Grilled Pork Chops with Fresh Nectarine Salsa

I found the recipe for Grilled Pork Chops with Fresh Nectarine Salsa from AllRecipes.com after it was featured as the "Recipe of the Day" a couple of weeks ago. I find a lot of my recipes through the great "Recipe of the Day" newsletter from AllRecipes.com and would recommend it to any and everyone.

The recipe takes flavorfully-seasoned boneless pork chops, grills them and then tops them with a scoop of Fresh Nectarine Salsa. I knew it would be good, but I didn't realize just how good it would turn out.

I started by making the Fresh Nectarine Salsa, which involved a fair amount of chopping. It also required me to seed fresh tomatoes, which I had never done. I looked online for a guide to seeding tomatoes and sure enough, I found a simple one on AllRecipes.com. Here it is for anyone else who is equally clueless: Removing Tomato Seeds We followed the recipe for the salsa exactly, except that we doubled it so we would have extra to eat with chips later. It smelled so delicious while we were making it that it was really hard for Ty and me to wait for dinner to eat it.



The pork chops were really tasty, but simple. The only thing we changed from the recipe was that we added a 1/2 tsp. of garlic powder. Everything came out great!! The guys all went back for seconds and Ty even proclaimed the recipe "restaurant quality".



This is one of the best recipes we've tried lately. Do yourself a favor and try it out for yourself: Grilled Pork Chops with Fresh Nectarine Salsa

At Last, the Long-Awaited Meatloaf!

Meatloaf was on our meal list last week, but because we wanted to make sure we used up all our leftovers it ended up getting pushed to the next week. When we finally did make it, the guys were definitely ready for it.

I've been making meatloaf for a long time, honestly it's one of those dinners that I probably popped out of the womb knowing how to make. I never use an exact recipe, but nearly every meatloaf I've made has contained the following ingredients: 1 lb. of lean ground beef, 1 lb. of ground turkey, an egg, chopped onion, parsley, onion powder, garlic powder and crushed crackers or bread crumbs. Sometimes I even like to go a little crazy adding in different kinds of spices. You get the idea.

Here are the meatloaves before going into the oven. I always make two because we usually eat one and have the other for leftovers.



We served the meatloaves with boxed butter and herb mashed potatoes and "California-style" veggies.



I'm particularly fond of the boxed mashed potatoes from WalMart. They're only $1 and save me from having to wash, peel, cube, boil, drain and mash the potatoes myself (which I try to only do for holidays and other special occasions). Besides all of that, they actually taste good. It doesn't get better than that.

Matt's Chicken Enchilada Soup (Mmm...tasty!)

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away... Just kidding, I couldn't resist. Anyway, a long time ago when we lived with our grandparents here in Montana, our Grandma Vicki introduced us to a delicious Chicken Enchilada Soup that she made. Honestly, it was one of the highlights of living there...it was THAT tasty! So after we moved out, Matt decided that that couldn't mean the end of our Chicken Enchilada Soup eating, so he got the recipe from Grandma. Years later, he's totally reworked the recipe to make it even better and has made enough changes that he can truly call the recipe his own.

The ingredients in this delicious soup include cubed chicken breast cooked in chicken taco seasoning, canned enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, Cheddar cheese, canned corn and black beans. Yes, it is just as delicious as it sounds.

Matt makes his amazing Chicken Enchilada Soup several times a year and it's always a favorite at our house.

Here is Matt's Chicken Enchilada Soup in all it's glory. It's perfectly okay if you find yourself drooling after looking at this picture. We didn't see it happen and we won't tell a soul. ;)

Ravioli

Ravioli is a lazy night favorite at our house. We can have the ravioli and the garlic bread done and on our plates in just under 20 minutes. What could be better than that? I always buy one package of three-cheese ravioli and one package of meat ravioli and use half of each bag. I put the rest of the mixed ravioli in a Ziplock bag for another lazy night dinner occasion. Keeping with the marvelous speediness of the meal, we usually use a nice, jarred pasta sauce to serve over it. This time we used Newman's Own Cabernet Marinara and I'm almost certain it was the best marinara sauce I'd ever had. Not only was it delicious, but it was nice to know that we'd bought something we could enjoy that would also benefit charity. Again, what could be better than that?

Spinach and Ricotta Chicken Roll-Ups

This was another recipe I found in my Jillian Michaels "Making the Cut" book. The chicken had to be pounded to a quarter-inch thickness, which was, surprisingly, not as much fun as it sounds. Still, I pressed on. The filling consisted of chopped fresh spinach, Ricotta and Parmesan cheeses, and various seasonings which was spread on to the flattened chicken breasts and then rolled up.

Here's what the Spinach and Ricotta Chicken Roll-Ups looked like just before they went into the oven.



Here's a look at the finished product. We served the Spinach and Ricotta Chicken Roll-Ups alongside Au Gratin potatoes for a tasty dinner that was a big hit with all the guys. I will definitely be making this recipe again!

Grilled Eggplant and Summer Couscous

We're always trying to include variety in our diet so this week I decided to make a grilled eggplant recipe that I found on About.com. I'm not very familiar with eggplant, in fact this was the first time I'd ever had eggplant that wasn't fried! But the recipe sounded tasty so I decided to give it a try. The eggplant was sliced and brushed with a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, thyme, basil, dill and oregano, and then grilled on our George Foreman. The finished result was good, but not quite what I had expected. I think I'll need to do a little more experimenting with this fruit (yes, it's a fruit) before it becomes a favorite.

For those of you who love eggplant already, this recipe is fast and easy. It was also highly rated by the reviewers on About.com. Here's a link to the recipe in case you're interested in trying it out: Grilled Eggplant

Since I was trying new recipes I decided to find a new side dish recipe to serve along with the eggplant. After a lot of browsing I decided on a recipe called Summer Couscous that I found on AllRecipes.com. The recipe combined couscous cooked in chicken broth with minced red onion, sliced green onions, diced cucumber and tomatoes. I wasn't sure how I felt about diced cucumber in a hot dish, but thought I would give it a shot anyway. I was so glad I did! The couscous turned out to be the star of the dinner, much tastier than I had imagined. I will definitely be making it again and would recommend the recipe to anyone. Here's a link to the recipe: Summer Couscous

Quiche Florentine with Blueberry-Walnut Salad

The Quiche Lorraine we made last week was such a hit that I decided to make another variety of quiche this week. I'm a big spinach fan, so Quiche Florentine is absolutely my favorite kind of quiche. I looked for a good recipe for Quiche Florentine online, but didn't find one that really "grabbed" me. I decided to use the basic recipe for Quiche Lorraine and modify to make it Quiche Florentine. So I added chopped fresh spinach to the existing recipe and replaced the cayenne pepper with 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg. It was delicious! I knew the guys liked it when I went to put away the leftovers and there was only one tiny piece left!!

I served the Quiche Florentine with Blueberry-Walnut Salad. I found the recipe for the salad on AllRecipes.com a few days ago and knew I had to try it! We used classic Romaine salad mix, fresh blueberries, chopped walnuts and crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. The recipe called for a raspberry vinaigrette, but we substituted Newman's Light Cranberry Walnut Dressing. It was delicious!

Breakfast Burritos!

Breakfast burritos are a favorite food around our house. We could eat them any time of the day or night, and a lot of times we do! Ty's the resident breakfast burrito chef, and he makes one tasty breakfast burrito! The ingredients for our breakfast burritos always vary depending on what we have on hand. This particular time we used a pound of Gimme Lean veggie sausage, a can of green chilies, a pint of Egg Beaters and some shredded Cheddar cheese. Then we topped the breakfast burritos with mango and pineapple chipotle salsa, sour cream and more shredded Cheddar! Yum, yum!

Meal List 8-9-09

Here is a list of the meals we'll be having this week, in no particular order.

Breakfast Burritos
Grilled Eggplant and Summer Couscous
Quiche Florentine and Salad
Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Chicken
Meatloaf

Recent Meals

Things have died down a little bit since Jayne went home (gosh, we miss her!). Here are some of the meals we had the week after she left.

Quiche Lorraine

Ty and I wanted to make a quiche. To keep things simple I went to AllRecipes.com and found the highest rated recipe for Quiche Lorraine. Classic, simple, DELICIOUS!! Here's a link to the recipe in case you'd like to try it for yourself: Quiche Lorraine

Here's how it looked!



I served the Quiche Lorraine alongside a salad for a delicious summer meal.



Stuffed Jalapenos

Ty mixes cooked crawfish with cream cheese and then stuffs the jalapenos with the mixture. Since I'm not a seafood fan, I just use plain cream cheese. Then we dip the jalapeno in melted butter, roll it in bread crumbs and bake until tender. These are a sure hit with Matt and Jake every time we make them!

Ty's crawfish ones are on the left. My plain cream cheese ones are on the right.



Apricot-Glazed Chicken

I found an easy recipe for apricot-glazed chicken in my Jillian Michaels "Making the Cut" book. The glaze consisted of sugar-free apricot jam, a little margarine, orange juice and freshly-ground black pepper. For so few ingredients, the chicken was really flavorful and delicious. I served it alongside mixed veggies and brown basmati rice. It was a big hit with everyone so it was a healthy recipe I'll be making again!

The Return of Sushi!

Jayne had such a good time making sushi when she visited for Christmas that she put in a special request for another sushi night. So we called over our friend Cristal, who also loves sushi, for a night of good fun, good food and raw fish. Here are some of the pictures we took that night.

Catching Up...

Wow, it's been a really long time since I've posted any new meals to our cooking blog! We've had an amazing summer so far! Our good friend Craig visited from Scotland for two weeks and we had a blast showing him all of the sights here in Montana. The day after Craig headed home Jayne came up to visit from California. All in all, the whole friends and family summer vacation experience was two full months of non-stop fun!! Now that things have calmed down a bit I plan to get back to posting more regularly.

Here are a few of the many delicious meals we've had this summer:

Gwyneth Sauce

I'm not really one for celebrity worship, but one celebrity I really enjoy is Gwyneth Paltrow. She's classy, she makes pretty good movies, she's married to Chris Martin from Coldplay and I rarely hear about her personal life in the tabloids...all reasons why Gwyneth Paltrow is cooler than your average celebrity.

Anyway, Gwyneth has a really neat lifestyles website called "Goop". The website sends out a weekly newsletter on topics from food to fashion to reading recommendations and more. I have to admit, the recipes are probably my favorite. The recipe for Gwyneth's Simple Homemade, Never-Fail Tomato Sauce makes one of the best tasting pasta sauces I've ever had. Whenever I make it I alter the recipe to fit whatever I have on hand, which usually means that I used dried basil and jarred minced garlic instead of fresh. I also add a generous sprinkle of crushed red pepper to give the sauce a little kick, as well as some oregano. The original recipe is for a meatless pasta sauce, but I brown and add a pound of lean ground beef to make it thicker, chunkier and heartier. It's delicious!!

Here's a picture of how the Gwyneth Sauce turned out the first time we made it. It was just as tasty as it looks!!



We've made Gwyneth Sauce several times now and it's always a big hit with the guys. Here's a picture from the most recent time we made the sauce.



Tofu Rice Bowls

In recent years I've come to appreciate the taste of tofu, so much so that sometimes I will downright crave the stuff. The last time the craving for tofu set in I decided to put it in some simple stir-fry. So I stir-fried a bag of broccoli stir-fry veggies in a bottled General Chicken sauce, fried some firm tofu slices in a little sesame oil and served it over a bowl of basmati rice. Yum!



Zatarain's Chicken Jambalaya

Zatarain's boxed jambalaya mix is an awesome and budget-friendly meal for busy weeknights. One box of the jambalaya mix costs less than two dollars and feeds all four of us. You can add whatever type of meat you have on hand.

Though we usually prefer the Zatarain's Cheesy Jambalaya Mix with sausage, this time we had chicken on hand so we used that instead. It turned out amazing!



Spinach Cottage Cheese Omelets

This is such a great and simple recipe I found in a Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. You take a handful of chopped, fresh spinach and toss it into a preheated skillet sprayed with butter-flavored pan spray. Let the spinach wilt and then add about a half cup of Egg Beaters (or two whole eggs). Cook the eggs until cooked through and then slide on to a plate. Scoop some cottage cheese on the omelet in a strip down the middle. Sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese, fold over and enjoy. So delicious, so easy and so healthy too!!



Jayne's Birthday Dinner

For Jayne's 16th birthday we decided to go all out and make a crazy-awesome birthday dinner. Ty made lobster tail, and I made steak, mashed potatoes and a green salad. We were all pleased with how it turned out and it was an even bigger hit with the birthday girl!



For her cake we kept it simple with a box of Funfetti. I found these really neat butterfly gummy candies to put on top. Adorable, huh?



Matt and Jayne...they're crazy kids!



Matt, Jacob and Jayne...





Matt, Jacob and Jayne wiggling their hands over the cake. They're so goofy!!



Here's Jayne blowing out her candles.



Time to eat the cake!!



Royal Anne Cherry Chicken and Gorgonzola Pear Salad

I found a great chicken recipe on the back of a can of Oregon Fruit's Royal Anne Cherries. The recipe, which called for canned cherries, red wine vinegar and various spices turned out delicious!!



The Gorgonzola Pear Salad that I served alongside the chicken was also a big hit. It had Romaine lettuce, chilled canned pear slices, Gorgonzola cheese, chopped pecans and dried cherries. It was one of the best, most flavorful salads I've ever had. Here's a closer look...



BBQ Portobello Mushroom Burgers

We found an easy recipe for portobello burgers in a recent issue of Vegetarian Times magazine and decided to try it. The burgers were flavorful, juicy and thoroughly enjoyable!



Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Buffalo Chicken Pizza is one of our favorite recipes from AllRecipes.com. It's tasty, easy to make, and has been a hit with every person we've served it to. Don't take our word for it...try it for yourself! Here's a link to the recipe: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Here are a couple pictures of Jayne helping out with the pizza creation process...





Homemade Black Bean Burgers

Homemade Black Bean Burgers are so much more delicious than the ones you can buy from the store. Not just that, but you wouldn't believe how proud of yourself you feel for making such an awesome vegetarian dish. Here's a link to the recipe on AllRecipes.com: Homemade Black Bean Burgers We usually follow the recipe pretty closely, but this time we decided to add minced red and orange bell pepper in addition to the green bell pepper the recipe calls for.

I was really hoping to take step-by-step pictures for this recipe...it's so fun to make! Unfortunately, our camera ran out of batteries after I took this single picture. Still, the veggies are beautiful, aren't they?



French Onion Soup

Ty has a great recipe for French Onion Soup in one of his vegetarian cookbooks. Thought we've made it vegetarian before, I prefer swapping the vegetable broth in the recipe for beef broth. Here's a picture of the delicious French Onion Soup (and the toasted bread I made to float in it) I made while Jayne was here.



Jayne's Delicious Brownies

My sister Jayne makes some great brownies by mixing up a box of fudge brownie mix and then swirling in peanut butter. Lately, she's started adding a chopped up Hershey bar to make the brownies even more irresistible!





Jayne's Farewell Dinner: Beer Lime Grilled Chicken, Corn on the Cob and Baked Beans

We wanted to make the last dinner of Jayne's Montana Vacation Extravaganza a special one so I decided to make this great recipe for Beer Lime Grilled Chicken that I found on AllRecipes.com. The recipe is easy to make, but tastes like you spent some time on it. It's actually quite delicious. This time, the beer I used was Bud Light Lime and the extra lime flavoring made the chicken even more delicious!

Here I am, taking off the corn husks.



Here's the finished product. Because our outdoor grill broke we had to grill the chicken on the George Foreman. Even so, the chicken turned out to be juicy and flavorful.

Grilling: The Adventure Begins

We live in an apartment building, so having an amazing grill is a little impractical. But we all love to grill so recently Ty decided that we had to get one, even if it was just a little one. So we went to Wal-Mart, picked out a little $35 propane grill and grabbed some hamburger and hot dog fixings!

Here's the grill Ty picked out, complete with accessories!



Ty made potato packets to go with our hamburgers and hot dogs. Delicious seasoned potatoes, onions and green peppers wrapped in tin-foil and cooked on the grill. They were really tasty!





I made hamburgers and grabbed the hot dogs, and then we headed outside!



Here's Ty, just grilling away!







Yes, they were just as delicious as they look!



Our grilling adventure was a major success! You'll be seeing a lot more of the grill throughout the summer months.