Pork chops with mango salsa

Saturday I went to the local WalMart Neighborhood Market and they had mangoes for .25 each, or four for a dollar, and pineapples were the best price I'd seen in awhile so I bought four mangoes and a pineapple and wondered what I'd do with 'em.  Today at work my mind wondered as it's prone to do from time to time, this time my thoughts went to what I'll feed the crew when I get home.  I had some thick cut pork chops that I'd thawed out so I looked on the internet for mango salsa and came up with something I thought I could do and wouldn't have to go to the store for any of the items and then I left the recipe at work.

I think I remember the recipe, so I dig out the itty bit of ginger I had in the fridge for another recipe that I forgot to use the ginger in, the bit of purple onion leftover from another meal and cilantro.  I chopped up two mangoes, about the same amount of pineapple as mango, some purple onion, cilantro, and the piece of ginger, I added about a capful of apple cider vinegar and a "pinch" of salt and mixed this all up.  I let everyone get to know each other for about an hour. 

Then The Boy asked what was for dinner and stood and stared at me until I got up. 

I butterflied the chops and sprinkled on some McCormicks Grill Creation, Citrus seasoning and popped those in the broiler.  I made some white rice and green beans and dinner was on.
 

Oh there was a party going on in my mouth!  Dear hubby liked the salsa on the side but didn't put it on his chop and rice.  The Boy and I decided that he missed out.

Quiche or breakfast casserole?

Tonight for dinner I fried up some Blue and Gold sausage (is there any other kind?) and chopped up some purple onion and cilantro, beat about eight eggs with some milk, added a can of mushrooms and the chopped stuff to the eggs and poured that into a casserole pan with bread crumbs spread out on bottom and then put some shredded cheese on top and baked for 40 minutes at 375.  We briefly discussed what the difference is between this and a quiche...a quiche has a pie crust and is round was the consensus and went back to eating our quisserole - which we added salsa to.  Pretty good stuff when all any of us had all day was a Kashi bar.

Easter dinner

Usually when I make Easter dinner I go all out.  I do a spiral ham, scalloped potatoes (or twice baked potatoes - depending on my mood), green bean casserole (or baked beans or both), rolls, deviled eggs and dessert is usually something like pineapple upside down cake.  I generally go overboard.

This year, not so much.  Last night dear hubby fired up the smoker before the storms hit and put a brisket on to smoke for about five hours.  When he took it off the internal temp was 140 and by the meat guidelines it was at the desired temp.  It was tough. This morning I got up early and fried up some bacon, chopped up some onion (I would've chopped up bell pepper as well but I failed to get any at the store) and fried thim in the bacon grease.  I open up one big can of pork and beans, added the crumbled bacon, fried onion, squirted in some catsup, mustard, worcestershire sauce and added some brown sugar and viola you have baked beans.  Meanwhile I took the smoked brisket and put it and some apple juice in a pan, covered it with foil and stuck both dishes in the oven at 250.

I then got ready for church.  After church I fried up some okra (Allen's from the freezer section), took the brisket and baked beans out of the oven and what do you know, the brisket is oh so tender and we have ourselves what we'll call this year's Easter dinner.

Dessert? I cut up some strawberries, added some sugar and we'll put the berries on top of a WalMart bakery Angel food cake and call it good.  Happy Easter! It's not about the food anyway!

John 3:16

BBQ Chicken

I got up and around early enough this morning to make some coleslaw and cut up potatoes, put 'em on to boil along with some eggs.  Dear Hubby took me to work and remembered to turn the burner off when he got home and put the potatoes and boiled eggs in the fridge so I could make potato salad when I got home while he grilled some chicken breasts.  When I went to make the coleslaw, I realized that I didn't have coleslaw dressing so I made it up.  I globbed some Miracle Whip on top of the coleslaw mix I bought at Reasor's and added some sugar and a couple capfuls of apple cider vinegar and mixed it all up. When I got home I realized I only had purple onions so that's what I used in the potato salad.  Why sliced boiled eggs on top of the potato salad? It's what Grandma Sallie did so that's what I do.

Dear hubby bbq'd the chicken breasts I took out of the freezer this morning and we were all set.

why does the chicken get the top billing when it was the least amount of work?  Dear hubby did do an awesome job - it was the juiciest chicken breast I've ever had! 

homemade pizza - kinda

I bought a couple packages of Shawnee pizza dough mix, followed the directions, added pizza sauce that came in a jar, homemade Canadian Bacon, some cheese and pineapple on half for The Boy and now we need more Canadian Bacon pizza.  mmmmmmmmm!  yummy, yummy in my tummy!

CHOCOLATE!!!

I realized the other night that I have a small stock pile of chocolate on the night stand.  Let's see, there's cake from a funeral a week ago, whoppers that won't make it until Easter and a Snickers egg that is also not likely to see an Easter basket.  A friend told me that chocolate is for stress and that this must mean I'm a bit stressed out lately....yea, we'll go with that.

don't worry honey, I'll cook

I got home from work the other day and the last thing I wanted to do was cook. I was in such a bad mood I didn't even like myself. I told hubby how I felt and he assured me that he would cook - he had forgot to take out the pork chops like I had asked after all. His menu in place of the pork chop dinner was smoked sausage, fried okra and hashbrowns.  Should we go ahead and check ourselves into the cardiac unit? Oh well, I thought, fine, go ahead as long as I don't have to cook. I went to Walgreen's. $50 and a sack of Easter Candy later, I get home and no one has moved. Fine. I'll wait. Still no one moves. Finally it becomes apparent that if any meal, artery clogger or not, is going to be cooked I'm going to have to blink first. I fixed hubby's meal....

fried anything will get 'em there...they got to use the "bar" first...

ugh!

Dear hubby promised me (I think it was a promise, maybe he just said that he'd do it...there is a difference) he'd cover the stove before he did any work in the kitchen.  The deal right now is that he's going to keep the stove hooked up as long as he can, which is handy since there's a burn ban and I don't really want to risk a $500 fine for grilling, and I'll cook.  I went in to start cooking dinner the other night and found this....

I like how he turned the skillet upside down and covered the other one up (kinda) with a lid, I guess the other lid is there to deflect debris into the burner.  For my firemen family out there, that's plaster and insulation all around those burners.  After, digging out the wisk broom and using a bit of elbow grease I was finally able to feel good about preparing a meal...

after all of that, I didn't want to mess the stove top up so I broiled some chicken breasts with some lemon pepper seasoning, made a nice green salad, cut up the chicken, sprinkled some cheese on top and added some vidalia onion dressing (yummy stuff!) and viola! you have a yummy chicken salad and my stove top stayed clean until the next work day in the kitchen.

Canadian Bacon

I went to Reasors Saturday and bought a pork loin at their meat sale.  Dear hubby immediately hopped up out of his chair when he heard I got a pork loin and said he wanted to make some Canadian Bacon.  I asked him if he knew how, he said no. I found some recipes online. I got out the spices (garlic, 1/2 C brown sugar, black pepper, 4 tsp. curing salt, and 1/4 C. kosher salt) and measuring devices and then sat at the computer and told him how much of what to put in the big bowl of water he had on stand by.  (Are you catching on yet as to how much work dear hubby really did on this project? I do give him credit for the idea and the cutting of 2 pounds of the meat...arrr, arrr, what manly things to do!)  We put this concoction in the fridge for two days

today when I got home I reminded dear hubby of the Canadian Bacon experiment and he said "oh yea". (But this is his project, remember) So I took it out of the fridge and sliced a little off and fried it up and we all agreed that it was ready for the oven.
so I put it in the oven at 200 degrees, while dear hubby napped for an hour or so (he did install 75 yards of carpet today) and then I turned it up to 220 because it was looking like it would be well into tomorrow if I didn't kick up the temp a bit.  Once the internal temp was 145 degrees this is what we had

I think a pizza is in my future!

pork butt wraps

yesterday before church I put a pork roast, onion, brown sugar, Dr. Pepper and a can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce in the crock pot (thanks to Life with a BQ) and when I got home I had a nice, spicy pork roast that was ready to shred up.  I warmed up some corn tortillas, put some cilantro, sliced grape tomatoes, sour cream, cheese and the yummy pork on board and we had what my dear hubby called "pork butt wraps".  The Boy and I are HUGE fans, dear hubby not so much.  He liked the meat but wasn't a fan of the "rest of the stuff", meaning he's not a fan of cilantro like that.  He'll eat it in salsa until sweat is dripping off his back, but make it purdy and stuff and he ain't goin for it.  Oh well, next time he can have the meat and The Boy and I will have our "pork butt wraps".  (Also made for some excellent nachos!)

Next up? We're making Canadian Bacon.....

it's kinda like camping

cooking these days is a bit like primitive camping, except I still have a stove and I don't have to deal with the bugs.  I never remember a camping trip where this was threatening to fall in your food though...

yep, that's right above where my stove is still hooked up...

when cutting or cleaning food I don't have much space to work on, I could have the entire counter top if I want to clean it all first, thoroughly. 

I don't really want to go through several dish rags and have to use the Neti Pot just to cook, so I clean a small place and leave the rest of the dirt where it is

and when dinner is ready I take it to the temp kitchen and set it up buffet style.

so, let's see, we have dirt and dangerous looking stuff to deal with, inconvenience, no real table to sit at but we do have a working stove, electricity, and real plates (for now)...yep, it's kinda like camping.