Creative Cooking: Just Another Sunday Dinner

It's been a while since I've shared our culinary adventures with the TAT readership. I don't really have anything exotic or exciting to share, but this is a pretty typical Sunday dinner for us.

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It started with some cauliflower. I know, I know, cauliflower is one of those unglamorous vegetables with a fairly high yuck-factor, but I've been in love with roasted vegetable recipes ever since I found an earth-shattering broccoli recipe. (I'll take pictures and share it next time I make it. It will make your heart flutter.) Roasted broccoli with garlic was so good that when I came across a recipe for roasted cauliflower, and the store had fresh cauliflower THE EXACT SAME WEEK, I knew I was destined to make it.

 

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I poured some olive oil over the cauliflower.

Note to readers: Steve and I have gone through over two liters of olive oil this school year. Is this unhealthy?

 

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I added whole garlic cloves. (They're kind of hard to see, but they're there, I promise.)

 

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As far as Steve is concerned, this is the secret ingredient: bacon. (Or, more accurately, bacon bits. You know, the real kind. The hefty chunks of bacon in a ziploc bag you buy at warehouse stores.)

 

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Sprinkle it all with kosher salt, throw it in the oven, and out comes...

 

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this. And, yup, it tastes as good as it looks (unless you think it looks nasty, in which case it tastes much better than it looks). Steve and I polished off an entire bunch of cauliflower. By ourselves.

 

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But, the cauliflower was only a supporting character to the porkchops. I have a really good recipe for pork chops with a creamed herb sauce, but I wanted to try something sans sauce. One of my favorite food blogs posted a simple pork chop recipe, I got right on it (this was kind of a week of food blog providence).

I started the pork chops with rosemary...

 

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brown sugar...

 

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cumin and pepper.

 

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Then mixed it all up on a paper plate because I was too lazy to wash a real dish.

 

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I coated the pork chop with the mixture and threw it in a hot frying pan with some olive oil (see, I use it in everything).

 

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A few minutes on each side, and it was done. I was kind of embarrassed by the blackened parts, but they tasted really good, so now I display this picture with pride.

 

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Tossed a quick salad with dried cranberries, pistachios, and blue cheese. Mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmm.

I love Sundays...