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Comfort Food Saturday: Soy Honey Lime Pork Chops

We are visiting my husband's parents for a bit and we always enjoy cooking with and for them.  Last night my husband was put in charge of what may be the thickest pork chops I've ever seen.  He whipped up a fantastic marinade, let them set, then grilled them. They were delightful.  This marinade is one of those that gets better the longer it sits. Minimum marinating time should be one hour, but you're better off going for six.

SOY HONEY LIME PORK CHOPS

• 1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• dash of onion powder
• 2 tablespoons honey
• black pepper to taste
• cayenne pepper to taste

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together  soy sauce, lime juice, olive oil, pepper, garlic, cayenne and onion powder.  Emulsify the mixture by blending on medium-low speed with an electric mixer (or whisking vigorously by hand).  Once the oild is blended very well with the soy and lime (about 3-5 minutes of mixing), add honey 1 tablespoon at a time, adjusting the amount to your desired level of sweetness.  Mix well.  Marinate pork chops in mixture for 1-6 hours.  Prepare pork as desired.

Good Morning, Baltimore

 
I've been to BlogHer. I've even met and talked to a few of my blog friends on my own, without the aid of  conference. I know the excitement.  I know how much fun it is to see the people you know only from their written words and pictures come to life right before your eyes.  I knew I'd be ecstatic to see Alissa today.  What I didn't know was how cool it would be to see our kids meet.

 
Um, mom, we're kind of on a conference call here. Could you check back later?

Alissa and I have speculated for quite some time that Dean and Liam would likely be great friends, two peas in a pod, and all such as that.  For two days leading up to our meet-up at the Maryland Science Center, these guys couldn't stop talking about each other.  Dean kept asking, "When we seeing my buddy? Wiam?"  When they first spotted each other, they made a run for it, crashing together in the cutest three-year-old hug ever.  Along with my four-year-old nephew, Adam, they were quite the fun bunch of boys. 

 
Whenever I read blogs, I always think, MAN! I wish I lived near THEM so our kids could play! But it's never been a reality before now.  I have to tell you--I'd happily forego any and all blogging conferences in the future if it meant I could spend that time and money hanging out with some of my blog friends and their families.  I think we sometimes forget how deep these friendships are, how much these people mean to us and how many things they get us through, even if we've never laid eyes on each other in real life. It was extremely cool to see one of these friends from this uber-important aspect of my life interact with my family.  Alissa and I talked about how much fun it would be to get the boys together every year on our annual trip to visit my in-laws in DC.  I hope that's a tradition that will stick.

 
The little guys had a blast in the kids' area of the museum where they caught fish and played in a submarine. They ran wild in the dinosaur hall and ate lunch at the Beaker Cafe.  After lunch, we walked down to a cute splash fountain where they managed to soak themselves.  It was great fun.  Alissa got to meet Marcus and his mom and dad, and we got a good amount of time to talk about Blogs and life in general.  I always feel so rejuvinated when I've seen one of my girlfriends and today was certianly one of those times. I feel as though my social battery has been recharged.  (Too bad I had to break out my "mean mom" voice when my child started acting a fool and tried to jump into the Inner Harbor.)

Super huge thanks to Alissa for making time to meet up with us and for taking us to the very cool museum.  I hope it's the first of many fun times together...for us and the little buddies.

 

 

Get Thee ORGANIZED!

 
I reached the end of my mental rope last Sunday.  The house was an absolute disaster. Dean would walk over to the big pile of toys that had accumulated on the floor of our den, consider them for a moment, then walk away, I guess because it seemed like too much trouble to dig through the pile to find the one he wanted.  The living room had a few toys slung around, Dean's bathroom looked like an underwear drawer and bookcase had exploded in there and we won't even START on my nightstand.

I decided to take matters into my own hands, since neither of the males who live here seemed too bothered by the clutter.  Armed with a debit card and a soy latte, I hit Target at 8:15am. (I was practically the ONLY person in Target at 8:15am.)  I had seen these neat shelf/bin organizers in the sale papers over and over and I'll be danged if I was leaving that store without one.

I got the LAST ONE in boy colors. Though, honestly? I would have bought the pink and white one if that's all they'd had.  I hefted it into mah buggy and rolled on over to the dollar aisle where I picked up a cute little white plastic bin for Dean's bathroom.

Within an hour of returning home, my life had changed.

Behold:  Organization.

With the exception of the busy beads, Mega Blocks and a few other odds and ends, everything fits in the handy bins. My floor is clear once again!  At the end of the night, Dean helps organize his toys into their respective bins* and by the time we come downstairs after putting him to bed, the living room is CLEAN!

*I could care less which bin everything goes into as long as it's not on the floor. Dean likes to categorize. Who am I to argue?

 
First of all, please excuse the fact that I'm posting a picture of the top of my toilet, but I really wanted you to see the white basket.  When potty training, we used a big mixing bowl of undies in the bathroom. Now that Dean's (more or less) an old pro, we just keep a few pairs of underwear in there in case of "dribbles" or accidents.  The bowl had to go, so I streamlined with this little basket. And! And! It's multi-functional! It holds his undies and his reading material!  Most importantly, I have reclaimed the (limited) counter space for his toothbrush, Buzz and Woody decor, hand soap and brush.

These two things may seem tiny, but they have made a huge difference in how I feel about my home.  And if mommy's happy, EVERYONE is happy. (er.) (happier.)

What one part of your house would it make a difference to organize the heck out of?

Comfort Food Saturday: Jalapeno Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This recipe was adapted from this post over at Closet Cooking. I found the picture and link on Pinterest and immediately started daydreaming about the sandwich.  On my next shopping trip, I grabbed some jalapenos and made myself one for dinner. It was everything I wanted it to be and more.

Jalapeno Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

(recipe is for one sandwich...increase ingredients to make more!)

• 2 jalapeno peppers, cut in half lengthwise and seeded
• 2 slices of bread (your choice, but I used Italian bread)
• Butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated

First, roast your peppers.  Place the pepper halves on a baking sheet, skin side up.  Broil in your oven for approx. 10 minutes, or until the skin has blackened and blistered enough that you can pull it right off.  (after it's cooled a bit, of course)  Assemble sandwich by spreading margarine or softened butter on one side of each slice of bread, then cream cheese on the other side of each slice.  Place peppers on top of cream cheese, then top with grated cheddar cheese and other slice of bread.  Grill until golden brown. Enjoy.

 
A horrible picture of assembly.

 
The finished product.

On The Road Again

We are currently living it up in our nation's capital.  Last weekend, however, we found ourselves spending a couple of days away for purely social reasons.  We were just an hour from home and we stayed in one of the apartments my company has, so it was a fun, cheap getaway. We got to have a nice dinner out with some good friends and we went to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie. Dean thought it was really cool to have a "real person bed" (a double) in his room, though he somehow NEVER thought he needed to sleep in it.  There was a mourning dove nesting in the chimney, so we got a very early wakeup call each morning. 

The apartment complex has a pool, so I thought it would be fun for Dean and me to do a little swimming, especially since Marcus had a couple of events to attend with his Bass club that weekend. (He won 4th place in his tournament...yay, Marcus!)  On our first night in town, I went to grab Dean's swimsuit out of his suitcase when I realized...his suitcase was not there.  I had packed it on Monday while he napped in our bed, then put it back in the closet so he wouldn't get into it. When we were packing the car, I completely forgot about his stuff and left it at home.  His backpack contained one extra pair of shorts, 2 t-shirts and 2 pairs of underpants. Definitely not enough to get us through 2 1/2 days away. (Especially the underwear part!) The next morning, we went to the store for some new little boy undies, a couple of outfits and some PJ's.

Marcus laughed.  I cried.

And that's what I get for planning ahead.

Preparing to Peace Out

We're gearing up for our annual trip to the DC area to visit Marcus's side of the family.  This year, we've decided to fly and Dean is beside himself with excitement.  Every morning he tells me, "We got to go to the airport, get some juice (I love his priorities), take off our shoes (security), get on the airplane, buckle the seat belt and take off!"  Whenever we ask who we're going to see he yells "Uncle Mikey!!!!!!!!" (That's Marcus's brother. He's a lot of fun.) This will be the  first time since last August that we've seen our nephews, Adam and Lukas.  We're looking forward to trips to the park and nature reserve, riding the merry go round at the lake and playing in G-Mama's basement, which is absolutely packed with cool toys. 

I feel like the boys are finally old enough to go and see some of the sights of DC this year.  Dean, of course, would be happy to spend every day in a museum looking at dinosaur fossils.  Adam is obsessed with camping, so there might be a front yard campout with sons and dads.  (I"ll be inside eating pie with my mother in law.)  Pop Pop is making the boys cane poles out of bamboo from their backyard, so there will definitely be fishing. (As if there were any doubt about that.)  Marcus and I have a few new dishes in our repertoire that we want to make for everyone.

Mostly this visit will be just that--a visit, a time for us all to get reacquainted, to see how much the boys have grown, and to play. Oh, my mercy, will we play.

 

Comfort Food Saturday: Antipasto

 
Marcus and I lived in Queens for several years, as many of you know, and we frequented an amazing little salumeria that cured their own meat and made their own cheese.  Everything I ever ate from there was incredible.  We used to go pick up some antipasto, ravioli salad and a nice, crusty loaf of bread, then sit and indulge in a nice Italian feast.  Since we've moved away, there have been days where we'd give ANYTHING for some of that food. In fact, I brought home 2 quarts of balsamic ravioli salad from NYC when I went for BlogHer last year.  We decided to splurge a little this week and buy some good-quality meats, some fresh cheese and a few other odds and ends to make our own antipasto.  It was worth every single penny we spent. 

We used Boar's Head meats, some from the deli's refrigerator, others that we had cut fresh.  Publix has a good fresh mozzarella, so we got some of that, along with some fresh veggies, then we picked some fresh herbs from my garden.  Assembling it was almost as much fun as eating it. (Almost.)

This antipasto, alongside some pasta salad and a nice loaf of crusty bread, makes for a perfect summer dinner.

ANTIPASTO

*Use as much or as little of each cold cut as you want.  We used a large Ziploc container and filled it to the top, eyeballing the ingredients.

• Mortadella (with pistachios)
• Sopressatta
• Prosciutto
• Hard Salami
• Pepperoni
• Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
• Red onion, sliced into rings, then cut in half
• Pepperoncini peppers, sliced into rings
• Green onion (2, diced)
• 1 small bottle Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar salad dressing

Cut meats and cheese into cubes and place into a bowl.

 
Add peppers and onions and entire bottle of dressing. Stir well, then refrigerate, stirring every hour.  Serve well-chilled.

 
Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: One More Baby Picture

 

Rockin' The Baby

Shell over at Things I Can't Say is hosting a fun link-up called Rockin' The Baby.  I went through my photos and selected a few of my favorites from Dean's baby days to share with all of you.

Here we see Dean in an adorable hat made especially for him by my friend Angelina:

 
Don't you wish you could sleep like that?

Or this?

 
How 'bout that hat?  Marcus insisted that Dean wear a hat at all times when we brought him home from the hospital. Sure it was January, but our apartment was about 400 degrees, hence the short-sleeved onesie.  This hat earned him the nickname "Gangsta Dean."

Speaking of Marcus, he just glanced over and asked why I'd chosen 2 pictures of Dean sleeping, since, honestly, these may be the only moments Dean slept somewhere other than on one of us during his first 4 months of life. Touche', Marcus Lane, touche'.

Here's one of him in an adorable onesie that reads "Everyone's Favorite."

 
Tiny muffin.

And finally, what very well may be the all-time greatest baby picture ever taken:

 
CHUBBEH!  On the left is my nephew, Adam, who was about 16 months at the time; on the right is Dean, 4 months.  Everyone in our family has framed copies of this shot, and we lovingly call them the Buddah Babies.

Got any cute pictures of your babies?  Link up at Shell's blog!

 

 

Comfort Food Saturday: Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Nothing says SUMMERTIME quite like fresh, homegrown tomatoes.  My husband and I are weirdos, though--we don't like raw tomatoes. I know, we're strange.  It's a texture thing.  However, cook a tomato? And you'll have trouble keeping me away from it.  My mom used to bake tomatoes like this when I was growing up and the flavor is amazing.  I have basil and parsley in my garden this year to add even more to the fresh taste.  This is a great side dish for dinner or a nice accompaniment to a sanwich or cup of soup for a light lunch.

BAKED PARMESAN TOMATOES

• 4 tomatoes cut in half (horizontally)
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon each fresh oregano, parsley and basil, chopped
• 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Place tomatoes on a baking sheet, cut side up.  Sprinkle on cheese, herbs, salt and pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Bake until tender, about 15 minutes.

 

Photo credit:  Eating Well

Submitted to Ingredient Spotlight:  Tomatoes  at Eat At Home. Check out all the other great tomato recipes!