tbs Kitchen Bouquet

1 tsp dried thyme

Season the pork chops with salt and pepper. In a large, heavy pot brown the chops in olive oil. They do not need to be cooked through. Remove pot from heat. Arrange the potatoes and carrots on top of the chops. In a mixing bowl throughly mix the cream of celery soup, one can of water, Kitchen Bouquet and thyme. Pour soup mixture over potatoes and carrots. The soup mix should come to the top of the potatoes and carrots, if not you can a little more water. Bring to a slight boil on medium-high then reduce the heat to medium low and cook for about 25 minutes or until your carrots and potatoes are tender. Stir a couple of times but be careful not to stir too much and break up the carrots and potatoes. 

Grilled Lamb...Amazing!!!!

Wholly cow this lamb is amazing!  Yogurt is the marinade and you would never be able to tell. 

Grilled Lamb

1 leg of lamb

1 cup plain yogurt (split)

2 onions

2 green bell peppers

1/2 mild purple onion, diced (for yogurt sauce)

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Whole wheat/grain tortillas

Beware lamb is expensive, but its worth it for a treat every once in a while. 

Marinade 30 mins to 8 hours ahead of grilling:  Cut the lamb off the bone in large chunks that are all about 1 1/2" thick. 

Mix 1/2 cup yogurt, 2 tsp kosher salt and 1 tsp freshly ground pepper (if you have it, otherwise use about 1 tsp table salt & 1/2 tsp regular pepper). 

Roll lamb chunks in yogurt mixture, cover and refrigerate up until 30 minutes prior to grilling. 

Grill

Preheat/prep gas grill on high heat.  Gas grill is necessary or the yogurt drippings will extinguish your fire. Wash, trim and cut bell peppers into about 4 pieces (top, bottom, then middle cut in half). Peel onion and cut in half. Toss is about 2 Tbs olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. 

 

If you have a grilling basket use it for the veggies and break up the onions. If not, pull half of the onion out and cook in fourths directly on grates over the fire. Do the same with the bell peppers. Cook lamb and veggies at the same time directly over the fire. Turn lamb chunks every 2-3 minutes until done to your liking. We like ours medium-rare and it takes about 15 minutes. This is the perfect amount of time for the veggies to cook as well.

Yogurt Sauce:

Mix remaining 1/2 cup yogurt with 1 tsp Kosher salt, 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper and diced purple onion. (I had some roasted garlic leftover so I threw that in too.)

Slice lamb thick or thin depending on your preference. And, cut onions and peppers into smaller chunks. 

We like to eat ours on wheat tortillas stacked with the yogurt sauce, lamb, peppers and onions-similar to fajitas. 

Delightful!!!

This was my 1 and 2 year olds' plate. They ate every bit! 

Roasted Garlic - Appetizer Idea

I use roasted garlic as an appetizer either with toast, crackers, cheese, olives, etc.  This is what I had leftover from 10 bulbs of roasted garlic. I usually make a ton so that I maximize oven usage and so that I have some to keep in the fridge to cook with later. I cook mine on a pretty high temperature to give it some chewy, textured parts on each clove but if you want all of it soft lower the temperature to 350*. 

Roasted Garlic

Garlic bulbs

Olive oil

Foil

Preheat oven to 400*. Tear foil pieces into roughly 6"x6" pieces for as many bulbs of garlic you have. With the skin on cut about 1/2" off of the top of each bulb making sure that almost every clove's top is cut off. Place each bulb into the center of a piece of foil and drizzle with about 2 tsp of olive oil.  (This one is already cooked but you can see the cut here.)

Bring all four corners of the foil in and crunch together lightly sealing the garlic packet. Repeat for each bulb. 

Place the bulbs in a baking pan (just incase of leakage). Bake for about an hour. I try to bake garlic at the same time I'm roasting something else like meat or sweet potatoes so that you maximize your oven usage. Serve a few bulbs in the skins on a plate with a butter spreader or small spoon to dig the garlic out.  Eat by itself or spread on toast or crackers.

Cranberry, Pear & Oatmeal Bake

I threw this together with the intention of it being a crisp. I knew there was too much juice for it to be crispy but I went with it anyway. Glad I did. It turned out great and it can be used for dessert or breakfast!

Cranberry, Pear Oatmeal Bake

1-29 oz can of pears in juice 

Or 3 fresh pears, peeled & sliced

Optional with fresh pears:  apple juice

2 tbs dried cranberries

1 cup old fashion oats

3 tbs brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Sprinkle cinnamon

2 tbs butter, softened 

Or 1 tbs butter 1 tbs olive oil

Optional: vanilla ice cream

The more juice you have the more the oats will cook. This is a great way to go for a breakfast dish. You can use additional apple juice if needed for fresh pears. I would suggest a total of about 3/4 cup of juice/water. If you would like it more crispy use less juice. Preheat oven to 400*  Pour pears (with any juice) into an 8x8 baking pan and sprinkle with cranberries. In a bowl combine oats, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and butter and/or olive oil.  Mix well until mixture is moist and butter/olive oil make small clumps in the mixture. Spread the oat mixture evenly over the pears and bake for about 45 minutes. For dessert I served it warm and toped it with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Summer Salad

I know it's not summer but I've been craving this scrumptious salad!

Summer Salad

1 cucumber, peeled and finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

3 green onions, sliced (whites & greens)

1 tomato, finely chopped 

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

3-4 Tbs mayo

Salt & pepper

Everything should be uniformly chopped a little smaller than the whole kernel corn. Mix well and serve!  

Bryan loves when I use the Extra Heavy Mayo. 

The flavors mix into an incredible, fresh explosion for your taste buds!

Dark Chocolate & Green Tea Truffles

Holy cow these things are amazing. They definitely taste way better than they look. And, I got the recipe from South Beach so pretty low in sugar too! 

Green Tea Truffles

South Beach

3/4 cup Half & Half

2 green tea bags, family-size

1/2 lb bittersweet chocolate (60% cocoa), chips or chopped

1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

Bring the half & half to simmer over medium heat. Remove the half & half from heat and add tea bags.  Steep tea for 5 minutes. Remove tea bags and carefully squeeze excess into the warm half & half. Return to simmer over medium heat.  While waiting pour chocolate chips into a glass bowl. Once half & half starts to bubble around the edges, remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Mix until chocolate is smooth. Place in the freezer and remove every 2 minutes to stir until it starts to harden (about 10 minutes). 

Place unsweetened cocoa powder in a small dish. Scoop out about 2 teaspoons of the chocolate mixture and roll into a ball. Drop the ball into the unsweetened cocoa and roll around until covered. Tap excess powder off. Repeat until all of the chocolate mixture is used. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Optional: Right before serving dust very lightly with powdered sugar using a fine strainer.  

Magnificent!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries Milkshake

What a treat!  A true milk-milkshake. 

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Milkshake

Dark chocolate chips

Strawberries (fresh if available)

Milk

Sugar or Splenda 

Ice

Blend well and serve. 

I used to make this at the hotel bar with leftover chocolate covered strawberries and loved it. You get the same result with strawberries and chocolate chips. Either way most of the chocolate usually falls to the bottom and you're left with a very nice treat at the end.  

You could definitely use ice cream to make it richer and more decant or yogurt for protein but this is my preference for a light yummy treat.