Welcome to my site!

Welcome to my site!
I'm Cindy, and I love to cook! And, I love to eat... hence the size of my rear end! I come from a long line of cooks. My great great Grandmother was a cook in the original Harvey Houses. My grandmother Julia was an awesome cook, and my mom was incredible. I owe my skills to these great women. Especially my Mom who said this to me about making gravy... "Cindy Lynn, wallpaper paste is wallpaper paste & gravy is gravy. Never the two shall meet!" Shall we say my first experience at making gravy left a little bit to be desired! Thank the high heavens my cooking skills have improved since then! Enjoy!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Yummy Pork Chops

Well, no photo for you today folks. Sorry!
These pork chops turned out much better than I anticipated, and were eaten before I even THOUGHT about posting the idea. I usually purchase some "Shake N Bake" and use that when making pork chops. But, I forgot to add it to the shopping list. They say that necessity is the Mother of Invention. Guess it's true! These were delicious!

I served with a salad and some green beans. Dinner was gone before I could blink an eye!

Mix the following together in a shallow dish:

Italian Bread Crumbs
Parmesan Cheese (the kind from a can)
Tony Chachere's Seasoning

Dredge the pork chops in the mixture, coating well on both sides and edges.

Heat some olive oil in a non-stick skillet. Pan fry the pork chops until done - about 4 minutes on each side, depending upon thickness. Mine were about 3/4" thick.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Moroccan Chicken Thighs

Here’s another recipe from my new favorite cookbook – Cooking Light 2009 recipes. I didn’t adjust this recipe AT ALL. It’s perfection in a pan. The spice combination is fragrant and appealing, the apricots and a sweet taste and the chicken absolutely melts in your mouth. I served this over couscous for my husband and myself. My son won’t go near couscous so he had it over rice. We all LOVED it. This is a keeper.

Ingredients:

1 Tbls. olive oil
Cooking Spray
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 thinly sliced yellow onion
1 Tbls minced peeled fresh ginger (I used crushed ginger from a jar. Easier – and no taste difference)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ cups chicken broth (next time I may adjust and add 2 cups of chicken broth so there will be more juice to go over the couscous or rice)
1 – 15 ½ oz. can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 – 7oz package dried apricots, cut in half
Salt & Pepper for seasoning

Directions:

Heat a large Dutch-oven over medium high heat; spray with cooking spray and add olive oil. Sprinkle chicken thighs with salt and pepper. In batches, brown the chicken on all sides in Dutch-oven – approximately 5 minutes for each batch. Remove chicken from pan to plate and continue in batches until all chicken has been browned. I sprayed the pan in between batches to keep the chicken from sticking.

Add onions to pan; sauté 3 minutes, or until tender. Add ginger and next 6 ingredients; sauté for 30 seconds until fragrant. Stir in broth, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Return chicken to pan; bring to a simmer. Cover and reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hour or until chicken is tender. (When I make this again, I think I will only simmer for about 40 minutes. The chicken really fell apart and I wasn’t able to chop into pieces. It was more on the stringy side. So I suggest you reduce the simmering time.)

Remove chicken from the pan with a slotted spoon; cool slightly. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Add chicken, garbanzo beans, and apricots to pan. Cover and simmer 10 – 15 minutes, until thoroughly heated through.
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