DINNER TIME! Baked Pork Chops

This week, I'm pulling out some pork chops from our freezer. Hmm..fry them? Barbecue? I think I'll bake them, sort of like a home made 'shake 'n bake.'

They're frozen and I want to make them for dinner so I have a quick way to prepare them and defrost the the same time. I'm making some brine, which I'll put in the ziploc bag the chops are in to make them tasty, tendy, juicy, and thawed at the same time.

For the brine, I put half a liter of water into a sauce pan. Two heaping tablespoons of Kosher salt, a teaspoon each of marjoram, terragon, and sage go into the water, which I bring to a boil. When it does boil, I stir it vigorously, let boil for another minute and then remove from heat.

Let that sit for 10 minutes before adding into the bag with the chops. Let that marinate for 4-6 hours.

I have some leftover roasted potatoes from last week's chicken dinner. There's also a zucchini in the fridge that I can use for the side.

I coat a baking pan with olive oil.  The chops go into a plastic bowl where I pour some half and half on them. I sprinkle with black pepper and then bread crumbs. Turn them over and do the same thing.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook for 30 minutes. Then remove from oven.

Remove the pork chops and put the potatoes on the bottom of the pan (if you're using uncooked potatoes, put them in at the beginning - see last week's recipe on how to prepare them). Put the chops back in on top of the potatoes with the cooked side down.

Dice up the zucchini.

Fill in the spaces in between the chops with the zucchini. Sprinkle some Kosher salt on them. 

Drizzle a little quality olive oil on the zucchini.

Put back in the oven for 25 minutes.

At the end of 25 minutes, increase temperature to 475 and cook for 15 more minutes for browning. After this, you're ready to serve.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

WEEKEND ON THE GRILL: Asian Inspired Marinated Beef

Sometimes, I get in a rut on the barbecue...steaks, chops, hot dogs, burgers, chicken...and just want to break out and do something different. Lately, we've been watching some travel shows and drooling over the food shown from Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Japan. I want to make something more like that.

A few weeks ago, we had a cheap, easy version of a teriyaki bowl featuring Trader Joe's Korean inspired Bool Kogi. Today, we're doing it from scratch.

I've put together a very tasty marinade and am letting my skirt steak soak in it overnight, then will grill it up and see how good we can get it.

First, the ingredients:

Marinade:
1/4 cup - Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup - low sodium soy sauce
3 teaspoons - honey
1 tablespoon - olive oil
1 teaspoon - Chinese five-spice powder
1 teaspoon - mince garlic

Plus:
2 lbs - skirt steak
3 - sliced green onions

Mix the ingredients for the marinade, put steak in sealable bowl or plastic bag. Pour marinade in to soak and refrigerate overnight.  Cook on grill, 3 minutes per side over direct head and 5 minutes per side over indirect heat, covered.

On the side, I'm making grilled corn on the cob, elote style. I've steamed some corn, cut each cob in half, and then cook over direct coals, 5 minutes per side. Apply some mayonnaise and parmesan cheese before serving.

In addition, I'm cooking some zucchini in foil and grilling pineapple slices...5 minutes per side direct heat...putting a few mandarin orange slices and serving all up on a bowl over rice.

Add the green onion over the top after you've put it all in a bowl.

The leftovers also make a superior steak 'n eggs omelet for the next day's breakfast.

This week's gardening:
Picking weeds out of the lawn, deadheading the roses for the last time in the season, spraying deer repellent on the front yard bushes.

Stop by the Musick Channel Garage Sale to pick up some treasures from our stash of over thirty years of collecting, like these great Liberty Falls collectibles which would look great under your Christmas tree.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

This Week's Menu: Buffalo Style Chicken Thighs and Chorizo and Eggs

Chicken wings are so good but it's a lot of work for just a few bites of meat. We fix that by using thighs instead and a homemade Buffalo sauce that's easy and out-of-this-world good.

Some farmer's market dollar-a-pound squash makes a medley for the side dish and breakfast is one of our easy staples, chorizo and eggs.

Recipes are at the links below.

DINNER: Buffalo Chicken Thighs

SIDE: A summer squash medley using our basic super side barbecue vegetable recipe

BREAKFAST: Chorizo and Egg Burritos

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Rock of Side Dishes

Probably 3 out of 4 Sunday dinners around here are on the barbecue.  The main dish isn't usually too hard. Think Flintsone. Fred Flintsone. Meat...fire...sear...good.

The problem comes with the others say "what'll we have on the side?"

What? A grilled hunk of meat isn't enough?

Alright, let me see what I can do...

OK, this is my go-to side dish and cooking method for sides on the grill. It's easy. It's cheap. It's delicious.

While I use a zucchini in the recipe below, you can use any soft vegetable like broccoli, squash, asparagus, etc. Hard vegetables like carrots and potatoes would take a much longer cooking period.

Ready?

INGREDIENTS

1 large zucchini (or a vegetable of your choosing) for three people, scale up as needed for more

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Slice up the vegetable in quarter inch slices.

Stack them like poker chips and cut in half.

Slice again so they're quartered.

Put in a leak-proof plastic bag (I save old bread bags for this purpose). Add the salt and pepper.  Twist the bag closed a shake well to distribute. Add the olive oil, twist and shake again.

Pour out onto a sheet of foil paper and seal the foil around the vegetables.

Grill with your entree on the barbecue over indirect heat. About 20 minutes, around the same time it takes to cook your steaks.

Darryl

Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

Deacon Blues

"They got a name for the winners in the world, I wanna name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide...call me Deacon Blues."
Deacon Blues
Steely Dan

Last week, I showed you some of the winners of the garden. This week, it's the losers' turn. Luckily we didn't have too many. Last year was an almost complete lost season. This year is much, much better.

I'm not complaining at all but let's see what didn't work this year.

At the top of the page is our grape vine, which is always a challenge. One year I got 50 pounds of grapes. The next, all the local animals ate them before they ripened. In the years since, I've tried various methods to keep the animals out and have had limited to no success.

This years, I kept the animals out by wrapping the clusters in nets but the resulting fruit was tiny and cracked.  Not nearly as good as the grapes I got at the farmers market for $2 a pound.  I'm just going to let the plant alone next year and see what happens.

The zucchini, usually the most prolific plant in the garden, only produced two very small fruit over the season.  I'll try a different variety next year.

I believe the corn was a victim of an unnoticed clogged sprinkler at the beginning of the season. It never came back.

The severe drought we're experiencing also hit some of the plants. These roses have no blooms because the deer have been coming down from the dry mountains in search of food. They found a taste for the flowers and eat them up as soon as they bloom.

Maybe next year we'll get that El Nino we keep waiting for and the deer can return home.

This rose just gave up the ghost.  I think I'll replace it with a Saint Patrick rose.

The biggest victim is the lawn, which is really a victim of the law. We're mandated not to water it more than two days a week, 15 minutes at a time.  With no shade at all, it just couldn't handle that diet so dormancy kicked in and it's just straw now.

I'm hoping we'll get enough water this year that I can overseed with a heat-resistant blend for next year.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Hot Time in the Garden

The biggest chore I had this week was deadheading the roses but the temp is 110 and climbing. I expect it'll hit 115 before the day is over.

Just too hot, so I'm just fertilizing and check the progress of the crops.

These tomatoes have weighed down their part of the vine so that they're resting on the soil. I don't want them there where the worms and other insects can get to them.

Gingerly, so I don't break their branch, I lift them up and rest them on the neighboring hot chile's cage. Now, they're about a foot off of the ground.

Something's already got this green heirloom, so I picked it off and threw away. Nothing else seems to be affected right now.

Except this little zucchini plant. It's hard to see in this picture but something has been digging at it's roots and the plant is a bit wilted from it.

Across the path, it's sibling is finally producing some fruit. Homegrown zucchini on the way.

This pasilla chile has three fruit that should be ready in about three weeks and will feed the three of us with the tastiest peppers in the garden. A lot of trios in that paragraph and there's also about 40 more chiles on the plant in the earliest stages of ripening.  Can't wait.

Finally, although most of our crops are in between harvests right now, I got one good heirloom tomato, one hybrid tomato, and a nice little Anaheim chile to go with a good harvest we already got last week.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Making Every Drop Count

Notice the three orchids on the top row starting at the second from the left. See how dry they are?

That's why I do sprinkler pattern checks now and again. You'll notice that the spray is not hitting the top row. Resetting it into first pot and re-aiming it fixes that problem.

Chores done, what else is happening this week? To start off, our first dragon fruit bud has come up.

The recently transplanted zucchini is putting out some spectacular flowers.

Anaheim chiles are looking great...

...and the cherry tomato hanging basket is about ready for first harvest.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Shock Treatment

I have an extra volunteer zucchini plant that must have sprouted from one of last years seeds.  I transplanted it to a sunnier spot.

Here it is a couple of hours later, showing signs of extreme shock.

I watered...drenched, actually...in with B1 and water but I guess that only goes so far.

Luckily, it's still a hardy plant with lot's of life inside. Three days later, the plant is looking much better.  Now, we'll see if the sunny side of the path is more to it's liking.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved