Friday Mish Mash

In yesterday's post I sort of alluded to the fact that I have been totally slacking off around here on my domestic duties. I mean, sure, I've been busy, but I haven't been doing the things I should be doing, like cooking and cleaning. Heck, I barely wanted to shower this week let alone clean the house! It's the heat; it's been between 110 and 115 degrees all week and knowing that it's just going to get hotter saps my will to do anything.

There may have been some trips for fast food and a couple of nights with Chinese takeout involved.

Today, I resolved - no more! I got off my behind and spent a good portion of my day in the kitchen, with breaks to do puzzles and watch some silly videos online with the boy. Today's post will be an out of order mish mash of what I accomplished today. First up - a Food Revolution recipe. Recipe sixteen, Pan Fried Glazed Pork Chops, was dinner tonight.

This is a really simple recipe requiring very few ingredients. I didn't even end up using the lemon in the photo. I will say, however, that my pork comes from the supermarket SANS skin. Ew, Jamie. I used my kitchen shears to snip the fat on the chops instead of using a knife as instructed. I also left out the sage because I didn't feel like buying a whole bunch for a few leaves, knowing that I will probably never use the rest of it. Also, eating fried sage doesn't appeal to me in the least.

I tossed the pork chops into my 2 quart d5 pan. It was the perfect size for this. It's been a long time since I pan fried anything like this though, and holy hell I forgot how freaking messy it was! Everything in a two foot radius of that burner got covered in a fine shower of olive oil. Yuck. My chops didn't stick though!

I went with the maple syrup option to glaze the chops. My husband and I both worried that this would be too sweet, but after cooking the sugars must have mellowed or something because it was barely sweet at all. We both really liked how this turned out, with the exception of the cloud of smoke from the sugars burning in the pan. Also, my pan has a lovely black spot of burnt sugar on the bottom that is not going to be fun to scrub off!

I also want to add that the cooking time in the recipe is WAY long, and my chops were a little bit dry because of it. Mine weren't too much thinner than the ones in the photo either, so I don't know what's up with that.

I served this with a simple rice pilaf into which I mixed some frozen mixed vegetables that I had in the freezer. I need to use up a bunch of stuff in there because it's pretty full right now. It's not the prettiest side dish in the world, but it tasted good and I was tired by this point!

I'm also trying to use up some stuff that's been in the house in the interest of getting fresher stuff rotated in. I had a bag of shredded coconut in the cupboard, and a half bag each of walnuts and chocolate chips in the fridge, so I Googled recipes with those ingredients and made cookies.

I also juiced three of the sad looking lemons that I had and made a nice pitcher of lemonade for my husband.

I whipped up a dozen tortillas to have with eggs in the mornings. Of course, I had already measured out everything when I realized that I didn't have enough shortening, so I went ahead and used some bacon drippings that I had in the fridge to make up the difference. Surprisingly, the tortillas didn't taste any different to me, but they were a LOT more tender.

I also made a batch of Whole Wheat Waffles (sorry no photo this time!) to put in the freezer for a breakfast alternative. It's so nice sometimes to be able to just pull one out and pop it into the toaster without worrying about feeding my child preservatives and processed junk! They're one of Bubba's very favorite foods, and he ate two of them when he woke up from his nap. This is probably why he didn't want anything to do with his dinner.

I made a batch of cheesy crackers for the baby using a recipe I found here (very bottom of the post). These are ridiculously easy and so very good. I'll never buy Cheese-Its or Goldfish again! I will, however, omit the salt next time because the cheese was plenty salty on it's own. I used 2 cups extra sharp Tillamook cheddar, and 1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano in these. I also left out the chili powder. These are SO GOOD. The cookie cutters came from HomeGoods where I only paid about $8 for them. This was their first use. Aren't they adorable? The boy may have also snuck several handfuls of these off the table where they were cooling.

Right now I have a blackberry cobbler in the oven. (Look how cool! My oven has a light now!!!) This is the second one I've made this week. Earlier this week I found organic blackberries on sale for a dollar and stocked up. I want to make sorbet but my freezer is too full to fit the ice cream maker thing in there, boo. I'm working on that! Blackberry Lemon Sorbet is sounding pretty divine in this heat.

This morning, after we got out of bed, had breakfast (chocolate Mini Wheats, because nobody is perfect) and bathed, I took the boy out onto the patio to take his photo. One of the moms in our playgroup, who is also of the crafty persuasion, is making coloring books with photos of all the kids. Isn't that a cute idea? This is the first one I took:

I'm so mad that the stupid flash on the camera was on, because this would have been a great shot. I ended up sending her this one.

Isn't my boy looking so big? I love it. He's talking more and more every day and has become quite the little mimic. He's also very demanding and starting to do that thing where he fake cries if he doesn't get his way. Doesn't he know his mama is wise to all those tricks???