Cinnamon Maple Pork Chops

I found a recipe for this in the back of a magazine and thought it sounded good. It was!

1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp pepper
4 boneless pork chops
2 Tbsp maple syrup
3 tsp butter, melted
3 tsp dijon mustard

Mix spices together and rub on pork chops.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
Mix maple syrup, butter and mustard and pour over pork chops.
Bake additional 5 minutes or until done.

I'll definitely use this spice rub and glaze combo again. I'd like to try it with a pork roast in the crock pot because it would have a similar principle as pulled barbecue pork, but with a sweet twist.

We had our pork chops with sweet potato casserole, a mixture of kidney beans, white beans and black eyed peas and fruit salad. Fruit salad is a regular fixture in our home. Tonight, the contents were:

1 cantaloupe, scooped out with melon baller
1 red delicious apple, diced
1 mango, peeled and diced
1 orange, sectioned and cut up
1 cluster of grapes, halved
1 pear, diced

A came downstairs, smelled the sweet potato casserole and exclaimed, "I smell cobbler." While she was disappointed to find sweet potato casserole instead, she did have three helpings of fruit salad, so I think that made up for it a little.

Chicken Enchiladas

One thing I've tried to do to stretch our grocery budget further is to shop every 10 days instead of every 7. It doesn't always work, but I'm trying to do it when I can. I find it forces me to be more resourceful with what I have on hand. Tonight I'm using the last of my cooked, cubed chicken from the freezer (chicken day coming soon....) to make easy enchiladas.

2 cups cooked chicken, defrosted
1 cup rice and tomato mixture (from Tuesday's soup)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 heaping tablespoon sour cream
1 cup peach pineapple salsa
1/2 cup chopped bell peppers (from freezer stash)
1/2 onion, chopped
olive oil
Shredded cheddar cheese

Heat small amount of olive oil in pan, then saute peppers and onions. Add tomato/rice mixture and heat through.

Add chicken and 1/4 cup plain yogurt to veggie and rice mixture.

Mix 1/4 plain yogurt, sour cream and salsa together. Spread small amount on bottom on 9 X 13 pan.

Put chicken, rice and veggie mixture into flour tortillas, rolling tightly.

Pour remaining sauce over top and top with shredded cheese.

Bake, covered, at 350 for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 additional minutes.

Vegetable Soup

J is going to the Vandy / Kentucky basketball game tonight, so I threw together a quick soup for the three girls and I.

1/2 onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped red, orange and green bell pepper (from my freezer stash)
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1/3 can rotel tomatoes
2 cans water
1 beef bouillon cube
1/4 cup red wine
1 1/4 cup instant rice

After sauteing the onions and peppers, I added the remaining ingredients and let everything simmer in a soup pot while I headed upstairs to the treadmill. I'm going to cook the rice separately and serve the soup over it so the rice doesn't get overcooked. I'm sure the girls will want to top this with cheese - they love to top any soup with cheese!

NOTE: I ended up cooking the rice with the soup because I didn't want to mess up another pot. We had this soup with rosemary sourdough bread and parrano cheese (both left over from Valentine's Day). While K pretty much subsisted on the cheese and bread, A & B both had seconds of the soup... success, in my book!

Jalapeno Pimento Cheese

J just complained to me that I haven't been keeping this blog up to date. My reply was that it just shows how little I've been cooking interesting things lately. Here's one that did turn out fairly well.

2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 to 1 cup plain yogurt
6 oz. jar pimentos, chopped
5-10 sliced jalapenos, chopped
dash old bay seasoning

Mix all together well and serve on triscuits or sandwiches.

Grocery Day Tomorrow

It's been two weeks since I went to the grocery store, so we are running pretty low on choices for dinner. When I came home for lunch today, I scouted out what was left in the pantry (not much) and decided this was worth a try. (I had originally planned to use many of these same ingredients to make burritos, then discovered I was out of tortillas. An empty fridge stirs creativity...)

1 can black beans, drained & rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
1 scant cup rotel tomatoes with some juice
1/2 onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped bell peppers
1 cup rice, cooked in 1/3 cup white wine & 1 2/3 cup water
3 tsp. taco seasoning (from packet)

Saute onion & peppers in olive oil.

Add beans and tomatoes to onion & peppers and stir in 3 tsp taco seasoning.

Heat through, then stir rice in.

Top with pineapple or regular salsa and sour cream when serving.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

I am taking a meal to a friend with a new baby tomorrow and made enough of this casserole to share. I found this recipe in a Simple & Delicious magazine. I'm not normally a huge fan of their recipes since they use lots of prepared items, which makes your dishes quicker, but pricier. The only thing that's not from scratch here is the stovetop stuffing and while you could make that yourself instead of using a box, why would you? I personally love the taste of stovetop stuffing and if I made it from scratch, I'd be trying to duplicate their spices exactly. I'm sure that makes me a philistine, but there you go.

The recipe didn't call for the dijon mustard or the broccoli, but I thought the former would add a nice tang and the latter prevents the necessity of a veggie side dish while complementing the other tastes.

This recipe yielded two 9 X 13 casseroles.

• 4-6 cups cooked chicken
• 2 packages chicken flavored stuffing mix (next time I will make 3 packages to split between 2 casseroles)
• 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup milk
• 2-3 Tbsp dijon mustard
• 14 thin slices deli ham
• 4 oz. swiss cheese, sliced thinly
• 2-3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Cook dressing according to package directions and set aside.

Mix soup, milk and mustard.

Divide chicken between 2 casserole dishes (I used a combination of cut up chicken breast and dark meat that I cooked in the crock pot with lemon juice for a light flavor).

Put ham on top of chicken, followed by sliced swiss cheese and a thin layer (less than 1 cup between the 2 casseroles) of shredded cheddar.

Add broccoli next, followed by soup mixture.

Top with dressing and remaining cheddar cheese.

Bake covered at 350 for 30 minutes.

Uncover and bake 10-15 minutes longer.

Lasagna

A friend from Bible Study came over for dinner tonight, so I made lasagna. It's cold outside (again!), so comfort food seemed like a good choice.

Sauce
1 jar favorite spaghetti sauce (I used a Ragu that was on sale)
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
basil
parsley
sliced peppers
1/3 cup white wine

Saute peppers in a bit of olive oil, then add remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes or however long it takes to mix the filling.

Filling
30 oz. part skim ricotta
2 tbsp sour cream
1/4 - 1/3 cup plain yogurt
12 oz. frozen loose leaf spinach

Mix well.

Put 1 cup sauce into 9 X 13 pan.
Top with 3 noodles.
Put layer of filling, topped with handful of shredded mozzarella.
Repeat sauce, noodles and filling layers.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes covered, 15 additional minutes uncovered.

Using the sauce and filling above, I made one 9 X 13 pan for us and one 8 X 8 pan for someone else.

We had this with spinach and red lettuce salad topped with apples and feta (and bread).

Meat & Potatoes

Mondays are a bit busy. K has ballet at 3:30 and then A dances from 4:30 to 6:00. I got home a little before 5:00 today and wanted to work out while dinner cooked. I threw together this beef dish and headed upstairs to the treadmill while it simmered. Post-workout, I put the other two dishes (or should I call each of these things concoctions?). Everything was ready about 5 minutes after J & A walked in the door and each girl ate everything on her plate. Success!

The Meat
4 chopped beef patties
1/4 onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped colored peppers
dash worcestershire sauce
splash white wine
pepper
salt

Heat beef patties in pan.
Drain fat when patties are 1/2 way cooked.
Add onions and peppers above and below patties.
Dash each patty with worcestershire.
Splash white wine in pan.
Salt & pepper as you wish.
Simmer on medium low for 30 minutes or so.

The Potatoes
1/5 package shredded hash browns
2-4 Tbsp canola oil
salt

Pour oil into pan and spread evenly over bottom.
Put hash browns on in thin layer.
Sprinkle with salt.
Place in pre-heated oven at 425 for 15 minutes.
Stir and heat 10 minutes more.

The Veggie
1/3 package frozen green beans
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup pecans
dash garlic salt
salt
pepper

Put all ingredients together in pan and stir well to coat green beans.
Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.