Balsamic Pork Chops with Southern Green Beans and Stuffing

Balsamic Pork Chops

Ingredients

4 pork chops (bone-in)

6oz balsamic vinaigrette (recipe below)

Directions

Marinate pork chops in balsamic vinaigrette for 2-24 hours.

Grill for 8-10 min (turning once) or cook under broiler.

Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette (from food network)

Ingredients
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons dark brown sugar, optional*
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup olive oil

Directions

Place all ingredients in a sealable jar and shake until combined.

Southern Green Beans (adapted from from AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients

6 slices bacon, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1 red onion, chopped
2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed and snapped
3 russet potatoes, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Place the chopped bacon in a skillet, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until evenly browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
Drain the bacon pieces on a paper towel-lined plate.
Melt the butter in the skillet wit the bacon grease over medium-low heat, and cook and stir the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the cooked bacon, green beans, potatoes, garlic, and chicken broth.
Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over low heat until the green beans are tender, about 10 minutes.
Sprinkle with vinegar, salt, and pepper, and serve.

I also made some stuffing from a box to go along with it. I don't know why, but I have an addiction to the box. I think it has something to do with childhood memories. It was one of the first things I learned to make for myself, and all too often, while I was in college, it worked as a meal all by itself. Yum. This time, I did use chicken broth (I had plenty extra left from the beans) instead of water.

Apple Pie

We went apple picking last weekend, so I had a bunch of fresh apples to use up. I promised Mr. L a pie in exchange of going with us, so yesterday I made apple pie from a food network receipe. I poured the sugary juice from mixing the apples in the pie over the apples, and it came out a little juicy, so next time I might leave the juice out.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup shortening (recommended: Crisco)
Ice water
Filling, recipe follows
Serving suggestion: warm with vanilla ice-cream

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a medium-mixing bowl cut the shortening and salt into the flour by hand or with a pastry blender hands until it's the texture of cornmeal.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of ice water over the mixture and mix just until the dough is moistened.
Repeat by adding 6 to 8 tablespoons water (one at a time) until all the dough is just moist.
Take care not to over mix.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Divide the dough in half and roll into a ball.
Roll 1 ball into a circle to fit a 9 to 10-inch pie plate.
To transfer the pastry to the pie plate, wrap it around a rolling pin and ease it into the pie plate.
Be careful not to stretch the pastry.
Trim it even with the edges of the pie plate.
Add the apple filling into the pastry lined pie plate. Make sure they are laying flat.
Cut butter into small pieces and put on top of the filling.
Roll the remaining pastry into a 12-inch circle.
Place on top of the filling.
Trim off 1-inch beyond the edge of the pie plate.
Crimp the edges as desired.
Cut slits to allow steam to escape when baking.
Sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon over the pie.
Cover the edges with foil to prevent over browning.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove the foil and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until it is golden brown.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Filling:
1/2 cup to 1 cup all-purpose flour
6 to 7 cups apples cut into thin slices (recommended: Green Golden and Jonathans; I used mostly Braeburns... I think)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
In a medium bowl combine the apples, with the brown and white sugar. Add flour, cinnamon and continue mixing until they are well coated.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Slow Cooker Beef with Veggies

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
3 potatoes, cut down to 1-2" pieces

2 sweet potatoes, cut down to 1-2" pieces
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
basically, any other veggies you want to throw in

1 (3-pound) chuck roast
Salt and ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions
Arrange onion, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and any other veggies in bottom of slow cooker. Season beef all over with salt and black pepper. Rub flour all over beef. Place roast on top of vegetables in slow cooker.
Whisk together tomato sauce, brown sugar, chili powder, cumin, mustard powder, and garlic powder. Pour mixture over beef. Cover and cook on LOW for 12 hours or on HIGH for 8 hours.
Serve 1/3 of beef and all of the vegetables with this meal. Shred and refrigerate remaining beef until ready to use.

Leftovers:

Mr. L is getting a sandwhich with the meat for lunch tomorrow, and the rest will be frozen in two containers - one for him to eat this weekend, while I'm out of town, and the other for us to eat later, on a day I don't feel like cooking. I'll leave out enough for dinner tomorrow. (I also threw in a couple of frozen biscuits to serve with it.)

Life

The wedding was wonderful, and our honeymoon was spectacular! I absolutely loved Napa Valley. It's the perfect place to have a relaxing, romantic get-away. It was beautiful, and all-around perfect. And there was enough amazing wine to make a wine snob out of even me. Seriously... perfect.

After the honeymoon, it was back to the real world. I moved everything up here to H-burg, and Mr. L went back to work. Now, I've basically unpacked everything we need (although there are two walls still covered in boxes with things like china and books and cookbooks), and I've moved on to trying to get his old place (now, our place) to a level of cleanliness that I can live with.

I'm still looking for a job up here. It's slow going in this economy, but I'm thankful that we're able to make ends meet for a while as I look. I'm just hoping that something comes through soon. I like having the time to get the apartment set up (although we'll have to move again shortly into more permanent housing) and do some cooking, but I'm ready to have a job again. I need the excuse to meet people and keep me busy!

I have been using the extra time to cook most of our meals. And I love cooking for two! I cook real meals with multiple dishes most days. On my own, I mostly cooked quick prepared dinners and usually only ate one dish (sometimes, that was just corn or rice - that's healthy, right?). Now, meals are real meals. I LOVE it.

Tonight it was taco night - soft tacos with beef, salsa, onions, sour cream (low-fat), and freshly grated cheese. And brownies and ice cream for dessert. Tomorrow, it's slow-cooker beef with veggies. And biscuits. I swear I'll start taking pictures and posting recipes again!

Spinache Quiche

I bought frozen spinach a while ago with the intention of making quiche, but never got around to it. Last night, I was determined to make some (as part of my mission to eat up the food in my kitchen before the wedding (and the move that will follow the honeymoon). I went with fat free cottage cheese over ricotta, to try to lower the calories a bit.


Cottage Cheese and Spinach Quiche


Ingredients

1c fat free cottage cheese
1 premade, uncooked crust (I was feeling lazy)
1 package (10 oz) frozen spinach
grated parmesian cheese (I dunno how much - about 1/3 of a wedge... maybe 3/4c?)
3 eggs
2-4 tbs nonfat milk


Directions

Preheat oven to 350.
Cook spinach according to package directions, then drain.
Mix eggs, milk, cottage cheese, and most of the parmesian cheese.
Add spinach.
Pour into crust.
Bake 30-50 min. - until center is set and crust edges are golden.

Oatmeal Banana cups with chocolate chips

I found this recipe over at Green Lite Bites, and had to try it out.

Ingredients
3 mashed bananas
1 cup vanilla Almond milk (I used skim because that's what I had)
2 eggs
1 tbsp Baking powder
3 cups (240g) Old Fashion or Rolled Oats
1 tsp vanilla extract (I bumped this up to 1.5 since I was using boring milk)
3 tbsp (42g) mini chocolate chips (I used regular, because that's what I had in the apt.)

(I also added about a tbs of splenda, again, because of the boring milk. Next time, I'd use brown sugar instead, and maybe a touch of cinnamon too.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips together, and let sit while you prepare the muffin pans.
Spray a muffin pan and/or liners with with non-stick spray.
Stir the chocolate chips into the oatmeal batter. (Instead, I didn't mix them in, and sprinkled them on top after I filled the cups with the chocolate-less batter.)
Divide batter into 15 muffin cups. They should be just about filled.
Bake 20-30 minutes, you’ll see the edges just starting to brown and they will be firm to the touch.

The Verdict

These guys are very filling, but they seemed a little flavorless and overly banana-y to me. Next time, I'd probably throw in the brown sugar and cinnamon, and use smaller bananas (mine were kinda huge). I might even try it with some sort of dried fruit mixed in to up the sweet factor - maybe raisins or cherries or apricots. But, all in all, it's a super-hearty breakfast, and I feel a little better because there is fruit involved and because there are so few ingredients (and none that required going to the store).

Hungry Girl 200 under 200 Blueberry Muffins

I've been meaning to try this recipe out for a while now. I finally tried it, and I'm glad I did. It was easy to make, and the muffins were great. I loved everything about it except for blueberries. I now think that all muffin recipes should include syrup. Amazing. I think I managed to end up with sour berries. Blergh. Now I'm kinda sad that I started with a double batch and spoiled it all. :(




Edited: I tried this again, with frozen blueberries this time it was much better. But it still had a bit of an unexpected, hard-to-place after taste. It faded after the first day or two, or maybe I got used to it. Also, I think that a normal batch of six is perfect for eating for up without having to freeze any. Which is pretty much perfect in so many ways.


I did notice that in order to get the recommended number of muffins, I had to fill each muffin tin to just over full. Thankfully, wheat flour doesn't rise much, so they didn't overflow, but instead look like pretty, substantial muffins.

Hungry Girl Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup light vanilla soymilk
1/4 cup sugar-free pancake syrup
1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Original Egg Beaters)
1/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)
3 tbsp. brown sugar (not packed)
2 tbsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread, room temperature
2 tbsp. no-sugar-added applesauce (get Mott's Blueberry Delight if you can find it!)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt


Directions:


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Mix well.
In a separate, large mixing bowl, combine soymilk, syrup, egg substitute, butter, applesauce, and vanilla extract.
Using an electric mixer or a whisk, mix until thoroughly blended. (Don't worry if butter bits do not break up completely.)
Add dry ingredients from the first mixing bowl to the mixture in the large one.
Mix until completely blended.
Then fold in the blueberries.
Line a 6-cup muffin pan (or half a 12-cup pan) with baking liners and/or spray with nonstick spray.
Evenly distribute batter among the 6 cups.
Place in the oven and bake for about 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Enjoy!


MAKES 6 SERVINGS


Serving Size: 1 muffin

Calories: 137
Fat: 2.25g
Sodium: 269mg
Carbs: 26.5g
Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 7.5g
Protein: 4g

POINTS® value 2*

Wedding cupcake test 1

I'm planning to make three kinds of cupcakes for the wedding: perfect party cake, red velvet, and classic yellow with chocolate frosting. I've made perfect party cake before, and even made it as cupcakes for another friend's wedding, so I'm not worried about that one. I'm not sure of the other two recipes though, so I'm trying some out.

First, I tried this yellow cake recipe from bakerella. She said it was super-moist, so I'm not sure what I did wrong. Mine came out really dry. I wonder if it has something to do with the altitude up here? Or maybe it's just the trouble or translating to cupcakes?

I tried this one with a malted chocolate butter cream. Of course, now I can't remember where I got the recipe for the icing. Probably from Dorie or from BH&G. It was interesting, but I think I'll stick to a more traditional recipe for the wedding.

I am really happy with the way that the chocolates turned out though. It was super-easy to make them using Wilton melts, and they were surprisingly tasty too!

Oatmeal Cookies

Mmm. New oatmeal cookie recipe. I love my Bush Cookies, but a co-worker requested plain oatmeal raisin (I can't believe she doesn't want chocolate in them!!!), so I went hunting for a new recipe. I think I have a new favorite. These are wonderful (I think the whole tsp of salt has something to do with it).

The girls at work have come to recognize this as the goodie basket.

Soft Oatmeal Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups quick cooking oats
raisins or nuts (optional) (I used about 1.5 cups of raisins)



DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium bowl, cream together white sugar, butter, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
2. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda,and salt. Stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats. If you are using nuts or raisins, mix into dough, combining well. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Roll the dough into balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.Makes approx. 36-60 cookies, depending on how large or small you make them.

Yummy light pasta

I saw this recipe posted by Beantown Baker and had to give it a try myself. So Good!

Spinach Pasta with chicken sausage, mushrooms, goat cheese and tomato

I modified it a bit to take out the tomatoes (yuck!) and used the pasta and sausage I could find at the local store.

Ingredients

1 pkg veggie pasta

1 pkg turkey kielbasa

1 pkg presliced baby bellas

olive oil

1/2 package goat cheese

Directions

Chop up kielbasa and brown meat in a skillet. Set aside.

Saute the mushrooms in the same skillet. Add a small amount of olive oil to the pan if needed (I didn't).

At the same time, cook the noodles according the the package instructions.

Toss noodles, chicken and mushrooms together in a bowl.

Finally, stir in goat cheese and serve.

Nutritional Info:
Servings Per Recipe: 6
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 376.1
Total Fat: 10.1 g
Cholesterol: 43.7 mg
Sodium: 615.6 mg
Total Carbs: 48.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.3 g
Protein: 19.5 g