Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops

These were tasty!
DH and I tend to forget about pork...it's like we completely overlook it! But I happened to catch Giada on food network the other day, making these.
They're quick, easy, and tasty. And I was able to make them with things I had on hand -- perfect!
Our side dishes were pretty plain -- a simple pasta and peas -- but DH said it would be FANTASTIC with German Potato Salad...maybe next time!
P.S. -- I only keep plain breadcrumbs on hand...I just make my own "italian" -- recipe is below if you're interested.

Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops
(Originally a Giada recipe, also seen at MrsSchoon's blog)

2 large eggs
1 cup dried Italian-style bread crumbs ** my recipe below
3/4 cups freshly grated Parmesan
4 (1/2 to 3/4-inch thick) center-cut pork loin chops (each about 10 to 12 ounces) -- I used just under a pound of thin-sliced pork loin chops, and they worked perfectly
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons olive oil
Lemon wedges, for serving


Directions
Whisk the eggs in a pie plate to blend.
Place the bread crumbs in another pie plate.
Place the cheese in a third pie plate.
Sprinkle the pork chops generously with salt and pepper.
Coat the chops completely with the cheese, patting to adhere.
Dip the chops into the eggs, then coat completely with the bread crumbs, patting to adhere. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a very large skillet over medium heat.
Add pork chops, in batches if necessary, and cook until golden brown and the center reaches 150 degrees, about 6 minutes per side. **If you use thin-sliced, I found it to be more like 4 minutes per side.
Transfer the chops to plates and serve with lemon wedges.

Italian-Style Bread Crumbs
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl; toss to mix

Store in an airtight container, or, use in a recipe calling for italian-style breadcrumbs.

Beef & Bean Chimichangas

Mmm...chimichangas! This was my first attempt at them, actually. But when DH took the time to email me the recipe and say "Let's have this" --- well, I was so impressed he found a recipe, I HAD to make it!

These were actually quite tasty. The first time I make a recipe, I generally follow it to a "T" -- and decide what I'll change next time.

I provide the original recipe here, as well as some things I think I'll change next time.

Beef and Bean Chimichangas
(Original recipe from allrecipes.com)

Serves 8


1 pound lean ground beef
3/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/2 cups whole kernel corn
2 cups taco sauce
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
8 (12 inch) flour tortillas
1 (16 ounce) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 tablespoon butter, melted
shredded lettuce
1 tomato, diced

Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium-high heat. Drain excess grease, and add the onion, bell pepper, and corn. Cook for about 5 more minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
- Stir in the taco sauce, and season with chili powder, garlic salt and cumin, stirring until blended. - Cook until heated through, then remove from heat, and set aside.

- Open the can of beans, and spread a thin layer of beans onto each of the tortillas.
- Spoon the beef mixture down the center, and then top with as much shredded cheese as you like.
- Roll up the tortillas, and place them seam-side down onto a baking sheet.- Brush the tortillas with melted butter.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
- Serve with lettuce and tomato.

This is one of my chimichangas before I rolled it..

...and these are my chimi's, brushed with butter and ready to bake.

Voila! Finished chimichanga! With lettuce and tomato, as the original recipe said.

I also served a side of rice and black beans, per DH's request. This is just rice, black beans, salt, pepper, and a little cumin. Nothing fancy.

My Advice

First, you could totally make this recipe with ground turkey or chicken with no spice changes. The spices would be fine in any kind of ground meat.

Second, DH didn't like the corn in it...but I thought it was fantastic, so heck with it :-)

Third, I put these in a baking dish -- not on a baking sheet as the recipe requested...and there's totally a reason why you need a sheet. My chimi's didn't brown. So that was my mistake.

However -- here's what I'm thinking. If everything is mostly warm, why can't I bake for 15 minutes and pop it under the broiler for a minute to brown it?? So that's what I'll try next time.

Lastly -- buy sour cream. Even if it's the fat-free stuff. Trust me...you'll love the creamy smoothness with the spice!

Meatloaf

Ahh..meatloaf. The comforting nature of this meal is just too much to resist, for me. This recipe is a solid, 1950's style, plain meatloaf. If you're looking for a fancy-pants version, this ain't it :)

I serve this with mashed potatoes (regular potatoes for DH, yams for me) and a green veggie -- peas, broccoli, etc.

Sorry for the bad picture....we were running late that night and I didn't get a pretty picture!

Meatloaf

1 lb. ground meat (I use ground beef or turkey for this, with no problems)
1 cup bread crumbs (approx -- use whatever you need to hold the loaf together)
1 egg
1 small onion, finely diced
8 oz. tomato sauce

Mix all ingredients together and form a loaf (or two -- see Advice).
Drizzle ketchup over the top.
Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.

Advice
You can make one large loaf, or make two small ones, as I do (the image above is of ONE small loaf. I actually had two that size). I make two so we can eat one loaf one night and the leftover night has it's own loaf.

Variation
The above recipe is my grandma's. At some point my mom changed it to the following....both are tasty.

1 lb. ground meat
3/4 cup crushed saltines
1 egg
1 tbsp. of milk
1 small onion
1/2 can tomato soup
1/2 can BBQ sauce
Drizzle BBQ on top

Mix together and form a loaf, cook at 350 for 1 hour.

Imitation Oreo® Cookies (Chewey Chocolate-White Chocolate Chunk)

Before I begin, let me say that whenI saw this recipe on Chelley's and Shawnda's blogs, I knew I had to have it. But I am admitting, first and foremost, that they're not what I thought they'd be.

But perhaps I did something wrong, the chocolate I used wasn't as good as theirs -- something. Don't get me wrong -- these cookies are delicious. I just don't think they taste as much like Oreo's as I was hoping for.




Imitation Oreo® Cookies (Chewey Chocolate-White Chocolate Chunk)

(Adapted from Sugar & Spice and Confections of a Foodie Bride)

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup dutch-process cocoa*

1/2 cup butter, cubed and room temp

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 cups chopped white chocolate (For me, this was about 6oz of white baker's chocolate. Chelley used a 4oz. Ghiardelli bar and that was enough as well)

*Don’t substitute with natural cocoa. The Oreo-like flavor comes from the richer dutch-processed cocoa. I took both Chelley and Shawnda's advice and used Hershey Special Dark dutch/natural blend in this recipe (because I couldn't find regular dutch-processed cocoa in my local stores). Shawnda did warn that it yields a lighter-colored and slightly less Oreo-like cookie.

Preheat oven to 325 and place oven racks in the upper and lower middle position.
Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa, and set aside. Beat the butter on medium-high until light and add sugars, creaming well. Add the vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternately with the milk in one batch, mixing well. Chill dough for 15 minutes.
Scoop the dough onto a parchment- or silpat-lined cookie sheet (however you bake your cookies) and bake. Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet and store in an air-tight container.

Cookie Size: Both Shawnda and Chelley made their cookies bigger than me. I vastly prefer a smaller cookie, since I was to be sharing these with friends tomorrow. I made mine a medium-sized cookie scoop, which produced 36 cookies for me. They baked for 11 minutes in my oven.

3-Banana Banana Bread!

Ahhh...the beauty that is leftover bananas for banana bread. DH only likes them green, and I can only eat so many before they are too brown for my tastes.

I had only 3 leftover bananas, and the lovely ladies at the What's For Dinner? board on thenest.com were kind enough to provide me with this recipe.
3-Banana Bread
(Original recipe is in Katie D's blog)

**Have all ingredients at room temperature**

1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 c. sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 c. mashed very ripe bananas (I used 3 medium-sized bananas)
optional: 1/2 c. coarsely chopped walnuts (I left these out -- simply because I didn't have any!)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare loaf pan.
Whisk together flour, salt, soda, and powder in a medium bowl and set asdie.
In large bowl, beat butter and sugar on high speed until lightened in color (2-3 mins).
Beat in flour mixture just until blended and the consistency of brown sugar.(**this is katie's wording...I didn't think it looked like the consistency of brown sugar, so I just made sure it was all combined)
Slowly beat in eggs.
Fold bananas into mixture until just combined.
Spread mixture evenly into loaf pan.
Bake about 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cool in pan on rack for 5 to 10 minutes before unmolding to cool completely on rack.

This is a deeeeeeeeeelicious banana bread recipe! (I made it last night, and DH has eaten over half of it already!)

The Divinity that is Lemon Chicken

This is, perhaps, my most favorite meal...on earth. And I don't know why -- it's incredibly simple, but I adore it!

There are tons of different "lemon chicken" recipes out there...this is just mine.

I'm giving you the "original" recipe, but I'll put my notes at the end.

Lemon Chicken
4(whole) chicken breasts - bone in
1 stick butter
2-3 cloves of garlic (or garlic powder/salt)
2-3 lemons (or "real lemon" lemon juice)
onion powder (or onion salt)
poultry seasoning (the kind with thyme, marjoram, etc in it...it's kinda green)
black pepper

Directions

Boil chicken breasts and cut/shred into bite sized pieces.
Place in a glass oven dish.
Slice a stick of butter and place on top.
Put the garlic (or powder/salt) on top of the chicken/butter mix.
Sprinkle a heavy layer of poultry seasoning, a few shakes of onion powder, and pepper.

Top with the juice of the lemons

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour.

Serve over rice (i like brown) and green beans (or corn).

'kay...that's my written down recipe...but here's what I actually do:
- I buy a bag of frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Boil the whole bag, shred it, and follow the instructoins above. I like LOTS of leftovers of this, and the 4 chicken breasts just don't make that. I also hate bone-in chicken...so I don't use it.
- If you're on a "poor" week or you're in a hurry, garlic powder, onion powder, and "real lemon" lemon juice will totally do the same job as real garlic and real, fresh-squeezed lemon juice. The fresh lemon juice just makes it tangier.
- Oh...and if the stick of butter makes you feel guilty...you can use a "healthy" margarine instead...but let's face it, nothing tastes quite like BUTTAH. :)