Made these after all our stuff was packed for our move to Santa Fe. All you need is a knife & cutting board, a cast iron skillet, and one tin of spice. And the recipe cleaned up the food we had left in the fridge.
Ingredients
2 pork chops
1 Honeycrisp Apple
12 seedless grapes
½ tbsp Chinese five spice
½ tsp flour
Directions
Core apple, and chop it up. Leave the skin on if you’re lazy.
Chop the grapes into halves or quarters.
Simmer apples and grapes with a little water until they go mushy. About 15 minutes. You’re making a quick applesauce.
Add the Chinese five spice and continue to simmer until you have a nice sauce. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl (or ziploc bag)
Use the (warm) sauce to marinate the pork chops for about 15 minutes.
Put the sauce and chops into the skillet and cook about 7 minutes per side on low heat. Add a little water if the sauce looks to be drying up.
Remove the chops from the sauce and plate. Make a pan gravy using a little water and flour.
Pairs nicely with grits if you have them. Also takes about the same total amount of time to cook as quick grits.
Our house finches are a source of amusement most mornings.
They’re nesting, so often the female is inside the birdhouse, while the male is out standing guard, keeping an eye out for other birds or predators.
And sometimes he sits and sings to us. He can be pretty loud some mornings.
They’ve also learned a few tricks this year, like the fact that the ant trap above the hummingbird feeder is a good source of water, and sometimes a tasty ant snack. And if I don’t screw the feeder together quite straight, they can even get a drink of sugar-water from the feeder. I figure that’s okay, since we don’t have a lot of hummingbirds competing with them this year.
If you’re making risotto, noodles, rice pilaf, or couscous, start that first
Mix flour, salt and pepper in a bowl big enough to dredge the chicken breasts in.
Heat a large skillet with 2T of olive oil over medium heat.
Dredge the chicken, one cutlet at a time, and place into the pan. Cook 4 minutes on each side, until golden brown and delicious. Note that depending on the size of your pan, you may need to cook the chicken in two batches.
Remove the chicken and set aside on a plate.
Add 1T olive oil to the pan and get it warm.
Lower the heat to medium-low.
Add the ¼ onion, sauté until translucent (3-4 minutes).
Add the 2 tsp garlic and sauté until soft (a minute or two).
Add the chicken broth and lemon juice, increase the heat to medium-high until the broth comes to a boil, then return it to medium-low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir enough to get any fond loose from the bottom of the pan.
Stir in the coconut cream and Dijon mustard, and about half of the leftover dredging flour.
Stir to make a thin gravy-like consistency (it’ll thicken as it cooks).
Add in the capers and chicken and return to a simmer until the sauce is a good thickness and the starch is cooked
Remove from heat and serve over risotto, noodles, rice pilaf, or couscous.
Grate some Parmesan cheese over the plate if you like. It’s not needed, but it’s good.
Cook time: 8 hours. Start this around 8am. You’ll need to fiddle with it about lunchtime and 2pm, too. It’ll be ready about 4pm.
Serves: 8-12. Or a family with 3 growing boys.
Ingredients
2 pounds chicken thighs
6 ribs celery, chopped
½ onion chopped
1 tsp tarragon
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp basil
4-6 C chicken stock
¾ bag frozen carrots
1 or 2 potatoes, diced
½ bag frozen roasted sweet potatoes
1 C coconut milk
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp minced dried chives
1/3 bag frozen peas
1/3 bag frozen corn
Directions
Place celery, onion, chicken, half of the carrots, and 4C chicken stock into a 4.5 qt crock pot
Set crock pot on high and forget about it for 4 hours
Using two forks, shred chicken meat and skin and remove and discard bones and cartilage. You will miss at least one piece of cartilage. That shows the soup is home-made.
Add potato and balance of frozen carrots
Turn to low and let cook for 2 hours
Add frozen vegetables and enough chicken stock (about 2 C) to fill the crock pot, and let cook on low for 2 hours.
We had some visitors in our yard this morning, and they looked kinda cute. Only managed to get a photo of one of them, though. But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen them, so hopefully I’ll get another chance.
