Saturday, September 20, 2008

Pasta - It's Not Just For Dinner

With gas at $4 a gallon and organic milk being much more than that, we're trying to cut costs wherever we can. And one of those cost-cutting areas is food, specifically having our leftovers be useful and not just nostalgic-then-icky.

And so, here I sit at 9:15 AM, having a bit of leftover breaded porkchop with some leftover spaghetti sauce and leftover ricotta cheese and some freshly-prepared whole wheat pasta for breakfast. It's a protein, a carb, and a form of a vegetable (sauce) and some calcium (cheese), right? Besides, I had last week's Learn To Cook Spinach & Ham Frittata for breakfast all week, so I'm ready for a break from eggs.

The Oven-Fried Pork Chops were excellent. Sweetie made this for dinner this past week and they hit the spot on a not-cold-but-turning-crisp evening. I don't know about y'all, but my parents used to use Shake & Bake when I was a kid - this reminded me of that, but better.

For this week's Learn To Cook/No-Fuss recipe, you'll need:
Pork loin chops, cut thick (3/4 inch or so)
EITHER butter or cooking spray (butter will have a richer taste, cooking spray will be fewer calories)
An egg
Milk
Stuffing mix, cornbread stuffing mix, or breadcrumbs. If you don't keep breadcrumbs on hand you can easily make them from regular bread, and we'll go over that.

Applesauce would be a great side dish, as would salad, mashed potatoes, and/or green beans.

Also, a big shout-out to our friend Stephanie (owner of www.thefrostedladybug.com cookie company) and her AMAZING cookout last weekend. You can't lose when you pair a gifted cook and a Big Green Egg.

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