Fig Jam and Sweet Potato Stacks

“This is a perfect Sunday night dinner.”
- Emily

“This is a perfect Monday night, Tuesday, night, Wednesday night, even Friday night dinner.”
- Big Guy

Those words made my heart smile.  Cooking for other people is what I love to do.  It’s my hobby.  I throw together simple (and random) meals when it’s just me eating.  But when there’s someone to enjoy the meal with, I would spend 3 hours in the kitchen.

The menu:

Pork Chops with Fig Jam

Roasted Asparagus

Sweet Potato Stacks with Blue Cheese.

For the main dish, I chose to cook pork chops (bone-in) instead of the pork tenderloin since it was just the two of eating dinner.  Also, I simply love a bone-in pork chop and The Fresh Market had two gorgeous chops on Saturday that I couldn’t resist.  The chops marinated in fresh orange juice, orange zest, grated garlic, olive oil, honey, rosemary and salt for about 6 hours.  The marinade smelled so good – there’s just something about orange zest and rosemary!  Once it was time for dinner, we seared the chops in the cast iron and then placed them in the oven to continue cooking (please, please, please don’t overcook your pork!).  The chops were served on top of a dollop of fig jam (homemade – from Granny!!!!) with a seared orange slice on top.  It was super fancy looking.  (wink wink)

The asparagus were simple tossed with EVOO and a salt blend from Trader Joe’s (it included bay and thyme in the mix).

And for the sweet potato stacks, sweet potatoes were sliced with the skin on and tossed with EVOO, salt and pepper.  They were then roasted at 450 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Once roasted, the oven gets turned to broil and you top the tator rounds with blue cheese.  Broil until it gets melty and delicious.

Ohhhh myyyy.  Sunday dinner doesn’t get better than this!  The hot pork chop literally melted the fig jam making a lovely sauce for everything on the plate.  The blue cheese actually became milder when broiled and was the perfect topping for the potato rounds.  I could have eaten the whole batch!  The combination of flavors was unreal!  Sweetness from the fig jam, tartness from the orange, herby rosemary, succulent pork that was perfectly cooked, salty asparagus and melt-in-your mouth potato rounds.  Seriously good.

Like Big Guy said, you can eat this “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.”  (Not really sure what happened to Thursday and Saturday).

Thanksgiving Thursday

I know, I know…Thanksgiving is a week away.  Buuuuuut, I have some recipes to share that just might make you switch up your menu.  In the past Big Guy and I have had a mini-Thanksgiving of our own since we go our separate ways on Turkey Day.   This year we’re actually spending Thanksgiving together but we still prepared a feast this past Sunday.  The menu was prepared weeks in advance (I’m serious) and it was absolutely delicious.

The menu:

Baked Brie with Cranberry Sauce

Leg of Lamb

Maple Bacon Sweet Potatoes

Green Beans with Caramelized Onions

Caramel Apple Pie

Cranberry sauce is typically served during the meal, but I switched things up a bit (I never said this was a traditional Thanksgiving dinner).  For an appetizer, a hunk of brie, warmed, served with crackers and an Old-Fashioned Cranberry Sauce.  Cranberry sauce is so easy to make – please don’t buy the jarred stuff!

I know that lamb isn’t a Thanksgiving food, but we knew we’d be eating lots of turkey in the near future.  Big Guy wanted to tackle lamb (something he’s never cooked a whole leg of) so lamb it was.  We followed a recipe in one of his “grillin” books but it was super simple (well the seasoning part, I know nothing about grilling).  We cut slits in the leg and wedged in garlic and rosemary.  It was then sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with herbes de Provence and salt.

I think the leg of lamb took about 2 hours to cook (I can’t make any promises-Big Guy is the meat man) to achieve medium-rare.  The final product was amazing!  Super tender and flavorful.  During the cooking process, he brushed the leg of lamb using a rosemary bundle with garlic infused olive oil every 30 minutes.

The Maple Bacon Mashed Sweet Potatoes were also super easy.  I simply pierced the potatoes with a fork, wrapped in a damp paper towel and then microwaved until tender.  Beware – they’re super hot when you remove them!  Let cool, then mix the flesh of the potatoes with a smidge of butter, milk and maple syrup then top with crumbled bacon.  Divine.

The Green Beans with Caramelized Onions were also pretty amazing (and easy!).  But anything with caramelized onions are good in my book.  I left out the walnuts but I’m sure they’d be a delicious addition.

Quite the Sunday dinner, eh?  I absolutely adored the potatoes but then again I love anything related to sweet tators.  And the green beans tasted so decadent with the caramelized onions.

For dessert, I whipped up my first apple pie (well, first that I’ve ever made) for Big Guy.  And I just realized that I forgot to serve the caramel with the pie.  Oh dear.  Caramel-Apple Crumb Pie.

Seriously y’all, the house smelled amazing after making that pie.

And I’ve been eating leftovers all week…I added some of the cranberry sauce to oatmeal one morning, tzatziki with the lamb, a lamb and cranberry sauce topped salad…I’ve gotten created around here.

What’s on your Thanksgiving menu?

Greens I want and a Single-Girl Dinner Big Guy ate.

Yea, this is a random post.  Really random.  But hey, gotta keep life interesting.

By greens, I mean plants/trees.  Yes.  I want (and I’m actually interested in) a plant and a tree.  Last week I had the pleasure of attending a workshop for work that took place at the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill.  I’ve been to the gardens before for meetings but I had never taken the time to slow down and take a look at all the gorgeousness that I was surrounded with.  On Friday of last week I actually took a walking tour of the grounds and got to see so many beautiful plants and trees.  Two of them stood out to me and now I’m begging Big Guy to plant these lovely greens.

Pitcher Plant

This plant is so cool.  And yes, I just referred to a plant as being “cool.”  The pitcher plant is a carnivorous plant.  Basically, it eats bugs.  And I hate bugs.  Well, I hate when they bug me.  No pun intended.  (yes it was.)  They’re best grown in containers and they love sun.  Perfect for my back deck.

I’m also semi-obsessed with the Big Leaf Magnolias.  Magnolias are totally a Southern thing.  And well, I love all things Southern so this is my perfect tree.

 

Big Leaf Magnolia

Now to the “Single-Girl” dinner that Big Guy ate.

On Sunday we ate at McAlister’s before we headed home from Pirate country (Greenville).  And it was there that I started thinking about baked potatoes (theirs are ginormous and delicious).  I really needed a salad in my body so I skipped the tator and went for the greens.  But I knew that potatoes would be on the menu.  Seeing as it was a week night, I kept it healthy.  I left out bacon and I used chickpeas instead of chicken (hello, Meatless Monday).  But it was still fantastic!  And the best part, Big Guy loved it.  ”Single-girl” dinner win.

 

Hands down the best potato skin ever.  I washed the sweet potatoes, stabbed them with a fork a few times so they didn’t explode and placed them in a baking dish.  Gave them a good rub with olive oil and salt and baked at 350 degrees for about an hour (they were big ones).

Once baked, they got a spoonful of caramelized red onion (ugh, I could eat a bowl of just those onions!), a spoonful of chickpeas that had been tossed in BBQ sauce, and some white cheddar on top.  Big Guy put blue cheese on his.

Incredible.  So filling and hearty and comforting.

I love potatoes.

A different kind of Friday Favorites.

Friday Favorites is going to be a little different this week.  I’m going to share with you one of my favorite ways to use your crock-pot along with a new favorite meal that came out of our kitchen.

Did you know that you can cook sweet potatoes in your crock-pot?  You can.

 

First, wash and trim the ends off your sweet potatoes.

 

Next, bundle up each little potato in foil.

 

Place all the potatoes, wrapped, in the bottom of your slow cooker.

 

Set the slow cooker on HIGH for 4 hours.

4 hours later you have perfectly cooked sweet potatoes (or regular potatoes).  Two of the tators went into the fridge to be eaten later this week.  The other two were used to make Big Guy some Sweet Potato Muffins.  The only change I made was not using the glaze on top.

And now that the weather has gotten cooler (Fall might really be here!) I was able to make a comforting meal that made me warm inside.

Rachael Ray’s Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken with Cannellini Beans.  Dinner was way better than I ever expected and this is honestly a new favorite.  There was so much flavor in this dish.  The chicken remained super tender and I loved the addition of proscuitto and rosemary.

 

The pictures don’t do this dinner justice but it was such a perfect fall dish.  I made a few changes to the recipe:  I did not use any celery (simply forgot to purchase at the store); I also didn’t use a chili pepper; I used an extra clove or two of garlic; and instead of using white wine, I used 1 cup of chicken broth.

One thing I recommend you NOT change, use chicken thighs.  They have so much more flavor than any other part of the chicken.

Thighs for the win!

Sweet Potato-Pecan Burger with Caramelized Onions

You’re reading that correctly.  Sweet.Potato.Pecan.Burger.  No meat.  Just pure deliciousness.  I can pretty much tempt Big Guy with anything that includes pecans.  But throw sweet potatoes and pecans in the same sentence, he’s all for it.  Even if he is a ribeye-loving man.  He can appreciate a meatless Monday dinner.

I admit, it takes a little work.  But it’s so worth the work.  I mean, caramelized onions…with a nutty burger.

I could eat caramelized onions out of a bowl.  With nothing else.  Obsessed.

This was even delicious as leftovers.  Minus the bun.  On a salad.

It even looks like a burger!  But it’s healthy, full of good-for-you ingredients and it’s absolutely delicious.

Ribeye man agrees.  He even wanted some of the leftovers.