Hey Mambo, Mambo Ital-Poblano?

     A few weeks ago, when I had a plethora of jalapeno peppers, I was taking suggestions.  One was to stuff them.  Um, too much work for something so small!  However, I do like a good stuffed chili pepper.  Back in July, I went to Pensacola with Matt & some friends to go sailing.  We took the concierge restaurant suggestion... The Fish House.  (A few days ago, I noticed it was mentioned in Wine Spectator for their not-so-expensive yet impressive wine collection... mine was tasty!)  Anywhoo, I ordered the seafood stuffed relleno... and was pleasantly surprised initially.  Then I realized that, overpowering my crab, shrimp, and crawfish, was a boatload of corn.  Really?  Way to yucky it up.  I'm all about corn, but not an entire cob of it in that kind of a dish.  I told the waiter it was delicious, but could use less (or no) corn.  He seemed to brush me off... (Gosh?  Doesn't he know who I am?  My 6 followers do!)
     Anyway, a few weeks later I ate at a Mexican Restaurant nearby... Juan Tequilas.  Love the place.  Good food, beachfront, & a 25% military discount... and karaoke Thursday nights (and by nights I mean WHILE you eat your dinner...)  One thing I did not love was their stuffed relleno.  I found myself peeling off a soggy omelettey batter.  I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands... even if I didn't have a recipe.  (not a big recipe fan, if you've realized I have never posted one, it's because I don't use them often... how I describe it is kind of what I do...)

     I got some poblano peppers, some crab claw meat, and shrimp.  Sauteed the shrimp, threw it in with the crab claw meat, an egg, and hmmmm.  Binding.  Ah!  I had some leftover organic polenta in the fridge.  I tossed it into the food processor to make it into crumbles, and added it to the mix.  Spiced it up a little, and  stuffed me some poblanos.  Popped 'em in the oven...

     I made a spicy cheesy sauce topping with some added queso and some anaheim peppers, and roasted some tomatoes to add to the plate.  It really was as awesome as it looked.

I'm a Ribeye Girl

     You can keep your hoity toity teeny weeny filet.  I'd take a melt-in-your-mouth marbled hunk o' ribeye anyday.  And last Tuesday was one of those days.
     I was watching FoodNetwork, and just like everyday, I wanted what I saw.  Rach was whipping up a garlic rosemary strip steak topped with an arugula and heirloom tomato summer salad, sided by a mayo-less (aka way-to-my-heart) potato salad fra-diavolo.  We'd been eating quite a bit of seafood lately (love the coast!), so a little red meat was just what the doctor (or PA) ordered.

     I chose to do it with ribeyes.  Because they're awesome.  And awesome they were.  I tried her technique of rubbing garlic directly onto, and all over, the steak, and then coating them in olive oil and fresh rosemary, sea salt, and pepper... lots of delicious flavors in this steak.  Topping it off with an organic baby arugula and farmer's market cherry tomato salad in a lemon/oil dressing was surprisingly good... and I am particular about what I let near my steak, (because if you ruin my steak, watch your back.)  And I thought it was a good combo of flavors.  Matt agreed.  He, however, prefers a mayo-based potato salad.  And, my critique for Rach, the "fra diavolo" potatoes weren't as spicy as she made them sound... but still not bad, seeing as though I also don't really like celery, and it was pretty well-hidden in the recipe.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

     This week I took my first cooking class, Knife Skills 101.  I became a member of the Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center in Ocean Springs, MS, (http://www.themaryc.org/) and signed up for some cooking classes.  I figured I should take knife skills, both to learn the correct knives to use for specific things, and how to hold them so I don't cut myself, (I am a huge clutz), and how to do that super fast chop that you see on The Food Network.  I surprised myself at how well I did!  No band-aids, and I totally beat the other lady in boning my chicken... take that great grandma!  (she became a great grandma that day, actually)...
     While we were learning how to slice & dice, one of the cooks was preparing us a meal out of our practice food.  We ended up with a bacon-wrapped chicken breast stuffed with boursin cheese, in a roasted tomato & garlic sauce.  We had a side of parmesan fries from learning how to batonnet, and then a citrus vinaigrette salad made from sectioning an orange, and slicing up purple onion and fennel.  I scarfed mine down.  Everyone else kind of ate most of it... I wanted to steal from their plates, I was so hungry and it was so good!

     I decided to make it for dinner last night, but with a twist... I still have an inordinate amount of jalapenos in our fridge, so I decided to stuff the chicken with cream cheese & jalapenos instead of the boursin (also because our commissary didn't have boursin).  I also added portabello mushrooms to the sauce, and served it over homemade organic parmesan risotto, topped with roasted garlic parmesan asparagus.  I made a fresh spinach chiffonade to top it off, but forgot to add it in my hunger/excitement!

Pad Thai

     I had some pork that I wanted to make, so I goog'd pork recipes.  I found one for Paula Deen's Pad Thai, checked out the ingredients, and realized I already have most of them... sweet!  (We have kind of alot of Asian non-perishables from my Master Chef excursion).  Before making it, however, I read the reviews, and some people were saying to steer clear of this one, so I found another one on a Thai website called ThaiTable.com.  So, I did another combo move.  I used PD's recipe in regards to the pork, and the legit Thai recipe when it came to the rest, except that I found the noodles weren't ready after a 10 minute soak, so PD may have that one right...  In order to expedite, I heated them for just about 3 minutes carefully, over the stove and they turned out perfect!  The other modification involved the tamarind.  Yo no tengo.  Thai Table said to use a white vinegar substitute.  I used rice vinegar.  More Asian that way, I think.

     After burning the first batch of peanuts, it all worked out well. 

Unfortunately, it was ready and done far ahead of Matt getting home, but I kept it in the wok large pan that I have, and just heated it back up.  Once again, he used the words "restaurant good" in it's description.  I forgot to throw the raw bean sprouts and sesame seeds on top for the photo (sesame seeds were my own little addition). 

I also steamed up some edamame and threw some sea salt on top.  I ate about 93% of the edamame... I think Matt had like 5 of them.  Another repeat meal!

Chim-chiminy Chim-chiminy Chimichurri Charoo!

     A few weeks ago, I went to the AAPA conference got a lot of free delicious meals in Atlanta.  I went with some PA school friends, Ashley & Ashlee (aka Milli), which worked out to my benefit because I got to finish their meals after I ate mine.  (Big Clean Plate(s) Club week for me).  On our last night there, we ate at a refurbished midtown warehouse-turned-swanky restaurant called Two Urban Licks www.twourbanlicks.com, which was reccommended to us by our fellow PA conferencegoers drunk hotel pool friends who never made it to a single conference lecture.  (If you take a cab there and wonder if you are about to be kidnapped by the cabby or disposed of in some abandoned warehouse, you're in the right place.  Let's hope.)  I ordered the monkfish and a side of gouda grits and hot peppers.  Let me tell you, the gouda grits were very gooda grits.  The Ash's both ordered the beef tenderloin in a chimichurri sauce (minus the chimichurri sauce for Milli, who likes to know exactly what she's in for).  After I finished my mediocre fish and exceptional sides, it was onto my nightly ritual of finishing everyone else's dish too.  (By the end of the trip, my food baby was in it's third trimester).  Anyway, it was my first chimichurri experience, and a delicious one at that!  I immediately picked up on the garlic and cilantro in the sauce, both of which I can't get enough of!  (My one complaint was that I wish the tenderloin had been sliced a bit smaller, because it was kind of difficult to chew).

     Well, in a passionate burst of food talk this 4th of July weekend, (my favorite type of passionate bursts/talks), I asked Matt if he'd ever had chimichurri, and decided that I wanted some.  STAT.  (It doesn't help that I watch the food network every day and CRAVE red meat when I do...)  Well last night I made just that.  An Argentenian-style beef tenderloin topped with a homemade three-herb chimichurri over organic? brown? basmati rice.  (I got it at whole foods... not much description.) 

     I found several recipes for both the chimichurri and the beef itself.  So I took a little from here, a little from there, and did my own rendition of the dish.  The three fresh herbs in the chimichurri were parsley, cilantro, and mint. 

I had just gone to a farmer's market yesterday morning and bought some fresh peppers, so I added one white pepper too.  (One of the recipes I saw included red pepper, and white is similar, but a bit sweeter.) 

     I cubed the tenderloin and skewered it on the grill, after coating it in a spice rub for several hours (only because it took Matty that long to get home from work!). 

And I luckily did not burn the house down making the rice, even though I forgot about it and left to take Marley to the lake (which we sprinted back from when I realized what I'd done...)  The nice thing about the dish was that I could make the sauce ahead of time, and not right when it needed to be served.  (And I have leftovers in the freezer that will probably last a long time!)  When Matt came home, I grilled the beef to about a medium-rare, plated it up with some chimichurri sauce, and served it over the rice.  He actually said, "this is good... like, restaurant good... was it easy to make?"  (As in, would I mind making it more often...)  I definitely don't!  I can't wait to finish it for lunch!

Back in the Saddle... Tortilla-Crusted Fish Tacos!

     Welcome back me!  I took a pretty long hiatus, during which time we moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, and now that I am sans my ER job again, I am back in the dinner-making saddle.  (Though I must say, the hospital cafeteria burgers at PCRMC rank among some of the top burgers I've ever eaten... just probably not good for you three shifts in a row...)

     So when I think of fish tacos, I get frustrated.  They look and sound so delish, but I detest mayonnaise oh so much, and usually they come with some sort of mayo/aioli/tartar sauce type of thing.  So I order the shrimp.  Well enough is enough!  I want to enjoy some fish tacos too!  So I decided to concoct my own...

     I decided on tilapia, and seasoned it with a mix of things... salt, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, dill weed, lemon pepper, lime juice, butter... and cooked it up.  I made my Tara's signature salsa (and, by the way, Pampered Chef will be getting a call... my fave scissors rusted and they're only a few months old!)  as a pico de gallo, and chopped up some Romaine lettuce.  Big deal so far, right?  Well.  I still needed a sauce.  What I did was make a mango/jalapeno guacamole, and "sauced" out the avocado with some lime juice, a bit of sour cream, and a touch of olive oil.  I also added some fresh cilantro, scallions, some cayenne pepper, and I think a smidge of lemon pepper and salt.  Didn't really write it down as I made it all up.  I left a little bit of the fresh diced mango and avocado to add to the tacos.  Then I grated up some Monterey Jack & Jalapeno cheese, and sprinkled some fresh lime zest on the cheese and guac.  Add to some flour tortillas or even some tortilla chips, and voila!  Mayo-less fish tacos!

     I can't wait to eat this!!  In the meantime,  I was so wrapped up in drooling over the anticipated deliciousness of this meal that I didn't realize I locked my phone in the car until I wanted to take a pic of the plate.  I missed Matt's phone call, and it was probably to tell me he'll be home late.  Sigh.  I want to eat them now!!  YAY he just pulled in as I wrote that!!

     It was delicious!!  Matt loved it too!  I threw some of the leftover pico & guac in a burrito with his similarly spiced scrambled egg breakfast!  And the rest will be for chips, or a quick whip up of some more tilapia!  Ayeayeayeaye!

..............So I posted this because I thought I was happy with this recipe.  I went on a bikeride today and got caught in a storm by the beach for a good hour, and all I could think about was fried food.  I know, weird.  But I got home and showered off and it dawned on me that I should make a tortilla crust for the tilapia.  So I got out some stale tortillas that moved with us, (because I have non-stale ones too, so I might as well use the stale ones, right?) and my mortar and pestle, and made some tortilla flakes.  I threw the spices I'd used into the egg mix, coated the fish, rolled it in the tortilla crust, and fried it up in a pan.  Result: even more deliciousness.  More texture than before.  Probably less healthy, but come on.  It's a pretty healthy meal overall...  Take a look at it's deliciousness...

Take a closer look...

Yeah.  It was really good.

A Pampered Chef, Indeed

     Not too long ago, Matt & I were invited to and attended a Pampered Chef party at a friend's house.  Before we even got there I knew what we'd be cordially checking-out with... the double-bladed salad scissors.  (This photo doesn't do the double-blade justice).  This past summer, I was staying with our friends Tara & Rob, and as Tara was partaking in her fantasy football draft, she was also making homemade salsa using these babies.  I was immediately hooked, and couldn't wait to make her salsa on my own.

     Now, I think Matt is somewhat sick of homemade salsa, but it seems to be a crowd-pleaser, and you can make it as hot-or-not as you want.  This batch below was for a bachelorette party pre-game this past Friday.  Sadly, it was the last salsa this cute fiesta-pepper bowl will ever hold... I destroyed it after clean-up the next day (ok night... when I made it off the couch...)

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

     I have been on a Barefoot Contessa kick on the Food Network lately.  The other day, she had an episode entirely devoted to chicken.  (Right after I watched Oprah's special on how disgusting chicken is these days, but Ina made it look good).  Anyway, she made a roast chicken dubbed "Engagement Chicken" by Glamour magazine, because whenever someone cooked it for their boyfriend, they were proposed to within 24 hours.  I haven't made roast chicken before, but I did use Ina's recipe for a roast turkey 2 Christmases ago, and it was very similar, and this looked delicious on TV so I couldnt resist.  It took longer to cook than on TV, but it was pretty tasty.  Ina & I made a sauce for the chicken out of the lemon & onion garnish, and although Ina likes to eat the rhinds, I decided against it.  It made quite a bit of sauce, the chicken is gone but there are still two bowls of garnish leftover in the fridge!  (Perhaps to use on a rotisserie chicken in a quick fix!).  I told Matt about the history of engagement related to this chicken, and I decided that although I am already married, a girl can never have too many diamonds... he said it was was good but not that good...

Fishy Fridays!

So, I'm Catholic. Lately, you wouldn't know it, because I didn't get ashes, (though I did give up Facebook for Lent), I haven't been to church a whole lot, (both of those, thanks to my nights/weekends shifts in the ER), and I've always been pretty bad at remembering not to eat meat on Ash Wednesday & each Friday of Lent. That is, until this past week. Not only did we make it to Mass, but on Friday I managed not only to avoid a thoughtless pulled pork sammy for lunch, but I couldn't wait to make a seafood dinner that I'd been planning for weeks!

Before I get to the main course, I saw a post by Jessica Webb about crab rangoon, and I had just made those crabcakes, but realized I had a stack of wonton wrappers in the fridge from some Wild Mushroom Ravioli I'd made during the Master Chef ordeal. I decided to go back and get some more crabmeat, and throw some together myself. I eyeballed the ratios, and tweaked a few of them... I added some cilantro and a bit of Old Bay... (Maryland Crab Rangoon??) Spice it up a bit.

I used a Sweet Chili Garlic sauce for dipping.

For the main course, I made bucatini with mussels, scallops, and shrimp in a homemade wine sauce with roasted tomatoes, garlic, onions, and bok choy. It was even more delicious reheated the next day, when the bucatini snoodled up the sauce. Yum Yum!

Crabcakes & Football!

"That's what Maryland does!"

So Matt and I had his future XO, Winston, over for dinner on Tuesday night, and to keep with the theme of our future Southern move, he suggested I do a low country boil again. I discussed it with a nurse I work with, Lulu, who told me the ways of the south, and corrected me on my ignorant northern mistakes of the last batch I made. This time I got 4 lbs of shrimp, 3 lbs of snaussy (my word for sausage), red potatoes, and corn. I didn't use all of the shrimp & sausage, that's quite a bit for just three people.

"Get you some lemons and cut 'em up, squeeze 'em into a big ol' pot, cut you an onion in half and th'ow it in there, and get you a bag of crab boil... them seasoning bags, not the powder." So I did. Except I don't have quite a big enough ol' pot for all that food, so I used two medium ol' pots. (Thanks Jamie C.!)

I decided that though all these pounds of food was going to be filling, my meal lacked the variety of several courses, so I went back to the store and got the makings for an appetizer: crabcakes. I hadn't ever made crabcakes before, and I'm not one for recipes. My dad makes them all the time, so I took what I remember from his batches, and mixed it with what I remember tasting and seeing in a batch Matt's Aunt Mimi made at her low country boil, and came up with my own blend of crabcake ingredients.

I got some crab claw meat, some yellow/orange chili peppers, some cilantro and parsley, and plennnnty of Old Bay seasoning, and blended it all with mayonnaise (Yuck! I can't believe I used mayo. Anyone have any substitutes?) and an egg. I let it sit like that in the fridge for a while and then made them into little cakes and coated them in panko.

I threw one in a frying pan to test it out, and my mayo fear came through... I can't stand it so I minimized the amount, and the crabcake came apart. (Also, I had too much oil in the pan). So, I decided to pop the other 7 in the oven for a few minutes before frying them, and that seemed to workout much better. I did eat the one that came apart. It still tastes the same when it's not stuck together! Anywhoo, they came out pretty tasty. I even ate a leftover one for breakfast yesterday!

Not Always The Chef

So occasionally I put up pics of food that I don't always cook myself, but I think are worthy of posting. Matt and I went to Gulfport, MS last weekend, and I was lucky enough to catch a taste of the south during Royal Red Shrimp season. If you've not had these before, they taste just like lobster. (Trust me, lobster is my favorite food, so I kid you not.) They are absolutely delicious. They are found off the coast of Florida in very deep waters, and they are only in season at certain times. I got this plate for $12.99. The next day I got a plate of fried shrimp for $12.99 at a BBQ joint. No comparison. The pic I should have taken but didn't was the 5lbs of crawfish we got that night at the same restaurant. (Who goes to the same restaurant for lunch and dinner? We're such losers... or it was just really good.)






So I finally had a day off last Thursday, and planned to make my favorite salmon, but I went to a fashion show with some friends and got some chips, salsa, and cerveza at a Mexican restaurant before-hand. When I got home around 8pm, I didn't go with the salmon, because we were pretty hungry. I went with a quick stir-fry dish that included steak and shrimp. Yummy yummy and quick to make!




The next night I decided to make the salmon, while it was still pretty fresh. I make it in a brown sugar glaze. It's delicious, and my cousin Theresa's fave. I usually do it with a side of asparagus, so I had some of that, but this time I also tried out some Chinese broccoli, and Matt wanted some corn. The salmon and asparagus combo was great, as ush, but I went a little overboard on the rice vinegar on the broccoli. Woops!




On Saturday night I had to work until 9, (and it was a stressful day!) and so on Friday I crock-potted some pulled-pork in advance. I love this pulled pork, I crock it in beer, honey, BBQ sauce, onions, and garlic until it falls apart. So Matt said he'd wait for me to get home to eat that for dinner on Saturday night. Much to my delight, when I walked in the door, he was dressed all fancy-pants, and he led me to the back deck, where he had set up our new fire pit for the first time, and had a romantic candlelight/white light dinner and stereo set up. He even put my Slanket (better than Snuggie) out because he thought I'd be cold! I didn't take a pic of the food, just the set up and our doggie, Marley, loving the warm fire. Most romantic Mac-N-Cheese I've ever eaten :)

Homemade Pesto!

When we were in Australia for a month last summer, I got on a HUGE pesto kick. It's not Aussie, really, but maybe their food was so terrible that I sought out the known comforts of other countries :). I must say, I had a bad pesto experience in the past, in a pizza place on M street in DC. (If you are ever there, don't order the pesto/potato pizza.) However, pesto has redeemed itself and more since then. Below are the ingredients I used, though I would have preferred block cheese.

I made Matt buy me a mortar and pestle and he agreed, because he knows I'm pesto-obsessed. You can use a food processer to make it, but food processors go too far above and beyond the abuse that the basil needs in order to transform into a tasty sauce. Afterall, the etymology of the word "pesto" originates in the action of pounding or crushing, not of slicing and dicing. So I mortared and pestled and muscled through it.

Next I added some pignola nuts (pine nuts) which I chose not to roast, but rather added them fresh. I crushed those up too, then added the EVOO, (thanks, Rach), the parmesan cheese, a dash of pepper, and a bit of kosher salt (it's a little more airy than table salt).

A little bit of pesto goes a long way on pasta, (and I can't wait to throw some on my newly acquired bucatini! Which isn't necessarily the best pasta for pesto because there's not much for it to absorb, but I just love it!), so I made pesto ice cubes out of most of the sauce before refrigerating a bit to toss with some pasta at a near future time. In the distant future, I can unfreeze one cube at a time to throw into a meal and still get that homemade pesto taste! It's amazing how much better fresh pesto tastes than jarred pesto sauce... it's worth the few minutes! Buon Appetito!

Southern Flare

...Ok. So I wanted to make Chili on my Master Chef video, but I just didn't have all of the ingredients available to me that day, nor did I have the time after cooking for 7 hours. I make several different types of chili, but I think my newest flavor is my favorite. I started out making Taco Chili (use taco seasoning instead of chili powder). Matt liked it because it had corn in it. It was a beefy man chili, so of course I loved it too. Then we upgraded (healthwise) to ground turkey. Then I tried a white chicken chili. (We like chili in this house). The white chicken chili had white beans instead of the brown varieties in my meaty chili. From there, I read about a lime/cilantro taco chicken soup, and decided, why not make that into something heartier? So I did. My latest and greatest chili is pictured below. It is comprised of shredded chicken (I prefer rotisserie), black beans (they look better against the stark white chicken and bright greens and reds), diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapenos, (anyone know how to make the squiggle above the n?), tomatillos, dried & fresh cilantro, diced limes, lime juice, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. I think I threw in some white chicken chili seasoning. I crock pot that mix for lots of hours, basically until Matt comes home to turn it off because I leave it cooking when I go to work. I miss eating with him. Then I serve it up over rice and crumble some tortilla chips and sprinkle some mexican cheese on top, and give it another lil' squeeze of a lime slice. Anyway here it is:

So last night I got a special treat. Matt and I had a delicious low country boil at his Aunt Mimi's house over Christmas (in NJ! but the people who made it were from NC)... anywhoo, I decided to try it out myself last night. I threw in some potatoes, (russet, though I would prefer/reccommend red potatoes, but I had lots of pounds of russets leftover in the fridge from homemade gnocchi experimentation), kielbasa, shrimp (raw, so it doesn't overcook), corn on the cob, and last but not least, a lobster! mmm mmm good. and there are leftovers... (not of the lobster!)

Catching Up

So it's been quite a while since my last post... the past few weeks have been insanely busy in many different ways... but I have still managed to get some quality cooking time in the mix, just no time to share about it on here, so this post will include pictures from several different meals...



...The first of which, I didn't cook, I am just sharing it now because it was so good that I wouldn't want to share it if it was sitting in front of me and you were sitting next to me. I ordered this dish at La Vera Cucina, a quaint and DELICIOUS Italian restaurant hidden in a large house in Monroe, NY. It was my second time being there, the first being in the summer, which was nice because they serve food on their giant wrap-around porch. This lobster/pasta dish was the special that night, and before we even left the restaurant, I couldn't wait to eat the leftovers... unfortunately I left them in Matt's parents' car when they dropped us off in Brooklyn and then continued on to Virginia, but they said it was delicious too... The dish incorporated shrimp, three lobster tails, and of my favorite types of pasta... perciatelli. I love how the sauce gets snoodled (I made that word up but it seemed most fitting) inside of the pasta straws. I am excited because yesterday I found some bucatini in the local area back here in Missourah.







The rest of the photos are of dishes I made. This one is enchiladas, but kind of fajita-style too. Instead of just meat & cheese, I add a little bit of onion, green pepper, tomato, and jalapeno to it, for a little kick and some extra veggie servings.

Then I add the sauce, roll 'em up, and bake the whole thing in the oven until the outer cheese gets nice and melty.

I also whipped up another Thai dish, though not nearly as yummy as my homemade peanut sauce. It was a chicken dish that had thinner noodles than my lo mein dish, and although I used my own judgement in type and quantity of sauces and spices to cook the chicken in, which turned out yummy, I tried a pre-mix red Thai chili sauce for the dish and it was vomitous. In keeping with what I learned about Asian cuisine, I added some crunch to the noodles with sesame seeds and some julienned shallots, etc. Overall, a dish that looks nice and would have tasted much better if I'd stuck to my own devices.

Lastly for this entry, which is getting quite lengthy, I made some Indonesian Ginger Chicken, courtesy of my wedding cookbook a la Catherine. Very simple to do, and the sweet honey soy ginger sauce was great over rice. Excuse the photo, I was hurriedly eating this dish, unfortunately, as I made it one morning prior to work, and never really got to enjoy it as a sit-down meal.

...More to follow!!

Panko Pork

Switch it up a little. Green.

So last night I decided to make Panko crusted pork loin chops. I generally followed a recipe I found on Food&Wine, but with a few minor adjustments. Instead of just salting and peppering the pork, I marinated it for a few hours in a mix of honey, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. When I coated the pork with the panko and some parmesan cheese, I realied I didn't have any sage, which the recipe called for, but instead used some rosemary and thyme, and some garlic powder. For a green bean side I added more soy sauce, garlic, dried minced onion, and some mirin (Asian wine sauce). We had a few white yams in the pantry so I heated those up too, for a starch. Kind of random, but pretty delicious.

The pork was great. We ate the two leftover chops, beans, and yam for lunch today too, (along with the last of the lasagna that was in the fridge.) I wanted to make an Indonesian Ginger Chicken recipe tonight (from Catherine's cookbook), but it snowed really badly yesterday so I didn't get to the grocery store, and it has to sit overnight in the fridge before you cook it. Hmmm... what to make!