Pork Steak Deliciousness  

Posted by: Savari in , , , , ,

What started out as a recipe in an old Easy Microwave Recipes cookbook, turned into quite an excellent dinner. When I say an "old" microwave recipe book I mean it probably came out when microwaves looked like this. 



So that gives you an idea of what I was working with as far as recipes go. I'm a food experimenter. I love recipe books, be they old, new or somewhere in between and I really enjoy trying out new things. Anyways, the recipe was for veal scallopini. I don't typically have veal hanging out in my freezer (it's to bloody expensive), but I do have pork chops. LOTS of pork chops to be exact. (I buy the whole pork loins, bone in or boneless, whenever they are on sell and cut them myself. MUCH cheaper that way.) So, I grabbed a pack of what I thought was pork chops and set about thawing them out. Turns out they were pork steaks. *shrugs* A little late at this point, so I figured what the heck, I'll make do with these. Before I go any further into this recipe, let me just state that I did NOT use the microwave, but my electric skillet instead. I don't think it's actually scallopini but I kept the name all the same.

Pork Steak Scallopini:
4 pork steaks or pork chops (It's up to you and won't make much difference other than cooking time.)
1 can mushroom pieces and stems or a container of fresh mushrooms, sliced or chopped
1/2 of a medium sized onion, diced
Butter
salt & pepper

Put about 2 heaping Tbsp. of butter in a skillet and while it is heating up, remove the bone if you are using bone-in pork. (I don't suppose you have to remove the bone, but I do because I've never been good at cooking bone-in meat.) Salt & pepper both sides of the chops/steaks and cook until the juices run clear. About 5 - 8 minutes per side for steaks. This step may take a bit longer for chops. Once the chops/steaks are done, remove them to a plate and put in the microwave to keep warm. Put your onions and mushrooms into the skillet you used to cook your chops/steaks. You may need to add a bit more butter. Saute' the mushrooms and onions until they have soaked up almost all of the butter that's left in the skillet. You will still have a little bit of liquid but that's fine. Before serving, spoon the mushroom onion mixture on to the steaks/chops. (I chopped the steak up before I put the mushrooms and onions on top to make it a bit less messy.) You can make a brown gravy to go with this as well, but I didn't. (I'm not a big gravy person.) 

Don't you just love my fine china? :D

I served the steaks with stuffing, but this would also go very well with rice. As a matter of fact, you could cut up the steak and layer it and the mushroom onion mixture over the top of the rice and have a complete meal in a bowl. 

Enjoy!!!

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Southern Fried Chicken With A Twist  

Posted by: Savari in , , , ,

In the South, Fried Chicken isn't just a food, it's a way of life. Most every southerner you ask will tell you that it is one of the most common foods down here. Anyways, I was talking to a friend the other day, and we got to talkin' about what I was gonna cook for dinner. I knew I wanted fried chicken, so I got to lookin' online for a nice little recipe to make regular ol' southern fried chicken. I ended up finding 3 recipes that all sounded good, so I posed the question to my friend, "What KIND of fried chicken? Regular, Cajun or Ranch?" His answer sorta surprised me, although I'm not all that sure why. "Why don't you do all 3, together?" Hmmmm, yea I can do that. Especially seein' as though folks in the south have a penchant for spicy foods and ranch dressing as well as anything fried. When someone tells you, people in the south fry everything, they ain't lyin'. And what whether we fry it or not, we put ranch dressing on it. I'll post a recipe for fried pickles once I find one I like enough to eat. LOL.

I like to experiment with recipes and different kinds of foods. I don't have a lot of room in which to cook but that doesn't stop me from likin' to do it. So I got to haulin' out all the ingredients and ended up not really going by the recipes I had in my hand, but improvisin' my own concoction.

Pan Fried Cajun Ranch Chicken:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I rarely buy bone in chicken)


1 cup all purpose flour
1 Tbsp. cajun seasoning
1 Tbsp. ranch powder (Hidden Valley sells it in a shaker)
salt & pepper
paprika
cooking oil (I use Olive Oil)

Put about an 1 or 2 inches of oil in a skillet and let that be heating up while you get the chicken ready.







Combine the flour, cajun seasoning and ranch powder in a mixing bowl.






Sprinkle salt, pepper and paprika on both sides of each chicken breast, then dredge them in the flour mixture. Put the breasts in the oil (which by now should be hot).






Let each breast cook about 5 minutes on each side or until the juices run clear.






We had Candied Baby Carrots and Mashed Potatoes as side dishes. The carrots are super easy to do.

Candied Baby Carrots:
fresh baby carrots
2 large spoonfuls of butter (sorry I rarely measure butter)
1/4 cup brown sugar
salt & pepper




Boil your carrots in salted in salted water for about 20 -30 minutes. You don't want them mushy. After you've boiled them strain out the water and let them sit off to the side.

Combine the butter and brown sugar. Once the butter has melted down a good bit add the carrots. Stir the carrots and the butter/sugar mixture together well. Let cook until the sugar is bubbly.

And this was the result:

I cheated on the taters and used instant. In my defense though, the fresh potatoes had fell off their shelf in the pantry, so I thought we didn't have any. If I had of known we did in fact have real potatoes I would have made homemade mashed potatoes, too. :D

I hope y'all enjoy this recipe as much as we all did. If you get a chance to make it, leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

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Wordless Wednesday - Halloween Edition  

Posted by: Savari in , ,






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Halloween Is In The Air  

Posted by: Savari in , , , , , , ,





Halloween is my favorite holiday of all. It signifies the changing of the seasons and I love all of the activities that come along with it. This past weekend Red, The Neighbor Kid, Mini Me and I did our annual pumpkin carvin'. Actually, I did most of the carvin', but they scooped out all the pumpkin innards. (Ok, well they didn't do ALL the innard scoopin' but I gave them the credit for it. LOL)



We decided that, since we all love the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas so much, we were gonna try our hands at carvin' Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie into our two pumpkins.

 

I have to admit, they look pretty darn good lit up. The innards didn't go to waste either. We separated the seeds from the gunk as Mini Me likes to call it. The monsters took the "gunk" to our goats and I washed the seeds up and let them air dry then I broke out the food dehydrator. (I really, REALLY love my dehydrator by the way.) I spread the seeds out between 3 of the 4 racks and let them sit over night. When I got up this morning to put Mini Me on the bus I turned it on and let it run for about 2 hours. They turned out pretty good. I did read online though that you can "infuse" flavors into the seeds by soaking them in flavored water before you dehydrate them. Flavored water such as, garlic, ranch, cajun, salt, etc. The salt they mentioned was sea salt though not regular table salt. Since this was my first time dehydrating pumpkin seeds I just did them plain but I imagine next year I will try a different flavor. They make a nice snack for the monsters and for my mice.I hope y'all enjoyed the pictures, please feel free to leave comments as I enjoy readin' 'em and I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain.





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Bloggin' Southern Girl Style.  

Posted by: Savari

Welcome to my blog. I warn you now, I like to talk. A LOT!!! So you very well may see a post here one day about an awesome recipe I've tried and then the next a post about my dogs, my snake, my family or any number of other things. I hope you enjoy my ramblin' and come back to visit often.

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