You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Dinner’ tag.
I’m developing a pattern. When my friends invite me over, I usually bring a homemade pie. When I’m bored, I usually make semi-successful attempts at candy. And when I have someone over for dinner (or have had a really bad day), I make pork chops. And not just any pork chops, but the most delectable, panko-rolled, pan-seared, oven-baked pork chops you can imagine!
I first stumbled upon this recipe when I was home visiting my family last winter. It was brutally cold, just weeks away from the infamous Snowmageddon of the Mid-Atlantic. I was puttering around the house, trying to distract myself from what a bad day/week/month I was having, so I decided to make my mom and siblings a fantastic, soul-warming dinner. I headed over to the local Safeway and $30 later, I was ready.
It was such a success that I’ve made this exact same dinner three more times since then and it’s always greeted with smiles and food comas.
First you preheat the oven to 425 and then just set up a standard breading station for your chops; Flour on a plate, a couple of eggs and 2 tsp of lemon juice in a bowl, and panko bread crumbs, fresh chopped sage, parmesan and a tsp of lemon zest in another bowl.
I’ve been going through a serious sweet phase. But I don’t just sit around gorging on candies and pies; I also gorge on savory things. Like the following…
Started out with about a pound of delicious, sustaining asparagus.
Impromptu steak dinner!
Garlicky Shrimp is one of my go-to dinners because it has three of my favorite components: shrimp, garlic & butter, glorious butter! And to top it all off, it’s insanely easy, like so easy the fella can do it!
You just start out by sautéing a couple scallions and a few cloves of garlic in about 1 tbsp each of olive oil and butter. I also toss in some red pepper flakes for kick!
Seriously, this is the easiest tomato sauce I’ve ever encountered. A few months back, I made an epic, all-day-long affair out of making tomato sauce and homemade meatballs. It was super rewarding, but not entirely practical. I won’t always be able to dedicate an entire day to mashing and stewing and slow-cooking.
So I decided to try a different approach, an easy 45 minute sauce that requires only 3 ingredients…
1 28 oz can of top notch whole stewed tomatoes
1 yellow onion, halved
4-5 tbsp of butter (I was running low on unsalted, so I just used salted and then omitted adding any additional salt to taste)
And that’s all. That’s all!
Start out by pouring the entire contents of the can o’ tomatoes into the pot.
Valentine’s has never been a favorite holiday of mine. I would go so far as to say I used to hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I still don’t like it, but it’s a lot easier to like when you’ve got someone to buy you pressies and bring you flowers and whatnot.
So as a “Happy Valentine’s, sucka” to my fella, I decided to put my relatively newfound culinary skills to good use and cook us up a feast. I’m a slow chopper and a perfectionist, so we didn’t eat until 9, but I think we were both pretty satisfied (as was Nina… it’s not everyday that a puppy gets fillet mignon bits!).
I aimed high with the following menu:
Starter (yes… starter!):
Wild mushroom & leek soup w/ parsley dumplings (everything, including the vegetable stock, from scratch)
Main:
Pan fried, peppercorn-crusted fillet mignon
Green bean salad with marinated red onions in a homemade vinaigrette
Dessert:
Ghiradhelli loveliness from Spencer
First I started out with about $10 worth of assorted veggies for the stock…
Wanna see how it turned out?
I was in the mood for a sausage dinner, so I whipped up this quickie dinner of sauteed bell peppers and sweet onion with fried kielbasa and red fingerling potato wedges. Simple, easy, satisfying!
Mmm, kielbasa…
It’s been cold & rainy for a week and mama needed some chowda. So I made some!
Thanks to RealSimple magazine (which we lovingly refer to as “RealSquare”), I finally came across a recipe for Sweet Corn & Shrimp Chowder – one of my favorite chowders! Yay! I modified it just a bit, on account of RealSimple’s ingratiating habit of under-seasoning, and it turned out super delicious! And relatively inexpensive to boot!
First, I started out with some good hearty ingredients:
1 lb of potatoes (I like red potatoes, but it’s all about preference!)
It’s been pretty cold by SF standards lately, so I figured it was time to indulge in one of my favorite wintertime foods… homemade beef stew! I’ve always loved simple beef stews – they fill you up, super easy to make, and they’re usually pretty cheap due to all the simple produce involved. Safeway was having an unbelievable sale on beef, so I got a 3 lb chunk of delicious chuck pot roast for only $3.45!!! “Good grief,” I exclaimed to myself, “that is some cheap beef! Let’s make a stew!”
I got that bad boy home and set to chopping it into about 10 hearty chunks. Browned them in some olive oil and butter and then set to chopping up the veggies. Usually I like to include baby bella mushrooms (my cheapie mushroom of choice), but I was all out, having used the rest of mine for the previous night’s breakfast-for-dinner omelette. So this time, I used a nice big red onion, celery, carrots, and turnips.
