Partial update
Well, originally this was going to be a rest-of-the-week update. Then it was going to be a weekend update. Now it's Tuesday. Oops. At any rate, here are a few meals we had this past, err...6 days or so.
Tonight we had pork chops with some mushroom sauce/gravy. I am not huge on pork chops, but you can pair pretty much anything with mushrooms and/or some sort of booze and I will be content. Oh, and we are down to only 2 or 3 things left in the freezer and I have to make it last until we can go grocery shopping this weekend.
I made some roasted asparagus, too (you can probably tell by now we love roasted asparagus. If there is ever an asparagus scare like there was a spinach scare, we will probably stop getting our daily dose of veggies).
So, here is what I did for 3 boneless, center cut pork chops (total uncooked weight was just over a pound, so they weren't too big).
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup diced onions
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 sprig of thyme
1-1.25 lbs. of pork chops
salt and pepper
1/3 cup dry sherry (something you'd drink, not just cook with)
1/2 cup beef broth
1 tsp corn starch, mixed with 2-3 tsp water
Preheat oven to 350.
In a dutch oven, melt butter. Add thyme, onion and garlic and saute until tender. Sprinkle salt and pepper on pork chops, and add to dutch oven. Brown on both sides, but don't cook through (about 2 minutes per side). Remove from pan.
Add mushrooms to dutch oven and saute a minute or two. Add sherry to deglaze. Cook on high heat to reduce the sherry and scrape up the brown bits as it cooks down until almost evaporated, about 5 minutes.
Add beef broth and bring to a boil. Add pork chops back to dutch oven, spooning some sauce on top. Put dutch oven, covered, into oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Uncover, and bake an additional 10.
Remove pork chops from dutch oven and put the pan back on the stove. Bring to a low boil and add corn starch/water mixture, simmering until thickened. Salt & pepper to taste.
The other day we had a Mexican lasagna/enchilada casserole/whatever you would like to call it. Basically, just layered whole wheat tortillas, enchilada sauce, seasoned beef/black bean mixture, and some cheese. Cover with some foil and pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350. Much easier than rolling enchiladas (well, at least for me, a person who manages to totally dump out the fillings every time she tries to put them seam-down in a pan).
OK, well that concludes the update, apparently, because my camera battery has now died and won't allow me to import any more pics. So, I guess I will add some more info later.
