I'm bacccckkkkk! Pork Chops, Smashed Potatoes and Zucchini!

Pork Chops, Smashed Potatoes and Zucchini

Did you miss me??!? I know, I know...it's been close to a year since I've blogged anything. Life got crazy for a while and something needed to give. I decided that I needed to give up blogging for a while until things got more manageable in my life. I'm not promising daily blogging just yet, but I will promise that I won't be a total stranger anymore. 

I'm pretty sure that part of my inspiration to start blogging again was sparked by my recent decision to have Cody's Fresh Foods start delivering weekly fresh organic produce to our house! I know it makes me a giant dork, but to have mysterious fresh ingredients dropped off on my porch every Saturday morning is exciting to me!! It's like my own personal version of Chopped!!! I don't know what I will get from week to week, but I know that it will be fresh and delicious! I get to experiment and figure out new, interesting ways to use that weeks ingredients. 

Here's a sneak peek of what I had to work with this week:

This time of year is always difficult for me because Bryan works a lot, so the kids and I are usually on our own for dinner. It's hard to not fall into the easy trap of making chicken nuggets or mac n cheese for the kids and fixing myself something quick and easy. Maybe it's a good thing that I'm getting my butt back to blogging!!!!! It holds me accountable for making decent meals...

Today I realized that I had tons of possibilities for side dishes and absolutely nothing in the house for a main dish. Isabella had drama class, so I headed over to Roma's Food Imports to see what the butcher had that looked good. I picked up some pork chops and knew the rest would come together easily.

I was recently given the opportunity to try out Filippo Berio olive oil through my membership in the BzzAgent program. The joke was on them though, because I've been using this olive oil exclusively for YEARS. It's actually the only one I buy! I was MORE than happy to accept the bottle they sent me in the mail and share the coupons with my friends! I actually use olive oil daily in every meal that calls for oil, unless it specifically calls for vegetable oil, which is mostly when I'm baking.

There isn't too much in the way of a recipe for this meal, but I'll do my best to explain.

For the pork chops:

• 4 center cut boneless pork chops
• 1/2 of a red onion, sliced
• small can mushrooms
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 tablespoons Filippo Berio olive oil

For the potatoes

•  2 lbs small red potatoes 
•  2 cloves smashed garlic
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt (to add to the boiling water)
• salt and pepper
• fresh grated parmesan cheese
• Filippo Berio olive oil for drizzling

 For the zucchini:

• 4-5 small zucchini
• 1 tablespoon Filippo Berio olive oil
• 1 clove minced garlic
• salt & pepper to taste

For the pork chops you'll want to grab a large non stick skillet. Heat about 2 tablespoons of Fillipo Berio olive oil in the bottom and set your heat to medium-high. Liberally salt & pepper your pork chops and add them to the pan. You'll want to let them cook until they are browned on the first side, then flip and repeat for the second side. The first side took about 4-5 minutes for me. 

While the first side is browning up, bring a pot of water to a boil with about 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and 2 smashed cloves of garlic (this will help flavor the potatoes). Once the water comes to a boil, add the baby potatoes with the skin on and cook until fork tender.

Once you flip them to the second side, slice up about half of a red onion and add it to the pan with the pork chops. I normally would use fresh mushrooms, but I didn't happen to have any on hand today. I keep canned mushrooms in my pantry for just this kind of situation, so I tossed in a small can of mushrooms as well. Reduce the heat once the second side is nice and golden brown. You'll want to leave it at around medium-low heat for the remainder of the cooking time. Start to finish, my pork chops took about 15 minutes. If you are unsure if they are done,  you should always use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature. Pork chops are done when they reach 160 degrees.

Occasionally give the onions and mushrooms a stir, but just let it all hang out in there. It will be fine.

While your pork chops are finishing up, drain the potatoes. Drizzle a pan with some more Filippo Berio olive oil and place all the potatoes on the pan. Smash with a potato masher, the back of a fork, or you can even cut them if you prefer. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Drizzle the top of the potatoes with a little more olive oil and then sprinkle a small amount of fresh grated Parmesan cheese on top. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees while the rest of the meal comes together, or just until the cheese is melted. 

I always let my meat sit for a few minutes before cutting and serving to allow the juices to redistribute and prevents it from drying out.  I took the pork chops, onions and mushrooms out of the pan and onto a plate and then cooked the zucchini right in the same pan so it picked up all the great flavor from the pork. 

I gave it another small drizzle of olive oil and then tossed in 4-5 small sliced zucchini. Hit them with some salt, pepper and a clove of minced garlic. I like my zucchini to be golden brown, but not mushy. I cooked them on medium for about 4 minutes and they were perfect! Still had a little crispness to them, but were not hard.  

This meal came together quickly and was VERY good! 

I promise to not be a stranger anymore....

Balsamic Round Steak with Grilled Sweet Potatoes

I have to take a minute before I share this recipe with you to give a little shout out to BzzAgent. I have been signed up with them since 2005, and during that time I have had some really great opportunities to try some amazing products for free. You might be asking yourself "what's in it for them"? The answer is quite simply that they get the word of mouth advertising from happy people walking around telling all their friends about the products that they tried. I could give you the big long list of things that I've tried over the years, but I'll just highlight a few to give you an idea.

I've tried whitening strips for my teeth, chocolate, make up, coffee, sonicare toothbrushes, cleaning products, craft products.. etc

My latest package arrived at my door just a few days ago. I was super excited to take a peek and see what I got!

The folks at Lawry's were kind enough to send an apron, two full sized marinades, a full size sample of their seasoned salt, a big stack of coupons to share with my friends and a recipe booklet!

I decided that the perfect way to put their marinade to the test was with some beautiful round steaks. I picked the round steak because it is a nice lean piece of red meat (I need to make sure I keep those 18 pounds I lost off!). The marinade was definitely a great idea! Fantastic flavor and the steak was tender as could be!

Balsamic Round Steak with Grilled Sweet Potatoes

• round steak
• 1 bottle Lawry's Balsamic Herb Marinade
• sweet potato
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  
• Lawry's Seasoned Salt
• Lawry's Seasoning Salt Marinade

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Place the steak in a shallow dish and cover with the marinade for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Slice the sweet potato, toss with the oil and sprinkle with the seasoning salt. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and starting to get a little crisp. Move the sweet potatoes to the grill to finish them off. Brush with the seasoning salt marinade and grill for 2-3 minutes on each side.

Preheat your grill and if you have a searing burner preheat that as well.

When the grill is ready, sear the steak for 2 minutes on each side. I have a side sear burner, so I started them there and moved them to the regular grill for the rest of the cooking time.

Finish the cooking process on a lower heat, about 350 degrees).

How long you cook your steak will depend on a few different factors. Which kind of steak you are using, how thick it is and how rare or well done you prefer your meat. I found a nice website that had some great recommendations for grilling times for steak. Check out their website HERE for some great grilling tips! This is a chart from their website that you might find helpful when trying to decide how long to cook your steak.

I still prefer to use a thermometer to ensure that I don't overcook my meat. You can pick them up pretty inexpensively and they are a must have in the kitchen.

This is the one that I have, you can pick it up on Amazon HERE.

A fantastic quick and delicious meal! Thanks to Lawry's!


Enjoy!!!

If you are interested in becoming a BzzAgent visit their website HERE!

Roasted Vegetable Quinoa

I apologize for my absence over the last two days. I have not been feeling well and to be honest, blogging was the absolute last thing on my mind :(

This dish was an experiment. I had never made quinoa before and wanted to see what I could come up with off the top of my head. Quinoa is really like a cross between rice and couscous, in my opinion. I thought it was really good!!! You can use this in place of rice or pasta in any dish for a healthy twist.

I usually have a funny story to accompany my recipes. If you had any idea the kind of insanity that is happening in my house while I'm cooking, you would be shocked that I even blog. I can look back and laugh at this now, but when it happened it wasn't all that funny. The package of quinoa said that you need to rinse it under cold water before cooking. I knew that the quinoa was really small and I couldn't use my regular colander to strain it, so I grabbed a smaller strainer and was convinced that it was perfect to rinse the quinoa in. FAIL! The quinoa went right through the holes and all over the counter top making a giant mess. Don't make that same mistake! Put it in a bowl and then cover with water to rinse. You'll be sorry if you don't ;)

Roasted Vegetable Quinoa

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
  
• 1 yellow squash, chopped
  
• 1/2 of a red onion, roughly chopped
• brussell sprouts, washed, trimmed and cut in half
• 1 red bell pepper, cut in a large dice
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  
• kosher salt
• black pepper
• 1 14oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
• 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
  

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Rinse the quinoa in cold water and drain. Place the quinoa in a saucepan with the chicken stock and garlic, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until it has absorbed all of the liquid.

FYI - I was not aware it was pronounced keen-wa. I had always called it QUIN-OA. I felt super ridiculous when I realized how wrong I was...carry on.

Cut up all of the veggies and place them on a baking sheet. Toss with the olive oil. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt, pepper, and the Italian seasoning. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until the veggies are tender.

In a large skillet, add the can of diced tomatoes and the roasted veggies. Stir in the quinoa. Cook just until everything is warmed thoroughly. Add the parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!!!

Chorizo and Onion & Prosciutto and Goat Cheese Pizzas

I think if I had to pick only one food that I had to eat every day, I would very likely pick pizza. It is one of those things that you can reinvent so many different ways and it is almost always good. I decided to use a new recipe for my pizza dough this time around. David Rocco had a show air last week on The Cooking Channel that was completely devoted to pizza! It looked so good that I just had to give it a try. The pizza dough was super easy to make and tasted amazing too! The toppings from these pizzas were just some of my favorite things straight out of my refrigerator. This pizza dough recipe was enough to make one *really* big pizza, but I decided to split it up into two smaller pizzas so we had a little variety. Even the "smaller" pizzas were pretty darn big, so it worked out well. Thanks to David Rocco for the great pizza dough recipe!

Chorizo and Onion
&
Prosciutto and Goat Cheese Pizzas

For the pizza dough: Adapted from David Rocco (here)

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups warm water
  
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

For the chorizo pizza toppings:

• 8oz chorizo
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 of a red onion sliced
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• mozzarella cheese (however much you like)

For the prosciutto pizza toppings:

• 6 slices prosciutto
• 1 1/2 oz goat cheese
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil, cut in a chiffonade
• mozzarella (however much you like)

Start off by making the pizza dough. You can either do it the fun and messy way or the clean and boring way. I decided to go with the fun and messy way for today! :)

Measure out 2 cups warm water and add the yeast. Stir and let it sit for 2 minutes.

Dump the flour and salt together onto your counter surface and make a well in the center. When the yeast is ready, pour it into the well and use your hand to start incorporating the flour and yeast. When you have poured all of the yeast mixture into the flour, add the olive oil and continue to work the flour and liquid together until you have a nice dough start to come together. If your dough is too sticky, add a little flour (maybe a tablespoon at a time) to absorb a little of the liquid. Once the dough comes together, knead the dough for just a few minutes until the dough is smooth. If you plan to make two smaller pizzas, pull it apart to create two even pieces. Let the dough rest on a well floured surface, covered, for about an hour or until it has doubled in size. If you use plastic wrap to cover it, lightly coat it with cooking spray to prevent it from sticking to the top of the dough.

If you are making the chorizo pizza, prepare the topping while the dough is rising.

Cut the chorizo in thin pieces and slice the onion.

In a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chorizo and cook until it has browned on the first side, about 2-3 minutes. Flip the chorizo to the other side and add the onions. Lower the heat and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, or until the onions are cooked through.


When it is time to make the pizza, preheat the oven to 400 degrees with a pizza stone on the center rack.

Shape the pizza dough with your hands to create a round dough and then set it on a cornmeal dusted board. If you don't, your dough will stick when you try to move it to the oven. If you don't have a pizza stone, lightly spray your pan with cooking spray before putting the pizza on it so it doesn't stick.

For the chorizo pizza:

Spread the garlic on the dough and then cover with the mozarella cheese. Layer on the chorizo and onion mixture. Slide onto the pizza stone and bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.



For the prosciutto pizza:

Cover with however much mozarella you would like. Top with strips of the prosciutto and break the goat cheese up with your hands over the top of the pizza. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Do not add the basil until after the pizza comes out of the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Now top with the basil

Enjoy!!

Everything Brioche Hamburger Rolls

I've realized that in our house the nice weather = lots of grilling and salads. One of the staple foods during the summer months around here are burgers. Lots and lots of burgers. Every weekend our house seems to have a revolving door of company (which I love), but feeding them all is never an easy task. I will admit that I do keep frozen hamburgers and turkey burgers on hand for times when I have unexpected guests and nothing to feed them. If it is a planned event, or just the four of us, I like to go with homemade burgers. This last year of blogging has gotten me much more comfortable with making my own bread. One thing I hadn't gotten around to making yet were hamburger buns. I'm pretty sure I could have used a "no knead" recipe to make these, but I know how to knead bread dough and I wanted to give these a try. When I came across this recipe from The New York Times online they sounded *really* good. You can't really go wrong with brioche dough. It is soft, rich and delicious! If my house wasn't a total zoo this morning, I was considering making a video to show you how to knead the dough. I knew that it wouldn't be very helpful to you if you were to hear my little girls running around in the background playing :) I posted a video that I found on YouTube in the past that is helpful for anyone who may not be comfortable with kneading their own dough. I personally find it very relaxing and fun! It isn't difficult at all once you know the steps. Once you realize how easy it really is, you'll be so excited to start making all different kinds of breads and rolls. I hope you are all enjoying the weekend!

Brioche Hamburger Rolls
Adapted from: NY Times via Hidefumi Kubota, Comme Ça, Los Angeles

For the dough:

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (not too hot or you will kill the yeast)
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons warm milk (microwave for about 10 seconds)
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

For the top of the rolls:

• 1 egg + 1 tablespoon water (for the egg wash)
• sesame seeds
• poppy seeds
• minced onion

In a glass measuring cup, mix together the warm water, yeast, sugar and milk. Stir to combine and allow to sit for 5 minutes. It should be frothy when it is done.


In a large bowl, whisk the bread flour, all purpose flour and salt. Pour the softened butter on top and work it in with your fingers. You want to see some nice crumbs form from the butter. Just use your fingertips and blend the butter throughout the flour mixture.

Beat an egg in a small dish.

Pour the yeast mixture in with the flour mixture. The recipe says to use a dough scraper to work it in, but you really could just gently work it in with a spoon. I actually used a Pampered Chef scraper to work mine in. Now pour in the egg and work that in as well. Your dough should come together fairly easily.


Flour your counter well and begin to knead the dough. You will knead for about 8 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. You don't want to over knead the dough or you will make it tough.

When you are kneading, you are basically using your left hand as a positioner for the dough and your right palm to work the dough. You will bring the dough toward you with your right hand and then your palm to push it away from you. Your left hand will hold the dough in place and then after each push of the dough away from you, you will turn it counterclockwise and knead again. Continue kneading until you feel the dough become smooth and elastic.

Here is a video that will help show you how to knead.

How to knead dough

Once the dough is ready, place it back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough sit for 1-2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper and divide your dough into 8 equal pieces.

Form them into balls (the size you would like your rolls) by folding the dough under itself while turning the dough in your hands. Place them 2-3 inches apart on your baking sheet and allow them to rise for 1-2 hours.

Cover them during this rise with a piece of plastic wrap that has been coated with cooking spray so it doesn't stick to the top of your rolls.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and place your broiler pan in the lower rack of your oven.

Combine the egg and water to make your egg wash and brush the top of the rolls. Sprinkle with your preferred toppings. If you want an "everything" bun, use the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, minced onion and even minced garlic. You can use whatever you like :)

When the oven comes to temperature, place the rolls in the oven and then pour some hot water in the broiler tray (about 1-2 cups). Close the door quickly (to trap the steam) and let the rolls cook for *exactly*15 minutes or until light golden brown. Mine were perfect at 15 minutes on the nose.

How fantastic do these look?!?!?

Place them on a wire rack to cool.

Serve them with your favorite burger or sandwich. Or you can do what I just did and just eat it all by itself! These were OUT OF THIS WORLD good! I *insist* that you go make them, right now!

Enjoy!!!