Pork Schnitzel with Mushroom and Onion Marsala Sauce

This was a fun and relaxing weekend. Enjoyed time together and made sure to make the most of it. Even with Mike working Friday and Saturday we had fun.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with a friend because we are not old and cannot be going to bed at 8pm on a Saturday, it's just not cool.

So we ate Greek salads at the local Italian restaurant. Mike razzed us for that numerous times. Oh well, it sounded good.

Sunday Mike and I made cheddar & bacon coated chicken tenders. It's a Betty Crocker recipe but neither of us thought the coating stuck very well and that cheese and bacon do not work well as a chunky coating. It didn't taste bad, but it wasn't anything phenomenal. We also made baked steak fries fresh from a real potato, nothing frozen there. We also had a bagged bacon Caesar salad for a veggie. Then our friend, who I had had dinner with the night before, came over and brought ice cream and cookies for dessert.

The company made up for the lack luster dinner. Still, can't complain when the food is decent and the company is great. It was nice to get together with someone and just chat and have a good time.

Mike and I also went turkey hunting this weekend. As I am not licensed in the state of Missouri I just went along for the ride. First hunting outing ever. To say the least, I had a blast.

Then after hunting, we ate, then proceeded to go for a run, with the crazy sidewalks in that small town Mike resides in.

I say the person who put this in was drunk. Go home sidewalk man, you're drunk!

Then he lounged and took a nap while I finished phase two of my workout, Rush Fit. If you haven't figured this out by now, I'm a bit of a fitness nut and actually enjoy working out, mostly running. I guess that's why I can just about eat anything I want.

So after naps and workouts we decided dinner was needed and that we needed to use up the pork cutlet we had plus buy more to make sure we had enough to go around.

Needless to say the word "schnitzel" came to mind when thinking about a pounded out pork cutlet. I must say that is the word of the blog today "cutlet."

So off we went whisked away to Walmart for more ingredients and then back to make dinner.

We paired this with mashed potatoes (we did instant but making old fashioned mashed potatoes with some baby reds would have been much better.) Then we also had some cinnamon applesauce which was homemade.

Take about 5 apples, granny or pretty much your favorite apple. Peel and Chop. Add all into a quart sized pot with 1/2 cup of water and 1 tsp of apple pie spice. Simmer for 15 minutes then add 1/4 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp brown sugar and simmer for another 5, stirring occasionally throughout process.  Then mash it all up as chunky or as fine as you like and enjoy.

In the mean time, check out this deliciousness

Pork Schnitzel
Via: Taste of Home Cookbook
Prep/Total Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 6

6 pork sirloin cutlets (1/2 inch thick & 4 oz each)
1/2 cup all -purpose flour
2 tsp seasoned salt (like Lawry's)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk **I left this out - accidentally - but it turned out just fine. So if you can't have milk or just want to omit we are proof that it works fine.
1 1/2 cups dry bread crumbs, plain **of course I would say to use only 1 cup since we had A LOT left over
2 tsp paprika
6 Tbsp vegetable/olive/grapeseed oil **We used grapeseed because we felt like it, worked well. Use what you have and what works best for you

Directions:
Flatten pork cutlets to 1/4 inch thickness **Or you can be like us and go to your local wally-world and pick up pre-tenderized pork cutlets that are already 1/4 inch thick. Less work and no pounding required**

Combine flour, seasoned salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl (large enough to dip your cutlets in). In another bowl beat eggs and milk. In a third bowl combine bread crumbs and paprika.

Create an assembly line station that ends in a plate to place battered pork. **I did two cutlets at a time because that's what fit in the pan to cook.**

Dip pork into flour first, then egg mixture, then into crumb mixture.

Cook pork in oil in a large skillet over a medium heat. **Again, we cooked only two at a time to prevent crowding** Cook on each side for about 3-4 minutes until tender. Remove to a cookie sheet lined in foil with a wire rack on top. Place in a 150-200 degree oven to keep warm and crisp.

Serve with a dill sauce or you can serve with a onion, mushroom Marsala sauce.

We did the following:
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 pkg (8 oz) white button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup Marsala cooking wine
1 pat beef broth (it comes in this jelly like state and you boil it in about 1/2 a cup of water to create broth - or you could just use 1/2 cup of beef broth)

Saute onions over medium heat until just translucent. Then remove from pan. Put beef broth in pan and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Add Marsala, mushrooms and onions. Everybody in the pool!

Cook over medium low heat until starting to reduce. You can add a slurry (corn starch mixed with COLD water) 1 tsp at a time to reach desired thickness.

Now go out and cook!

Fluffy Sandwich/Snacking Bread (Vegan actually) - for your tax day woes

Happy Tax Day, Pay Day and Spring Turkey Season Opening Day!

So we are back to the bread, yes I love my homemade bread. Of course this time it was not an attempt at my favorite sandwich shops bread. Of course, I still wish I knew the recipe. If only I could bribe the man that owns the place. Maybe with my super secret Gooey Butter Cupcake recipe. Who knows, I probably won't ever find it or figure it out just on the basis that I'm not a food chemist, of course I'm sure I could buy the bread and find a laboratory to break it down for me, I do know people that probably know people who could get this done.

Who knows.

I digress - back to fluffy sandwich bread, or in my case, snack bread. I really should go out and buy a full size loaf pan. I had one that my mother had given me but the coating was flaking off and causing my bread to have flecks of non stick goodness ick on them. Not cool, not cool at all. So I even tried using foil and anything else I could to line the pan - honestly if it's not needed it's a pain.

So, I tossed the pan, I shall buy a new one sometime. But I had to buy running shoes first and so I did.

This bread was appealing in the fact that the ingredient list is not terribly long and the process is straight forward. I also liked that it had oats in it instead of just flour. This recipe also does not require that you use bread flour. SCORE!!

I would love to be able to spend all my money buying different flours and spices and doo-dads for the kitchen but alas, I'm not a millionaire. Probably never will be, working on it. Of course I doubt that I will ever be famous either - not that I want to be, I really to like my privacy and I just can't see paparazzi swarming to my humble one bedroom brownstone apartment in the suburbs of Kansas. Just doesn't seem to fit the area. So I will work hard and live happy.

Speaking of happy, this weekend was one of those, how Mike and I say, "off" weekends. A weekend where we do not see each other. Of course there are many reasons to why this weekend was that way. 1. He has Spring turkey season starting today. 2. I had a race this weekend, Color Me Rad 5k for Special Olympics. 3. I had a family friend coming to my home town, and I have to see her when I can, she lives in Minnesota.

So 9 AM I was off running a 5k by myself, because my friends don't seem to like to run races. Even fun ones where you get pelted with colored powder and sprayed with colored liquid, which is sooooo not cool on a 35 degree morning. But I have done worse on a 35 degree morning, like plunge myself through a giant mud pit. 

I took the shirt off after the race and found that my stomach looked as if I had been beaten with a baseball bat, it took a shower and a washcloth of rubbing alcohol to get all the color staining off my legs, stomach and armpit. Yes in my armpit, on my left side because that's mostly where the color hit. Left lane was for the faster folks like me. 

Even though the race wasn't time I ran it in about 27 minutes, would have been faster if I had not had to wade through about 300 people to finally get to the starting line itself. Then dodging people who thought they were fast but weren't. I felt like a super fast runner with all the people I was passing, but in reality I know I'm around average when it comes to time. 

So back to bread right? I'm sure you really don't care about my running.

So this bread, starts off like any other bread. Flour, yeast, salt, water, oats, oil, and a touch of sugar.

Bring it all together in the mixer until you get a dough to come together, or in my case, cling to the hook.

Then you have to let this baby rise - twice. The recipe gave a trick to this, turn your oven to 400 degrees F for about 2 minutes. Then turn off. Stick your dough in, covered with plastic wrap in your greased bowl and let rise for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours until doubled. Then you take it out, knead it again and then repeat this for 1 hour.

Then you bake this loveliness. And it comes out with a beautiful golden crust and a soft texture. It's marvelous. The brown sugar just accents the bread perfectly.

I turned this into about 10 servings, I'm sure in an actual loaf pan it would be more like 12. But seeing as I'm the odd ball, I used a 10 inch cake pan, much like I do for corn bread, and baked. Turned out great for what I do since sandwiches are not something I'm totally keen on every day. I like them but I generally don't make a lot of them at home actually. Strange since it's such an easy meal. Oh well, I would just as soon eat bread toasted with a little butter or fresh out of the oven with a little jam.

Soft and Fluffy Sandwich Bread (Vegan) - From Averie Cooks

Prep Time: 15 min          Cook Time: 30 min          Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes

Makes: One 8x4-inch loaf pan

Ingredients:

1 cup boiling water

1 cup old-fashioned whole rolled oats (not quick or instant)

2 cups all-purpose flour (bread flour may be used and will create a heartier, chewier bread)

1/4 cup water (from tap, not hot, not cold)

2 to 3 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil (I used 2 myself)

2 Tbsp light brown sugar, packed

2 1/3 tsp instant dry yeast (one 1/4 oz package - Averie and I both use Red Star Platinum)

pinch of salt, optional and to taste

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, pour boiling water over oatmeal, stir to combine. Set aside and let cool until temperature reaches around 130 degrees F, about 15 minutes. (The yeast Averie and I use necessitates this temperature; allow mixture to cool to the 100 degree F range for other types of instant dry yeast, or to package directions)

2. To the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the dough hook, (or a large mixing bowl and knead by hand for about 10 minutes) combine flour, 1/4 cup water, oil, brown sugar, yeast, and cooled oatmeal. Knead 5 to 7 minutes on low speed, or until a moist, shaggy dough forms. The dough is fairly moist and sticky, but resist adding additional flour, unless it's so moist that it won't combine. Conversely, if it is too dry, add up to 1/4 cup water. Erring on the side of too moist is always preferable to dry in bread making.

3. After kneading, turn the dough out into a large, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place for about 90 minutes, or until doubled in size. Create a warm environment by preheating your oven to 400 degrees F for 1 to 2 minutes, then shutting off. This creates a 90 degree F -ish warm spot. Slide the bowl in and wait while the yeast works. Just make sure your oven is off.

4. After the dough has doubled, punch it down, turn it out onto a floured surface, or silpat and knead it for about 3 minutes. With your fingers, shape it into a 10-inch by 6-inch rectangle, just eyeball it. The long side should be slightly longer than the baking pan. Then, fold the short sides in so that the dough is about 8 inches in length. Roll to form a tight cylinder. There's not much to roll, about 3 turns. Optionally, when rolling, sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger. Or go savory with dill, chives or thyme.

5. Spray an 8x4-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray, or spray with non-stick spray and add flour to pan and shake out extra, and place the cylinder in the pan, seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap, and allow dough to rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled, about 60 to 75 minutes.

6. In the last minutes of rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until domed, golden, and puffy. When tapped, it should sound hollow. The internal temperature should reach 210 degrees F. Let bread cool in pan for 5 to 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing (of course if your name is Sarah or Mike, you can't help but eat bread when it's fresh out of the oven with some delicious butter.)

Store bread by wrapping in plastic wrap, be sure the bread is completely cooled. Then place in a zip lock bag and it will keep fresh for 5 days. Bread freezes well and can be stored similarly in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Now go out and cook and bake. Have to cook something to eat with this bread. Like eggs and bacon. 

The Great Blizzard of Oz aka Snownomi

So the start of this week was great, it was President's day, a paid holiday at my place of work. Then Mike stuck around on Tuesday, we went and greeted my friends new little girl Katie (5 weeks old now) and then went out to dinner with my gal Michelle and her hubby Jake and had some laughs and a good time with friends. Of course right now it seems all my friends are either getting married, pregnant (Michelle), or having babies (Kristy). I love them all the same but being a girl sometimes it's a bit of what Mike calls "tick-tock." Yeah there is pressure but I'm sooo not ready and I'm happy with how things are chugging along. That comes when the time is right.

I digress. Then Thursday morning 6 am hits and BAM! The Great Blizzard of Oz hits the Kansas and, as Mike calls it, the snownomi hits Missouri.

Where I live received about 10-12 inches plus snow drift. Mike got about 12 where he lives. I must say my car, Audrey, was buried pretty well. I was able to work from home for 2 days and then found that the plows had come and pushed all the snow up behind my car.

So I bundled up when work was over, pulled on my waders, zipped up my coat and donned my snow hat and pulled out the gloves and headed out to tackle the now 2 foot mound of snow behind my car.

So all I had at the time was my snow scraper and a dust pan. The dust pan broke instantly after attempting to scoop the snow. So then I was left with my snow scraper which just took forever.

After about 45 minutes I was tired and my back hurt but I was still about 6 inches from pavement.

I finally got close to the ground but then then wasn't sure I was going to be able to back up over what was left. I was right, the next day I got myself stuck 6 feet from the curb of my parking spot and was stuck there all day until I could borrow a shovel from the office. At that point I was able to rock my car back into the parking spot.

My dear upstairs neighbor saw me out there and had been off on Thursday as well. She was cooking up a storm that day and brought me some homemade turkey taco soup and some crackers to warm up. It was delicious! Then we spent the evening playing Mario Cart and having a good time with girl talk. I don't get to do that a lot.

So then Friday night after I had gotten my car back in it's spot Mike called and asked if I was coming out or if he was. I said I would. He came out last weekend so it's a fair way of splitting the gas cost.

Of course at that point I had to figure out how to get the remaining bit of snow out from behind my car. So I called up a friend and asked if he had one, he didn't but he came and picked me up, since he had his car free, and took me to Home Depot where we bought garden spades and then shoveled the last 2-3 inches of snow from behind my car so I could back out and leave.

So I arrived Friday night, Mike had me come look at a totally awesome snow fort made by one of the student organizations. It was "Wicked" awesome  Was made with snow bricks and looked like castle turrets and even had flags on them. Then the next day when we drove by to get some good pictures it was ruined by some rude college kids. :( That was at least an all day event to make. It's so sad when mean people come and ruin something so amazing.

Mike and I then decided to go sledding, he has a "jet sled," which is a boat type sled that is used during hunting to haul decoys and gear without bogging yourself down like a pack mule. It makes the most amazing sled for sledding for sure. It hauls ass. We went over to a hill by the frat house and we started at the big hill which all the little kids were using. At that point we went down, one time each, of course because of the bottom of the hill not having any insurance on keeping you out of the road or out of the woods that were just beyond, that caused you to have to bail out of the sled before reaching the very bottom.

Of course to tip that sled over takes some effort. Mike did fine and ended up next to the sled. Me, I ended up bailing and then the sled landed on top of me upside down. So I was a camouflaged snow turtle.

After our adventurous day in the snow we decided to make something delicious after our nap.

Pork tenderloin, rubbed in sweet and smoky seasoning, then baked in the oven. Served with a side of broccoli sauteed with bacon and onion. Then served with portabella mushroom sauce over egg noodles.

The sweet and smokey seasoning we have is found at the Kansas City River Market downtown. It has a great spice station you can buy spices by the scoop. Found this sweet and smokey one day while down there and was told it was like BBQ potato chip seasoning. It is, and it totally rocks with pork. Pork chops, chicken, popcorn etc. It's amazing for sure. I need to get back to the market actually.

So our vegetable side was broccoli sauteed with a small amount of oil, onions and bacon. That glob in the middle is a concentrated pat of chicken stock. Which helped add seasoning and flavor. The bacon we used was hormels real bacon bits that you keep in your fridge. Less oil and less cooking time.

For a starch we decided on egg noodles. Then we were trying to think of a sauce. Then it hit us, Progresso makes those new recipe starters. We picked up one can of Creamy Portabella Mushroom cooking sauce. It's rather plain by itself and I reccomend adding salt, pepper, and some garlic powder. We also added some cooking Marsala wine. This made a very delicious and addicting noodle. This could definnitely be served with chicken or beef. The can even suggests making this sauce into a beef stroganoff. Of course Mike and I tend to stray from actual recipes when it comes to cooking. We find a base and then tweak if from there.

Final product was a tender, moist and totally delicious BBQ pork loin. YUM! Then served with the broccoli bacon sautee and noodles with creamy portabella mushroom sauce was just the perfect combination.

Now there are leftovers and unfortunately it will not last us through the Blizzard of Oz (Snownomi) part 2 that is coming Monday night/Tuesday morning. Another 10-20 inches depending on the area you are in. Mike is pegged to get up to 15 inches at his place, while I should get anywhere from 10-12 inches. Ugh, looks like Tuesday and Wednesday I will be working from home again. I start to get cabin fever after about a day fand with work, it's not like I can just clean the house completely from top to bottom all day like I would if my job didn't provide me a laptop. Ah well, I have a job, it's not so bad, they pay me decent and I really shouldn't complain too much.

So folks, if you're getting snowed in, make sure you have something to cook as well as something to do to entertain yourself, me, I have my neighbor to play Wii games with. If you're lucky enough not to have snow, then enjoy cooking with things you find interesting while leisurly walking down the grocery store aisles with shelves that aren't empty haha ;)

Now go out and cook!

Bacon Wrapped Canadian Goose

So the weekend after Valentine's Day Mike came down to my place to hang out for the long President's Day weekend.

It was a relaxing weekend that took us to Cabela's where Mike was attacked by a random little girl who was insistent on tickeling him with her dolls hair. This was entertaining to watch but then made us wonder why parents would let their children tickle a random man trying out a layout blind in the bargain cave. Maybe I shouldn't question some folks that shop at Cabela's.

Mike found some turkey decoys he really wanted for turkey season, since he now has a connection for that as well. I have to work on getting my hunters safety class done as well as figure out which permits I need for each season I want to hunt in. Yay money! -_-

Speaking of hunting, I pulled out the last of the Canadian goose breast and marinaded it in a whiskey marinade we have used before for "Whiskey Tango Steak Night."

So in honor of using what I had, I had 2-lbs of carrots sitting in my fridge just begging to be turned into carrot souffle. This is by far the best way to get veggie haters to eat veggies. Mike has even said it's good enough that it could be a dessert and that when we have kids, this is what should be dessert so we can sneak in vegetables. Of course if they are anything like us, which they will be, they will like just about everything that is put in front of them.

And in recent discoveries I have taken full hold of the fact that Walmart does price matching to any current grocery store ads. So I took full advantage of it and got center cut bacon 1/2 price thanks to Price Chopper's sale on meat. So then, we wrapped the goose in bacon to give fat and flavor, seared on both sides in the cast iron and then finished in the oven at 350 degrees until it was medium rare, about 45 minutes. We cooked it for an hour and it came closer to medium. But was still tasty.

Then we had to have a starch, which Mike wanted rice, which then turned to risotto which then evolved into wild rice mushroom risotto made with chicken stock. This didn't quite turn out like a risotto. Basically you start with 1 cup of water and cook the rice, then add more water after the first batch is absorbed and repeat. Then do it one last time and that's risotto. Or at least the way my mom does it, hers tastes pretty good. Ours turned out a little on the salty side but still edible.

This is the final product, again, closer to medium than medium rare, the risotto was a bit salt and not quite as soft as it could be but it was overall a success and a good meal. I think we will try a different marinade next time, this was a very subtle taste, we even used Jack Daniels, the good stuff.

But this is what cooking is about, learning what to do differently when you don't quite hit a home run and figuring out what works best with what type of protein, vegetable, and grain.

Live and learn then go out and cook.