Today, I tried a new recipe. It was from EatBetterAmerica.com. It was called Triple-Berry Granola Crisp, it was awesome and it is going to be even better in the summer. This is the recipe, but I actually used a bigger variety of berries. I got the frozen berry medley that had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Then I got a bag of just blackberries, because they are my favorite! We ate it over vanilla ice cream and it got all melty and delicious. Definitely will be doing that again.
I haven't been putting up things I have eaten, but there have been some yummy things lately. I made pork chops the other night, I just did salt and pepper and then seared them in my skillet and finished them in the oven. While they were going, I made a chipotle-cranberry sauce for them. I made a half batch of cranberry sauce according to the directions on the bag. Then I poured it in the blender along with a chipotle in adobo sauce with about a teaspoon of the adobo sauce. (Next time, I will definitely cut it down to half a chipotle with half a teaspoon of adobo sauce. Or make the whole batch of sauce, but I had a lot of leftover, so probably cut down the peppers.) After I blended the sauce and peppers, I poured it through a fine mesh sieve. I went all fancy and brushed the sauce on the plate and cut the pork chops. Since I made the sauce so spicy, the amount brushed on the plate was plenty of flavor. It was a pretty perfect meal. I served it with steamed vegetables in a rosemary butter sauce, compliments of Green Giant.
I also made beef stroganoff this past week. Since it was my first time making it, and it is Jonathan's favorite, I really didn't want to mess it up. I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. You know the one, red and white checkers, in the kitchen of every mother and grandmother you have ever met in your life. If you don't own one, go buy one, it is worth having. Jonathan's dad also joined us, which could have been added pressure except I have never once served him anything that he turned down. For that matter, neither has Jonathan with the exception of a very unfortunate experiment that he will never let me live down. And I don't think he actually turned it down either, he just asked me never to make it again, which I can respect because I didn't want to eat either and it was awful. (It was an attempt to make grilled cheese and tomato soup pasta. I still think that it could be a very yummy concept because I love the flavor profile of grilled cheese and tomato soup, but the execution of it has stumped me. And I am not sure that I could ever convince Jonathan to eat something that even vaguely resembled the previous attempt. And really, I couldn't blame him. It was that bad.)
Later this week we have a pork stir fry planned, as well as sloppy joes. Homemade ones if I have time, Manwich if I don't. And no, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I use Manwich. That stuff is tasty, it's quick, it's easy, and it was on sale this past week. I'm pretty excited about the pork stir fry though, I have found this really yummy sauce at HEB. It's chili garlic and it's cheap and effortless to use. I also have some soba noodles to put in there. It makes me feel like I can cook Asian food even if I can't. :-)
I know I'm not super consistent with my updates, but a few of my friends are doing blogs right now so maybe I will remember about mine...if not, sorry, but life is just nuts. Completely pistachios.
