Fancy dinner: Breaded Herb Pork

I have a small loaf of my homemade multigrain baquette in the oven thawing from the freezer... My daughter is arranging a platter of fresh veggies... I have French butter on the table and a nice place setting...

I have four thin boneless pork chops, that I breaded in a mix of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, seasonings from the spinach rigatoni from Aldi, four color peppercorn. I warmed some extra virgin olive oil in the skillet, with two shredded leaves of fresh sage and about two teaspoons of oregano. I cooked the prokchops over medium, for four minutes on each side. Then I put them in the oven with the bread to keep them warm.

Meanwhile, I have my daughter making some pepper ranch dip (for the veggies) Two teaspoons sour cream with an equal amount of ranch dressing, and some fresh ground four-pepper.

Now for the appetizer... I'm going to cook some veggie bacon and some dates in a bit of olive oil, then wrap them and put them in the oven. Debating whether or not to put some cream cheese in the dates first...

Okay... what I wrote before this point was written while cooking, so let's try to organize our thoughts better and present everything in a more manageable fashion.

First course: 'Bacon'-Wrapped Dates
Inspired by Gayle
Ingredients:

• Six dates, in this case sliced in half. I used pitted dates from Aldi's that weren't exactly fresh, but they weren't exactly dried either
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 6 slices Morningstar Vegetarian bacon
• About 3 teaspoons Neufchâtel or Cream cheese

Heat oil and dates in skillet. Add bacon and cook until thawed but not crispy. Flip dates and heat primarily to soften. Remove bacon and dates from hot skillet. Spread cheese on half the dates and top with other half. Wrap in bacon. Broil on high in oven until the bacon browns.

These turned out fantastic. (On the bottom shelf in the oven.)

Second course: Crudités with tangy ranch dip
Using up leftover vegetables my mother-in-law brought Wednesday
In this case some broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, red pepper and green pepper
Ingredients for dip (combine and serve):

• About two teaspoons sour cream
• About two teaspoons ranch dressing
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground four color peppercorns
• about 3/4 teaspoon It's a Dilly

Main course: Herb-Parmesan Breaded Pork with corn and greenbeans
Ingredients for the pork (photo on top):

• Four thin boneless pork chops
• About 1 cup breadcrumbs
• About 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper from four-color peppercorns
  
• About 1/8 cup seasoning from the spinach rigatoni I buy at Aldi (it's cheese and Italian seasoning mostly)
  
• One tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• One tablespoon butter
• 2 leaves fresh sage, shredded
• About three teaspoons fresh oregano

Combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, pepper and seasoning in a bowl and bread pork chops with it. Under medium heat, heat the oil and the sage and oregano. Add porkchops. Cook about 4 minutes, flip, add butter, and cook four more minutes.

For the vegetables:
I cooked the pork first and kept in hot in the oven. Then I wiped the pan and prepared the appetizers. Without cleaning the pan again, I dropped half a can of corn in (leftover from last night's casserole) and the rest of a bag of frozen French cut greenbeans. Cooked in the pan until warm.

For the bread:
I think this was the batch... http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/01/multigrain-dill-bread.html

For dessert:
Blueberry bread pudding (from the freezer) with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream.
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/01/blueberry-crumb-bread-pudding.html