Recipe of the week

From Real Simple this month:

.5 lb ground beef

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 sweet potato, grated

.5 cup chopped spinach

1.5 c shredded cheddar

2 sheets frozen puff pastry (thawed)

Brown ground beef and garlic. Add grated sweet potato and spinach. Cut puff pastry sheets in half. Add ground beef mixture to pastry sheets, split cheese between pockets, seal. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

I used a package (1.3 lbs) ground beef so I doubled the garlic. I also had a MASSIVE sweet potato but only about a 3/4 cup of frozen chopped spinach, so those things seemed to even out. Was short on puff pastry, so I used refrigerated pie crusts instead and it worked perfectly. Very easy to make, surprisingly flavorful. I had enough that I made a batch of 4 pasties on Sunday and another batch for dinner tonight and STILL had a bit of ground beef mix left over.

Cranberry sauce success!

I never used to like cranberries, so apparently my tastebuds have evolved. After the great plum sauce I made earlier this summer, I wanted to try a homemade cranberry sauce (The jellied kind skeeves me-  I loathe jello) for use at Thanksgiving and maybe throughout the year.

Coincidentally, in order to make room for a large turkey in my freezer I had to thaw several pieces of meat (steak, pork chops) and figured pork chops love applesauce- why wouldn’t they love cranberry sauce!? Golden opportunity. As a last minute addition, I used some refrigerated breadsticks and Steamfresh Roast Potatoes and Green Beans in Rosemary Butter Sauce. I can’t say enough nice things about the Steamfresh vegetables. They don’t overcook the veggies, which is a HUGE deal for me. What can I say- I’ve got texture issues.

So. Pork Chops and Cranberry Sauce.

Pork Chops, Cranberry Sauce, breadsticks, roast potatoes and green beans.

Cranberry Sauce Recipe

1 bag (12 oz) fresh cranberries, washed/drained

3/4 c sugar (I used white)

1/2 cup plus a dash Tawny Port

1/2 cup orange juice

1tsp (ish) grated ginger (I used the store-bought-in-a-jar kind)

juice of 1/2 a lemon

Place cranberries, sugar, port, OJ, ginger in a pot on med-high heat. You want the berries to boil for about 10 minutes, so once they got to the boiling stage I turned down the heat and stirred constantly. In fact, I didn’t realize until I was already started that I didn’t have OJ so I actually put the other ingredients in the pot, turned the heat on low, and made a quick grocery run. No harm, no foul. When I got back, I added the OJ and ginger. Basically I used the ‘cook until they pop’ theory – waiting until the berries got so hot they began to burst their skins.

I very nearly forgot the lemon juice- important because WITHOUT it the sauce was almost too sweet. After the sauce is done, transfer to a fridge-safe dish. Add lemon juice on top of sauce DON’T STIR. Refrigerate. Most recipes say to cool at room temp before placing in fridge. I didn’t do that, it worked out fine. Then, stir sauce just before serving. It was a perfect balance of sweet and tart. Two thumbs up.

Baked Pork Chops

Heat oven to 350. I sprayed a pan with nonstick spray and placed the chops in the pan. I dusted with salt, garlic powder, and pepper just by eyeballing it. Then I flipped the chops and dusted the other side with poultry seasoning, paprika, and then added breadcrumbs. I baked them for about an hour (high altitude- for those below 10,000 feet it would probably be closer to 40-50 minutes). They turned out JUST right.

I also took pics of yesterday’s cheesy bread appetizers.

Martha Stewart Savory (non-pumpkin) Puffs

The recipe is here, just in case. The background looks a little weird because I cooked them on parchment paper.

Gratuitous dinner post

One of the few sites that sends a really good newsletter is Real Simple. They’re good enough that I read every single one of them, even though I’m conditioned to delete as spam. The reason I keep reading them is that they send recipes like this Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin with Cherries. I am not generally a fan of pork but I’ve found a few recipes in the last year that have sounded tasty enough that I had to make them. This recipe was tonight’s dinner and it was AMAZING.

First, it used things I had on hand. A few weeks ago at the grocery store they were having a sale on pork tenderloin – the massive tube of pork loin kind. I figured I’d cut it in four, make one and freeze the rest. This recipe made me get the first piece out of the freezer. I already had the dried cherries from a previous recipe so the only things I had to buy were parsley and bacon. I didn’t have current preserves (and couldn’t see a need to EVER have them) so I used the apricot preserves I have on hand from another recipe. I totally forgot about the whole grain mustard, but used the dijon mustard already in the fridge. All the substitutions worked fantastically and the recipe got two thumbs up from Husband. Not only that, it was SUPER FAST and super easy to make.

I also made some refrigerated breadsticks I already had in the fridge and a microwave steamer bag of roast potatoes and green beans.