DINNER TIME! Baked Pork Chops

This week, I'm pulling out some pork chops from our freezer. Hmm..fry them? Barbecue? I think I'll bake them, sort of like a home made 'shake 'n bake.'

They're frozen and I want to make them for dinner so I have a quick way to prepare them and defrost the the same time. I'm making some brine, which I'll put in the ziploc bag the chops are in to make them tasty, tendy, juicy, and thawed at the same time.

For the brine, I put half a liter of water into a sauce pan. Two heaping tablespoons of Kosher salt, a teaspoon each of marjoram, terragon, and sage go into the water, which I bring to a boil. When it does boil, I stir it vigorously, let boil for another minute and then remove from heat.

Let that sit for 10 minutes before adding into the bag with the chops. Let that marinate for 4-6 hours.

I have some leftover roasted potatoes from last week's chicken dinner. There's also a zucchini in the fridge that I can use for the side.

I coat a baking pan with olive oil.  The chops go into a plastic bowl where I pour some half and half on them. I sprinkle with black pepper and then bread crumbs. Turn them over and do the same thing.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook for 30 minutes. Then remove from oven.

Remove the pork chops and put the potatoes on the bottom of the pan (if you're using uncooked potatoes, put them in at the beginning - see last week's recipe on how to prepare them). Put the chops back in on top of the potatoes with the cooked side down.

Dice up the zucchini.

Fill in the spaces in between the chops with the zucchini. Sprinkle some Kosher salt on them. 

Drizzle a little quality olive oil on the zucchini.

Put back in the oven for 25 minutes.

At the end of 25 minutes, increase temperature to 475 and cook for 15 more minutes for browning. After this, you're ready to serve.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

DINNER TIME! Lemon Garlic Chicken and Potatoes

We have a lot of chicken thighs frozen in our freezer. Letty had some leftover lemon garlic marinade. Taylor made for a quick, easy, and delicious dinner.

First, I better give you the marinade. I used leftover but use the juice of a lemon, 6 garlic cloves minced, a tablespoon of olive oil, a sprinkle of Kosher salt and pepper.  Use this as a rub on your chicken and, when you cook it, save the drippings...that's how we ended up with leftover marinade.

Take three thighs, put in a ziploc bag with the marinade (fresh or leftover...only difference is that the leftover also has chicken stock), and let sit in the fridge for 6 hours.

Dice up some yellow potatoes.

Put in a ziploc bag, sprinkle in about a quarter teaspoon of Kosher salt, a few sprinkles of black pepper, and a teaspoon of olive oil. Shake well in sealed bag.

Smear olive oil on a baking pan, put the potatoes in the bottom of the pan.

Put the thighs on top of the potatoes, skin side up. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

I'm also cooking a little broccoli for the side. Prepare the same way as the potatoes and wrap in foil with a little opening at the top.

Put the baking dish with the potatoes and chicken in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes. Turn chicken, put back in oven for another 30 minutes. Put the broccoli in the oven at this time, also.

At the end of the second 30 minutes, turn the chicken skin side up again. Increase heat to 475 and cook for another 15 minutes to crisp the skin.

It should look like the picture above when done.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

DINNER: Ispanakli Patates Casserole

Ispanakli Patates is Turkish and it basically translates to spinach potato. Recently in Berlin, we were treated to the most fantastic food in the Turkish neighborhood where we were staying. The Turks are one of the biggest non-German ethnic groups in the city, over 300,000 live there.

Our favorite restaurant...though, it's hard to pick one out of all the good restaurants there...is Cafe Neffes.  I had this wonderful spinach and potato casserole there one night and vowed to try to make it for myself when we returned.

A couple of weeks later, after browsing dozens of Turkish recipe websites, I've came up with my own variation.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cooked spinach (1 cup after cooking)

1 cup Greek or Mediterranean yogurt

2 oz. feta cheese crumbles

1 small pasilla chile, chopped

2 large tomatoes or 4 medium tomatoes, diced

1 cube chicken bouillon

3 Mexican green onions or 1 medium white onion, finely diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon marjoram

dash of nutmeg

1/2 pound golden fingerling potatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 link soujuk sausage, thinly sliced (easiest to do when frozen)

2 eggs

In a pot of boiling water, boil the potatoes for 30 minutes over medium heat.

If your  spinach isn't already cooked, put a tablespoon of olive oil in a 12" pan. When hot, fill as completely as you can with spinach and cover. It should render down to about a cup of cooked spinach in around 5 minutes. When cool enough, chop it up.

In a medium sauce pan, heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the onions and cook...stirring...until translucent. About 2 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and pasilla chiles. Add the chicken bouillon. Add the garlic, oregano, marjoram, and nutmeg. 

Stir in and bring to a boil. Add spinach and stir in. Turn the heat to medium and boil for 5 minutes then turn heat off.

When the potatoes are done boiling, strain and set aside.

Coat a casserole dish (about 3 quarts) with another tablespoon of olive oil. Put a layer of the tomato/spinach sauce on the bottom in a fine layer. Put some sausage over that and sprinkle with feta cheese. Spread a layer of yogurt over that. Ladle some potatoes over that.

Repeat this layering until you run out of sauce.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, put two raw whole eggs on top, put back in over for 10 minutes to cook eggs. 

Let cool for 10 minutes after that before serving.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

This Week's Sunday Menu: PrimeTri Tip Steak with Roasted Potatoes with Bacon and Eggs

Meat and potatoes...delicious ones...for those of us on a low-sodium diet.

The entree for this week's dinner is some fantastic tri tip steak. USDA Prime that I found for $7.99 per pound. Great deal.

Breakfast uses our standard scrambled eggs recipe but we're cooking some delicious Danish bacon

Get the recipes below:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Bacon (for an added treat, cook the eggs in the bacon grease after you cook that).

Dinner: Tri Tip Steaks and Roasted Potatoes

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Mashed Potatoes

While boxed potato flakes might be easier to make, they're not that much easier than making mashed potatoes from scratch.  Once you learn, you'll never go back to boxed potatoes.

INGREDIENTS
3 medium russet potatoes
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup half and half
1/3 stick margarine (or butter, if you prefer)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

The hardest part comes right up front, peeling the potatoes. Even so, we're not cooking for an army, peeling three potatoes is not too bad.  I peel over the sink to make cleanup of the skins easier.

Put the peeled potatoes in a stock pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat town a couple of notches. I like to do a low boil for an hour.

When potatoes are cooked to a soft consistency, drain off the water...keeping the potatoes in the pot. Get a masher and start mashing. This is the second hardest part of the recipe. Add the other ingredients.

Keep mashing and stirring to get a creamy, smooth consistency. Taste test as you go along. Not salty enough? Add a dash or two until it is. Not creamy enough or soft enough?  Splash in a bit more half and half until it is.

Serve with your favorite protein.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Classic Barbecue: Ribeye Steak

Most of my Sunday dinners are cooked out back, on my Weber kettle grill. Since we live in Southern California, we can barbecue just about year-round. Nothing like standing over burning coals, cold beer in hand, coaxing the flavor out of the food.

This week's Sunday dinner is the classic ribeye steak, served with roasted potatoes and corn on the cob.

The recipe for the steak will follow but first, the sides.  Here's our basic roasted potato recipe.  The corn, simply wrap in foil for cooking.

Now to the main entree...you must start with a quality piece of meat.  A well marbled ribeye, at least USDA Choice, preferably Prime if you can get it for a decent price. Costco occasionally has prime steaks that are reasonable. If not, look for lots of marbling on the meat...the more the better.

I should mention that you should probably expect to pay at least $8 a pound, so this won't be a cheap dinner but will be much, much less that going out to a restaurant for it.

We've got 1 1/2 inch, Prime steaks.

INGREDIENTS:

2 - 12 ounce ribeye steaks, 1.5 inches thick (modifications for thinner steaks are noted below)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 green onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

First, I put the steaks in a sealable plastic bowl about 4 hours before cooking.  I put the Worcestershire sauce on them and spread it out evenly.

Next, I put the green onion in my little, handy food processor and chop up.

The green onion goes on top of the steaks. I seal the bowl and put in the refrigerator until it's time to cook.

For cooking, I heat up coals in the barbecue and make sure they're all to one side. You need half of the grill to not be over burning coals.  Put the corn against the edge of the grill away from the coals. Salt and pepper the meat and put directly over the coals for three minutes per side (2 minutes for 1 inch steaks, 1 minute for half inch steaks). Watch out for flare ups, as shown above. Move the meat away from any flames during this searing period but keep over the coals.

After searing, move meat to the other side of the grill, without the coals underneath.  Cook 8 minutes per side (6 for 1 inch thick, 4 for half inch thick) for medium rare.

Remove and cover the meat for 10 minutes with foil before serving.

We serve a steak and a half for three people and save the rest for later.

Leftover rating: 4

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Potatoes: The Go-To Potato Dish - Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Meat and potatoes, the ultimate protein and starch. Here's a really easy and delicious recipe that is very hard to mess up.

INGREDIENTS: 

1/2 pound fingerling, golden potatoes.
salt
pepper
olive oil

I like to use the small, fingerling, golden potatoes that I can buy for about two dollars a pound in my area. They are forgiving if you leave them cooking too long...they won't turn to mush like other potato varieties will.

Cut the potatoes into small, bite size portions. Depending on the potatoes you buy, that might be in half, thirds, or even quarters.

Put into a leak-proof plastic bag (I save bread bags for this this reason), put in a quarter teaspoon of salt and a couple of shakes of pepper. Twist the end of the bag closed and shake vigorously to distribute evenly. Put in half a teaspoon of olive oil, twist and shake again.

Dump out onto a sheet of foil paper and close the foil around the potatoes.

On the barbecue or in the oven (300 deg.), cook at lease 20 minutes before you start to cook anything else. Leave on the grill, on indirect heat but close to the coals while you cook everything else...about another 20 minutes.

Once everything else is done, then remove the potatoes and serve.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved