Fall Favorites in Pork

It's not quite "Apple-palooza" at our house yet but this is one of my all-time favorite fall suppers.  And the weather at night is getting chilly so it's the right time!

Pork Chops with Cider Pan Sauce!

There is no recipe, Brian makes it up as he goes along.  It's moist, perfect pork with just a little tang from the cider.  I love, love, love it!  Even Will got into it this year and ate a whole serving.  Sean, not so much.  But lately if it's not chicken or peanut butter and jelly, he won't touch it.  Everything else, in his words, is "No, no no.  This is 'au-skuskin."  (disgusting.)  Ah well.  More for us!  Sadly, there were no leftovers.

Honey-Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

Tonight's pork recipe is courtesy of the Food Network.   It was a delightful, tangy glaze of balsamic vinegar (which I almost forgot to add) honey, four cloves of garlic, olive oil, rosemary and a little dijon mustard.  Served with couscous and salad, but the boys had theirs with bread and applesauce.  Will wolfed his serving down, and Sean even tasted it before he politely told us that he didn't like it.  Who are these kids?  No tears, and eating everything??  :)

I also like recipes that start by browning on the stove and finishing in the oven.  The browning, and then the finish by roasting, makes for a nice, moist meat.  I'd definitely make this again.

Day 30: Grillin' Again

Here it is....the last post for the Thirty Dinners thread.

Last night was grilled chicken, potatoes and candied carrots.  I love anything on a grill, I really do!  Sean liked the carrots, and Will pretty much refused to touch them.  I really worry about him sometimes, getting nutrients.  I won't stop trying to get him to eat veggies though.

This was fun, posting dinner every night.  I was careful not to change what we eat because it was on the blog, and from what I see we do get a variety of food.  I'm pretty satisfied with how this experiment turned out, though I am glad not to have to remember anymore to write it down!

Day Eight: Pizza

Our plan tonight was for the boys and I to visit Daddy at the Relay for Life and bring him dinner.  The weather was most uncooperative for us to have an outdoor dinner with Daddy, so I opted to stay home with the boys.  Feeling a little lazy, I ordered pizza for the boys (Will wanted pepperoni so that's what we got,)  I didn't want pizza at all, so I got a Greek sub.  It was grilled chicken, feta cheese, onion, tomato, Greek dressing and huge hunks of cucumber on top.  It was delicious!  The only thing I would've changed was to make it red onion instead of white.    Everyone was happy, we watched a movie while we ate and the boys devoured their pizza. A good night was had by all.

Breakfast Buddies

Will and Sean enjoying their orange-vanilla waffles and bacon on this beautiful, sunny Sunday!

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Waffles fresh off the iron, bacon and a warm pineapple compote.  

The pineapple compote was completely improvised...I had bought a can of pineapple chunks yesterday because Sean loves them for a snack.  Brian opened the can this morning and put them in a pan on the stove, adding brown sugar and apple cider vinegar.  The end result was so delicious, there were three pieces of bacon left at the end of the meal.  There's NEVER leftover bacon.  

With breakfasts like these, I never feel like going out to a restaurant for breakfast on the weekend.  No need...it's just as good if not better in our own kitchen!

The Breakfast Experiment

A friend's facebook post yesterday about oatmeal for dinner caught my eye yesterday.  (If you're reading, Hi Jes!)  She made a mean oatmeal for her kids for dinner the other night, with add-ins such as almond meal and cinnamon.  It got me thinking about oatmeal, which I like a lot.  I've never really considered it for dinner, because only Sean likes it.  Will won't touch it, which is too bad because it's delicious!

I'm not really good about breakfast during the week, I never eat enough and I'm always starved at my desk long before lunch.  Guess what...I'm not great with snacks either.  So this morning, I was standing in front of the fridge looking for a quick meal.  That's when I saw the leftover pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes, in a Tupperware container with no lid.  Obviously I cannot bring tupperware with saran wrap on top to work too easily, so how about eating it for breakfast?  I've always prided myself on being able to eat anything at any hour.  Hostess cupcakes at 6AM?  Sure. Cold spaghetti at midnight?  Yep.  Buffalo wings before bed in college? I'm your girl. 

Into the microwave it goes, and I go off to dry my hair.  Soon Will wanders into the bathroom, informing me that I need to check his brother's diaper.  I check, and it's fine.  (Which is good, since I had just changed him.)  I told him that it was fine, and he said, "Well, what's that disgusting smell then?"  The smell: leftover Brussels sprouts.

Humph.  Turns out that there IS something that I can't eat at any time of the day.  However, mashed potato and pork tenderloin weren't too bad for breakfast.  :)

Birthday Fiesta!

Tomorrow is Sean's second birthday, so yesterday we had the family over for a little Tex-Mex birthday party!  The boys love flour tortillas, cheese and meat so it was a meal enjoyed by everyone.  Plus, a casual birthday party with family is perfect for when your little boy is turning two.

Brian making Alton Brown's "Man Nachos."  I loved his (Alton's, that is) making of "spacers" (i.e. big balls of crunched-up foil) to sit between the nachos.  These nachos were special!  Plus homemade guacamole, soooooo good!

Taco station in the kitchen.  Everyone plates their own meal and then finds a spot to eat.  Love it  :)

Followed by...dessert and our Happy Birthday song stylings.  Vanilla buttercream cupcakes with ice cream.  As usual...Cake Doctor recipe.  Something strange happened when we went to put the sprinkles on the cupcakes...the buttercream had set and the sprinkles would HIT the cupcake, bounce off and land on the floor.  It really was pretty funny.

 The birthday boy is very serious about his chocolate ice cream....not a drop was wasted.

Happy Birthday, Sean!

A Love Affair

Nobody comes between Sean and his....ketchup?

Baby loves this stuff!  We've quickly learned that Sean will eat anything, as long as it's dipped in ketchup.  Homefries?  check.  Crackers?  check.  Eggs?  check.  Turkey???  Ummm....check!  It was a bit weird to put ketchup for the little man at the Thanksgiving table.  but hey, if it gets him to eat?  I'm alllllllll about it.  Heck, if I could figure out a way to add ketchup to milk without it being gross, I'd do it.  Lately he doesn't want anything to do with drinking milk, he's always opening the fridge and either grabbing the orange juice carton or pointing and yelling "Ju!  Ju!  Ju!"  However, I think the ketchup and milk thing....I won't stoop to that.

Another thing that Sean was absolutely gaga over this Thanksgiving was my mom's pumpkin flan, and his own lil' bowl of ice cream.  We gave him a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a little plastic bowl and he was very serious about getting every last bite.  Then I gave him a nibble of my pumpkin flan and he kept coming back.  "More?  More?"  He probably ate an entire piece on his own.  So we were sure to bring some home for him.

Brian and I are about to embark on our leftovers lunch. I hope Thanksgiving was fantastic for all of you!

Pie Tonight!

The day before Thankgiving....that means that tonight is Pie Night!

After work tonight, Hubby and I will bake pies.  This year will be apple, pecan and pumpkin pies.  I roasted sugar pumpkins weeks ago and froze them, which is a good thing because there are no sugar pumpkins to be had in the stores.  We have a variety of apples on-hand, to make the perfect apple pie.  And back after a long hiatus, we're going to try our collective hand at a pecan pie.  Last time was a disaster, it was pretty much liquified.  However, it still tasted delicious.  :)

Chef Will will be giving us a hand tonight, he's pretty excited about it.  Sean, well, his job will be to watch television and stay away from the oven.  Or perhaps he'll do some "cawlah....cawlah..." at the kitchen table.  (Coloring) 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Sammies and Shakes

I saw a recipe in a magazine for stuffed peppers that caught my eye.  Instead of the usual hamburger and rice, this one featured bulk sausage and potatoes.  In other words, something different than the same ol', same ol.'
It would have been helpful to read the recipe through though, because was a slow cooker recipe.  D'oh!  Certainly not a Thursday night dinner.  Instead, we ended up using Will's birthday burger coupon and heading out to Red Robin.  (YUMMMMM)

So tonight, we still had the sausage patties in the house.  (BJ's doesn't carry bulk sausage.)  So they became Sausage Sandwiches with Colby Jack and sauteed pepper n' onion.  Perfect Friday night dinner.  :)

The boys?  Waffles and strawberry smoothies were the intention.  I still have some strawberries from the summer in our freezer and since we're getting our first snowstorm this weekend (Before Halloween....what!?) it's time to use 'em up.

Only somehow they ended up being milkshakes instead.  And they were beautiful...so thick that the straws stood up by themselves in the middle of the glass.  Everyone enjoyed them, even Hubby and I.  Which was strange...I don't normally like strawberry drinks.  But these were very fresh strawberry, not that artificial strawberry taste that I detest.

Good Friday night, perfect start to the weekend.  :)

Father and Son Baking

Daddy and Will set out to bake their very first cake together, for us to bring to a cookout.   The recipe?  A buttermilk pound cake with chocolate ganache icing.  Kind of reminiscent of the Stock's Cake that Brian's family in Philly brings to EVERY family gathering!  (It's good stuff, too!)

 I had bought them matching aprons at Christmas Tree Shops.  Brian's said "Big Man" and Will's said "Little Man."  Will did not like his apron, not one bit.

 But he put it on, to be a good sport and appease Mommy.

The cake baking went pretty smoothly, until Brian went to put the batter in the KitchenAid mixer.  Will asked what speed the mixer was going to and Brian replied, "As fast as it goes, Buddy.  Ten!"  Will freaked out a bit.  I think he remembered the time that *he* put the mixer on ten and got a faceful of flour!  He spent the total mixing time hiding in the dining room, with his hands over his ears.

Sean got a little jealous, and wanted to make cake too.  He instead settled for wrestling his big brother while the cake baked in the oven.

The finished product, a gorgeous cake!

The cake got Sean's seal of approval at the cookout.  He kept coming back for more bites, and had most of it smeared on his face.  Success!!

A Double-Header in the Kitchen

I worked on getting the Big Kid to clean up his room while Hubby whipped up this recipe:  Saucy Steak!  The recipe called to be served over mashed potatoes, but we opted for rice instead.  The meal was rounded out with green beans fresh from the garden.

And bonus!  There's plenty of leftovers.  We gave the same dinner to the boys (minus sauce).  Lately we've been trying harder to have everyone eat the same thing at night.  I am really wishing that veggies had been showing up every night on the dinner table from an early age for Will, 'cause I'd be lying if I said it was a walk in the park to get him to eat them now!  But still we try....

What's in the yellow bowl, you say?  That there is homemade chocolate ganache....relaxing so that it can be spread on a cake to take to a cookout tomorrow night.  And that cake....is a whole 'nother blog post!

Going on a Berry Hunt....Gonna Get some Juicy Ones

Despite the fact that Dora the Explorer is going blueberry picking in the blog title, it pretty much works for strawberries too.  We got up this morning early, and after haircuts for the boys (MUCH needed) we went strawberry picking.

I hadn't been strawberry picking since I was a child, and it was so much fun.  Will, who doesn't like strawberries unless they're in a smoothie, had fun dashing up and down the aisles looking for red beauties.  Brian and I took turns hanging out with Sean while the other was busily filling up a pint container.  Sean kept looking down at the berries filling up the box and kept begging to eat some.   I'm not sure how many he ate, but he was really enjoying them.   When we weighed our take at the checkout, I was surprised to discover that we had picked twelve pounds!!

After a picnic lunch at the farm (and watching two wild turkeys run around the picnic area) it was time for picking up some strawberry donuts from the farm kitchen.  And let me tell you, they are delicious.

Some of the berries will go to my parents, my mom loves fresh strawberries.  Tonight we'll have some shortcake.  And then....I've bookmarked recipes for Strawberry Muffins and Strawberry Pie.  And but of course, strawberry-lemon syrup.  If there's any left after all of that, then into the freezer they will go.

We went to the same farm that we had gone apple picking last October.  That place is great, not too crowded, reasonably priced and very kid-friendly.  We liked it so much, we'll be back in July sometime to go blueberry picking.  (My boys are blueberry-eating monsters!!)

Super Strawberry

Seriously, check out this freaky strawberry!  I've never seen two fused together like that.

Now that Sean's eating (read:  MOWING) through all sorts of fruits and veggies, we can start buying our produce at the wholesale store.  When it was just the two of us, it went bad rather quickly because we just couldn't finish ten pounds of bananas in time.  Not without making a whole lot of banana bread!  Now we have a rather large box of large strawberries (where the Freak lives) and blueberries too.  Those are Sean's favorite, right after banana slices.

Birthday Pizza and Cupcakes

We hosted a small family get-together for Sean's first birthday last weekend.  Since it was about ten people, we had "make-your-own" mini pizzas.  BJ's sells a big pack of personal-size Boboli pizza crusts and individual sauce packets.  They came out great!  Everyone got to have exactly what they wanted for toppings, how much cheese, etc.  Brian put them directly on the oven grates so they would crisp up nicely.  Mmm.....

The birthday cupcakes were out-of-this-world!!!  We went back and forth about whether to make them or buy them, and I'm so glad we made them.  They're from the Cake Doctor's second cake book, and they were the cookie-dough cupcakes.  Yellow cake mix with Tollhouse Cookie Dough in the centers, then frosted with a homemade chocolate buttercream frosting.  The frosting was perfect, perfectly chocolate and not at all sickly-sweet.  We served them as is, I'm glad I didn't add ice cream to the plate because then it would have been just too much and taken away from the goodness of the cupcake.  Everyone loved them!  Sean especially enjoyed his:

Budding Chef

Not only does our little Buddy love to eat, he's showing an interest in fending for himself in our kitchen!  Nothing makes Baby happier than an open fridge door.   Here, observe him banging on a container of leftover mashed potatoes to test for freshness.  :)

Baby Steps: Veggies

I am willing to admit it now:  mistakes were made in trying to get Will to eat healthfully.  For example, we did not offer a big variety of different fruits and veggies from the beginning.  Instead, we kind of allowed him to get stuck on one or two.  Also, we got into a nasty habit of making him separate meals from whatever we were eating every night.  That's been broken in the past year, and I'm happy to say that he will usually try just about anything once and doesn't give us a fuss.  Though every once in a while he will get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if we're having something super-spicy. 

Now that Sean is going to be ten months old in a couple of weeks, we've started a little bit of table food.  He had peas and a little bit of rice this afternoon, and once I mashed the peas slightly he loved them.  Tonight, I sliced up a steamed green bean really fine and he enjoyed picking it up and stuffing them in his mouth.  He's at that stage where he'll eat anything we put in front of him.  Boy, I miss that!  The trick is to continue offering different things, and I'm determined to be more successful this time. 

Single-Mom Dinners

Hubby's in Cleveland this week, so dinners have to be really easy.  After all, it's tough to make dinner for me and the Big One, while the Little One is usually clamoring for food too.  The Little One recently discovered that he likes fruit.  Not baby food-fruit, he likes that, but he really likes "real" fruit.  He was lusting SOOOOO hard this weekend after my watermelon slice at a birthday party that I gave in and let him lick it.  He loved it!  I tried the same thing with a strawberry slice this morning at breakfast and he was all over that thing, too.  It's funny what you'll try with a second kid, I never would have held up a piece of fruit to Will when he was a baby to let him "lick a taste."    :)

Anyway, with being a "single mom" and not having the neat-o ability to grow a third arm (why not!!!!)  dinners for me and Will have been super-simplified.  Like quesadillas for him last night and me eating a soft taco, standing up over the sink.  Tonight I said I'd make pancakes.  When I asked if he wanted blueberry or chocolate chip, DUH he said chocolate!  I didn't even bother shredding zucchini in them.  Then, to my horror, I realized that we were almost out of Bisquick.  Nope, not even enough to eke out a batch of pancakes.  Sean was screaming like crazy, the house was hot, and  I had just had a miserable time of changing Sean's crib sheet for the third time this week.  (Seriously...somebody needs to figure out a way to make that easier!)  I very nearly caved and tossed the whole fam damily in the car to have an impromptu dinner at Friendly's.  What stopped me was our quest to save $$$, and Will really was excited by the idea of pancakes for dinner.  And the rain shower had already spoiled my plans of eating the pancakes al fresco.  So I pulled out "The Bible."  And I made pancakes from scratch.  It was surprisingly easy, and the cooked up nice on the electric griddle.  And wow, they were delicious!  I mean, breakfast and chocolate for dinner?  What's not to like?  The pancakes were slightly thin, but so delicious.  I'm telling you, I'm never buying Bisquick again! 

Rice: The New Crunchy

Guess what??  The baby's here!  Sean was born on Sunday, Jan 10th, and we came home from the hospital yesterday.  So far things are going great, he is a very laid-back baby who likes to eat and looooves to sleep.  Not that I expect every night will go so smoothly.

The food in the hospital was actually pretty good.  I am definitely going to miss just calling "room service" and having a tray delivered 45 minutes later.  I especially missed it last night when I cooked my first post-baby dinner.  The weekly menu is on hold, of course.  Last night was just a simple dinner of frozen chicken breasts (Barber makes these stuffed ham and cheese ones that rock.)  I cooked some rice and opened a can of corn.

Ok....I have cooked a lot of rice in my life.  I know how to do it by heart, and it doesn't take a lot of thought.  I know that the water doubles the amount of rice, so for every cup of rice you measure out, you need two cups of water.  So that's what I measured.  I poured the water into the pot, added a pat of butter.  So far so good.  Brought it to a boil, added the rice, turned it to low, gave it a stir.  Then added the lid and set the timer.  Twenty minutes later and it's gruel.  Crunchy-looking, totally wet and absolutely not edible yet.  Brian puts it back on the stove and I'm grumpin' because I'm hungry!  Since the chicken's done, we start on that and the corn.  Geee......delicious.  Ten minutes later we have paste instead of rice, it's turning gooshy and sticking to the pan.  So corn and chicken for dinner, and the garbage disposal again eats well.

Sometimes "the laws of physics cease to exist on my stove!"  (If you can name the movie where that quote comes from....1000 Cool Kid points to you!)