Since Wednesday a pork chop has sat in the fridge, waiting to be cooked. But due to getting out of work pretty late Wednesday and Thursday, it sat uncooked just waiting. Today it became a tasty experiment.

I was trying to find something different to do with a pork chop and the answer came to me as I perused some cooking blogs and old recipe magazines. Nothing jumped out at me except a braised leek recipe, a leek and gouda stuffed chicken recipe and a bacon, leek and tomato soufflé. I still had a leek from last week’s veggie basket, so I decided to start with that. I had a beautiful tomato and the pork chops. So, I chopped the leek and sautéed it with a little butter and garlic. Next came the tomato, salt and pepper. I cooked all that down just a little, then browned the pork chops, just to get a little color. I stuffed the chops with some goat cheese and the tomato leek mixture, popped them in the oven for about 25 minutes. The results …

A pretty dish that actually tasted pretty good. I think I could have used a sharper or stronger cheese, but the goat cheese worked pretty well. I’m not sure if this will become a staple or not, but it worked well for an experiment.

I should have a few more recipes to try next week. Let’s just hope I get to making them. I do have a pretty veggie basket this week to work with.

Kale, celery, green beans, onions, sweet potato, bananas and a pumpkin. Not sure what to do with the pumpkin, but I might find something.

Happy Thanksgiving week!

Years ago I wanted to make real, homemade cream puffs. I made a cream filling that was fabulous, but on the time consuming side. A few years later, I began experimenting with easier, short cut options and came across one that very quickly replaced the original recipe. In all honesty, I can’t remember the original filling recipe, this one is so good.

Mom and Dad came over for lunch today and I used that as my excuse to make cream puffs. The recipe is simple. 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, 1 cup water. Combine in a sauce pot and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup flour and stir until the dough forms a ball. Remove from the heat and add 4 eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. I use an ice cream scoop to form the shells and then bake for about 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees. Let cool, cut the top off and remove insides.

Now the filling … I almost feel guilty for this one. One small package instant Jello vanilla pudding and two cups cream (I like regular, but heavy works also). Mix with an electric mixer. It will take all of two minutes to get the right consistency.

Fill, top and then use powdered sugar, melted chocolate or (as pictured above) caramel to drizzle over the tops. The caramel is homemade, but I don’t have the recipe on hand as I made it months ago for a cake then froze it. Let defrost, drizzle then go.

These cream puffs have been requested by family, used for showers, parties and various family events. And the recipe has not changed. I think when I made these today I spent all of 15 minutes actually doing anything. The rest was wait time – wait for the butter/water to boil, wait for the shells to bake, wait for them to cool .. But, as often happens, simple is best and these cream puffs just prove that point one delicious bite at a time.

There are no leftovers.

Today was a quasi experiment. I had made the basic dish before, but tried it with a few changes. Bob L-O-V-E-S the sauce with this one and wanted me to send the recipe to Brad. Brad and Emmie, I’m not sure if you have the sriracha chili sauce from when we saw you last, but if you do you might want to try this …

Ok, maybe not the entire dish, but the sauce that tops this dish … The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons sriracha chili sauce, 4 teaspoons honey, 1 tablespoon sesame oil and 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds. My version is pretty much equal parts sriracha chili sauce and honey, about half as much peanut or walnut oil (although I would use sesame if I had it in the house) and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Mix well. That pretty much does it. So Brad, if you have some of the sriracha left, try it. Bob says you should.

For the rest of this dish, I did a basic marinade of soy sauce, peanut oil, garlic, ginger and honey. I pan fried the pork then added the carrots, red peppers and rice noodles. When cooked I finished it off with the mizuna from the CSA basket and topped everything with the sauce above. Bob really liked this dish even though it does contain a grain. I’m not sure where rice noodles fall on the can’t have list (really, really can’t have to limit but not so bad) but since I do the cooking, we were going for the, today. I think he just liked that it was really spicy – I added extra sauce to his plate.

As fall has arrived I have also gotten into the hard cider thing agin. This is an every fall thing for me – cooler weather, football … they just go with cider. This week’s try is …

Oliver Hard Cider – or as the ingredient list says “apple wine.” This was pretty good. Not the best as that still goes to the Stella cider that was on tap at the pub in England. I still dream about that one. But I digress. This cider had a nice tart bite to it, but not much apple flavor. I do love the bottle, however. Have to see if one of the others that I picked l are any better. I figure if Bob can have his fancy beer, I can try for fancy cider.

Say “chicken salad” to almost anyone (ok, any American) and the picture that comes to mind includes diced or processed chicken and lots of mayo. Not an appealing picture at all. So here is my experiment and I’m taking back “chicken salad” so it can once again be a flavorful, delightful meal.

This was a guided experiment. I took a marinade from my Bobby Flay grilling cookbook and paired it with a variation of an Ina Garten warm salad. So … marinade of olive oil, sage, garlic, orange zest, salt, and white balsamic vinegar. Really, this is not exactly the same as the recipe in the book, but it is close enough that I’ll give full credit to the cook book on this one.

The salad required a little more improvising. I got some stunning greens in my veggie basket today (Mizula they said it was but it looked nothing like last week’s Mizula so I’m not exactly sure) that looked like arugula, and had a nice taste like arugula, so I wanted to use them like arugula. I roasted some butternut squash with olive oil and salt (nothing else) the prepped a salad of the greens, crasions, and pecans. The dressing had the purée and strained juice of two apples. Let me stop there. I am not sure what possessed me to think I could juice an apple like I do lemons, limes and oranges, but for the record, it does not work the same. So after getting frustrated with that, I used cranberry pear white balsamic for the remaining acid, added chopped sage, salt, pepper, shallot, olive oil and a dash of mustard. Mix well.

Now may also be a good time to mention that I started with only the apple juice, vinegar, salt, pepper, sage and olive oil and then tasted and added one thing at a time until it finally tasted like I wanted.

So the chicken – out of the marinade and into a large frying pan. Nothing else done to it, just let it cook.

The end result – layer the roasted squash over the salad, top with the chicken breast and generously drizzle the dressing over everything. Bob claimed it was one of my best experiments and one of the best meals I’ve made in a while. I think this is his way of telling me I am working too much, or that I should work from home more often. Either way he is right.

Happy weekend!

I try to be creative and still stay in the parameters of Bob’s diet, my very picky pallet and general time constraints. Sometimes I hit a winner (yesterday’s beef stewish meal) and sometimes it’s just good.

Tonight was a just good. A different wrap, maybe a spinach or sun dried tomato instead of whole wheat, and a tweak to the sauce and this could be great. I took leftover pulled pork (because when do you ever not have leftover pulled pork?) and tried a vinaigrette from a Bobby Flay grilling cookbook and experimented. So … This was. A lemon sage vinaigrette – lemon, lemon zest, honey, olive oil, sage, shallots, salt and pepper. Heated up the pulled pork with a little of the vinaigrette then used the mizuna (a leafy green of a kind) as a base, then layer the pork, more vinaigrette and some tomatoes. Good, but not great.

The sauce needs a little more honey, a little more pepper and maybe a touch more salt. Change the wrap and add a little pickled onion -maybe red onion- and this has potential to be a fantastic quick meal.

Oh – the pork! I didn’t have my usual mead to braise the pork in last week so I used hard cider and chopped apples. It came out REALLY well. Moist, tender, not salty at all and totally full of flavor. Not bad for improvising.

Tomorrow’s experiment includes an orange sage chicken with rice noodles … or a butternut squash tart. If I don’t come home totally exhausted from a full day of IEP meetings and trying to get progress notes done. Hopefully the computers work all day or I may just sit down and cry.