Awesome steak fingers

This was dinner tonight. I followed the recipe from Something Edible. The breading was wonderfully crispy and seasoning the meat rather than the breading really makes them flavorful.

I added some country gravy (from a packet; sorry, Something Edible), but I added some honey to it to give it just a little sweetness. Why? Because when I was a kid, there was a restaurant in my hometown (Oriental American for those of you familiar with P-burg) whose steak fingers I loved (I wasn't into Chinese food as a kid). But really, it was the gravy they served with the steak fingers that made it so good. I think I got pretty close. The restaurant also served them with mashed potatoes, which would be great, but I went with french fries tonight since I had them and they were quick and easy.

Spring!

Look what I saw in one of my flowerbeds today! Whoo-hoo!

Turn toward the fire

Currently reading "Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara," by Colleen Morton Busch, and this passage resonated:

But hope can be held too tightly. Zen cultivates a mind that doesn't tether itself to any fixed view or perspective —the belief that the buildings at Tassajara must be saved or, by contrast, that physical structures aren't important and worth saving. Hope is fine, as long as it doesn't lead to inflexibility. "When you're living in the present moment, you're not so invovled in hope or invested in a particular outcome," said the abbot. You do what needs to be done simply because it needs to be done, accepting that your actions may not bear the fruit you intend—and that this does not render the actions themselves fruitless.

A clever Zen teacher might say that standing back and letting the monastery burn belies a kind of attachment to the idea of nonatachment, that trying to save it when it could all burn anyway is true nonattachment. In trying to save Tassajara—or your own life from disaster—you can't be sure you will. In fact, you can lose everything you love in a moment. And that's not a reason to give up. If anything, it's a reason to turn toward the fire, recognizing it as a force of both creation and destruction, and to take care of what's right in front of you, because that's all you actually have.

Pigs have wings

Well, not really, so don't worry about doing all those things you said you'd do when pigs fly.

Rather, I winged it with some pork chops this evening.

I really had no idea what I would do with the pork chops when I bought them on a whim at the local grocery store recently. Today, for some reason I had a craving for pork chops with apples. Not the Peter Brady "porkchops and applesauce," but something a bit more.

But I couldn't really find any recipes online that sounded like what I want. So I just kind of put something together based on the recipes I did find. So here's what I did:

3 thick cut boneless pork chops
1 apple, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 cup apple juice
2 Tablespoons flour

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown pork chops in a little oil in dutch oven, about 3 minutes on each side. Remove pork chops to a plate.

Put onions and apple in dutch oven and saute, until onions turn translucent. Add apple juice and flour, stir until it starts to thicken.

Put pork chops back in dutch oven with the onion/apple sauce. Place in oven until meat is done, about 20 minutes.

Pretty simple, and it turned out pretty good. I think if I do this again, I'd add a little spice of some kind. Maybe some cinnamon, to go with the apple? Suggestions?

Served it with some buttery-garlic brown rice and some broccoli with a little Parmesan cheese. Not a bad meal. I've been eating kinda crappy the last week, so hopefully this will start off a better week.