Sweet potato patties & roasted broccoli

Made these dishes tonight, both found through Pinterest.

I didn't have hamburger buns, so I just had the maple sweet potato burgers as patties. When I made the patties, they seemed awful moist, so I baked them a little longer than the time says. I think I overcooked them just a little, but they were still really good. Love that they use kale — gotta keep those iron levels up!

I'm not a huge broccoli fan, mainly because other than steaming it, I don't really know what to do with it. But this roasted broccoli was amazing. Love the combination of the broccoli and lemon (I left off the basil, too, but will have to try that sometime).

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.

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.

Cooking weekend

I've had a rare full weekend off (on a holiday weekend, no less!) and have been spending a lot of time cooking ahead. Not too much, though, because I've overdone it before and worn myself out. I wanted just enough to have plenty of meals for lunches and dinners ready and still get to enjoy my time ("Horrible Bosses" was very funny, and "Win Win" was great. Recommend them both).

So what have I been cooking? I tried some of the mason jar meals I posted about earlier: the sliders, corn dogs and creamy chicken curry with cilantro lime rice. I also made more chili and cornbread muffins (because CORNBREAD is what you serve with chili, dammit), and chicken enchilada soup. And I had already made some sloppy joe mix about a week ago.

Chili & cornbread muffins.

Chicken enchilada soup.

Here's notes on the others:

Corn dogs

I halved the recipe listed because I wanted to see how they turned out, plus by the time I got to this recipe on Sunday, I was down to just 6 mason jars. I ended up with batter to make only five, though (so that means Buster got half a frankfurter — he was happy!) They didn't quite look done at 20 minutes, so I put them in for another three and probably could have done another couple of minutes, really. I also forgot to grease the jar before pouring in the batter, but I just ran a knife sprayed with Pam around the edge as soon as I took them out of the oven, and they didn't stick too bad.

Sliders

These were pretty good right out of the oven. We'll see how they do after being frozen and reheated. I did forget to pat down the meat to get rid of the excess grease, but they turned out pretty good. I also had trouble getting them in jars, even the 16-ounce ones I have. Maybe it's because I used King's Hawaiian rolls for the buns? I bagged them in pairs in sandwich bags instead. Kinda defeats part of the purpose of using the jars, I know, but it's all I had.

Creamy chicken curry with cilantro lime rice

This was pretty good, but I'll have to do some tweaking. I made the rice a bit differently. First of all, I used brown rice, since that's what I had. And I made it more like the rice dishes at Something Edible, adding the cilantro & lime zest to the butter, browning the rice, then adding the water with the lime juice and salt in the water. It does give the rice a lot more flavor, but in this dish, it might have added too much lime flavor. Or maybe I needed more curry to balance out the lime? Haven't had a lot of curry dishes, so I'm not sure how spicy it should be.

So the final tally of my cooking weekend:
Sliders — 5 pairs
Chicken enchilada soup — 10 8 oz jars
Chili — 8 8 oz jars
Corn dogs — 4
Chicken curry & rice — 5
Sloppy joes — 7

So that's a total of 39 meals. Maybe along with the occasional turkey sandwich, and if I make some lasagna again later, I'll have enough variety to keep me from getting too bored and caving to a desire for going out to lunch or raiding the vending machine too often. It'll be interesting to see how my bank account shapes up later.

Brown bag blues? Mason jar solution

I live in a different town than I work in, so running home for lunch — or dinner on weekdays I work both of my jobs — is usually out of the question. I try to take my lunch as much as possible to save money, but it seems like I fall on the same-old standbys for brown bagging it and get bored after awhile. Then that leads to eating out for lunch, which often leads to bad things for my bank account.

What to take lunch in can be a problem, too. I don't like using plastic containers. Being a cancer survivor, I've become pretty concerned about the kinds of things I put into my body. Plastics, especially when heated, can leach carcinogens like Bisphenol A into food. You can argue it's not enough to really do anything, but I'd rather not take the chance.

So I got rid of all my plastic containers with the idea of replacing them with glass. I have some Pyrex containers I got for Christmas that I use, but they are kind of expensive. Then I came across an idea while surfing for some recipes — using mason jars for soup and so forth. It makes sense. They're cheap, for one thing. I got a dozen 8-ounce jars at the grocery store for about $8. The Pyrex is great for storing larger amounts of leftovers or foods that don't freeze well, but the jars have been great for freezing single-serving sizes for lunches.



But I could see where I could get a little bored with the chicken tortilla soup, chili and sloppy joe mix I made big batches of for the jars (even though they're all much better than store-bought or fast food). Then Beau at Somethingedible.com shared this recipe recently, and I gotta say I'm pretty excited at trying some of the rest of her mason jar recipes.

I've got my shopping list made up and will be adding to my inventory of canning jars. I might try the sliders tonight, and will probably do a few others this weekend after Thanksgiving.

Great recipe to share

A couple weeks ago, I bought some sweet corn at one of the local farmers markets. I had a little more than I really needed, so I went looking for some recipes to use it all up.

I found a couple at allrecipes.com, and this is by far the best one. I had to make some adjustments, because I didn't have all the listed ingredients, but it was great. I used green onions since that was the only kind of onion I had. I also didn't have fresh cilantro or any garlic, so used some dried cilantro and some garlic powder.

I've had it as a side dish and tossed it into a salad, but my favorite way to eat it is with chips, like a salsa. Next time I make it, I'll probably throw in some sliced jalepeño to add some heat to go with the sweetness.

This one was pretty good, too, especially with some leftover grilled beef sliced thin and tossed in.