Pork cutlets with raspberry sauce and parsley carrots

For lunch today, I served lunch for four at a cost of probably about $2 per person.

I had some leg of pork cutlets I got from Wegmans with a coupon for $2. I seasoned them and made my raspberry sauce with champagne vinegar, Chambord, and organic raspberry jam. (Pretty much equal parts each in the skillet with the meat juices after the pork is cooked. See the pork recipe in May for the full version.)

I took lots of parsley from my garden and cooked 3/4 bag baby carrots. I made a butter-parsley sauce.

Then I served with my homemade rye rolls.

Crêpes with strawberry-banana filling

I decided to make crêpes with strawberry filling.

That may sound unremarkable, but somewhere I stumbled off the tried and true path and started experimenting.

Ingredients for Strawberry-Banana Crêpes
Butter
Lots of fresh strawberries, sliced
2 to 3 bananas
powdered sugar (for dusting)
1/2 cup flour
canola oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons Chambord
4 teaspoons organic raspberry jam
4 teaspoons organic sugar
water
sea salt
3/4 cup milk (or in my case, soy milk)

I had my husband slice about a quart of fresh strawberries. While he did that, my daughter and I poured two tablespoons Chambord and the jam into the bottom of a one-cup pyrex measuring glass. We added water so it would hit the one cup mark. We put it in a small saucepan and boiled. Then we added the strawberries and the four teaspoons sugar. We ended up adding some corn starch later to thicken the mix, and we boiled it so long the strawberries were reduced to a lumpy syrup, but oh, well, lesson for next time.

For the crêpe batter, we put the flour and a pinch of salt in the bottom of a mixing bowl. We stirred in the milk and the egg. And then a drizzle of canola oil, about half a teaspoon. We stirred until smooth and then I whisked until my arm got sore. Crêpes cannot be lumpy. This batter ended up my smoothest yet.

I rinsed out the glass measuring cup and poured the batter inside, for two reasons: 1. to make sure there were no lumps and 2. for better control pouring the batter into the pan.

I took a sliver of real butter and heated it in the skillet over medium high. Once the pan was hot, I swirled the butter in the skillet and, preferably with the skillet not on the heat, poured about 1/8 of a cup batter. I eye-balled it, aiming for a pot about the size of my palm and thinner than a pancake. Then I swirl the pan so I can get it as thin as paper. I returned the pan to the heat. It only takes about 30 seconds for the crêpe to cook. It won't exactly bubble like a pancake, but it will solidfy. I have heard that a crêpe that is appropriately thin will not need to be flipped. But mine need to be flipped for about ten seconds.

Add new butter every third crêpe or so.

When all the crêpes are done, arranged those to serve on plates. Arrange sliced bananas in a line down the center. Add some syrup (because that's what the strawberries became). Roll. Add more syrup and sprinkled powdered sugar.

Sesame Pork with Pears

Tonight for dinner I really wanted to make Dominique Malet's Sesame Pork with Pineapple and Coriander. Except I don't have pineapple. Or coriander. Or sunflower oil. So... I winged it. Big shock, right?

Angel's Marinated Sesame Pork with Pears (served over Asian-style store-bought salad)

Four thin pork chops sliced into stir-fry strips

For the marinade:
Two(2) teaspoons cornmeal
Two (2) tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
One (1) tablespoon champagne vinegar
One (1) tablespoon Chambord
Two (2) tablespoons sesame oil*

Prepare marinade in the order listed, so the liquids dilute the corn meal.

Soak pork in marinade for about 15 minutes at room temperature. I prepare mine on a deep plate and sprinkled liberally with roasted sesame seeds I purchased at Forks Mediterranean Deli. I always get my sesame seeds there, they're way too expensive at the grocery store. Spices, too.

While the meat marinades, prep the following:
For the stir fry:
Fresh garlic or garlic powder
pears
soy sauce
garlic

Prepare a wok with canola oil. Heat oil. Add meat. Stir-fry meat for about three minutes on high. Sprinkle with about two teaspoons garlic powder and a pinch of ginger. Add pears in desired size of chunks and sprinkle with one tablespoon soy sauce. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon ginger and stir-fry for two more minutes, stirring constantly.

I'm going to serve mine over a Dole Asian Crunch Salad. Which I am augmenting with fresh spinach from my garden. This was my favorite meal in the last week or so...

*Special cooking oils and vinegars: like sesame oil, champagne vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and cooking wines can look expensive, but when you use sparingly to produce an authentic flavor or a special meal... it can really make a standard cheap cut of meat taste incredible.

Weekend laziness

Yesterday was my last official day at the YWCA and, as such, I ended up in the office for about 10 hours. It's scary when you have one day to finish everything unresolved. Unlike when you quit a job, my "seasonal" position will resume in August and I will have to finish what I started then. So, if I make a mess, I'll be the one cleaning it.

So I called my husband at 5 p.m. to tell him I hadn't left the office yet and he asked if he should start dinner and I said sure. He made fried egg sandwiches on bagels.

Then after our daughter went to bed, we each had a glass of Veuve Clicquot (from a small $25 bottle I bought for my birthday) to celebrate my summer vacation. We spiked it with Chambord (kir royale, anyone?) because oddly, these last two bottles of champagne had tasted more like sweet beer. Blasphemy, I know.

This morning, my husband made us each "magic toast." (See the last grocery entry involving the Giant...) And for lunch we'll have the leftover bag of Dole salad, with something to make it an entrée. (I so wish we had sunflower seeds.) For dinner, we have friends coming over that offered to buy pizza while we watch the first season of LOST...

Memorial Day Coffee Drinks

Daughter started her day with some Aldi Kids Crunch, their version of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. Around 10 (it is a holiday after all), husband made scrambled egg wraps and flea shampoo potatoes. The recipe for flea shampoo potatoes (named after the smell) can be located under Eileen Breslin in the links below. It's one of her recipes from her vegan cooking course at Northampton Community College.

For dinner, I used the last batch of frozen spinach-cottage cheese-ricotta mix (at least I think that's what it was) that I preserved in February when I made calzones with my own dough. I created a lasagne that tasted great and got nice and crispy on top the way I like.

But the treat was this afternoon's coffee drink.

My husband saves all the partial pots of coffee we never finish. He keeps them in the fridge in a pictcher and instead of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts he mixes up our own special iced coffee drinks.

Like iced decaf with milk and Chambord.
Or iced coffee light and sweet like a frappucino.
Or a shot or two of coffee with soymilk for extra protein between meals.
Or, like today, a big cup of coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

Waste not, want not.

Brought to you by the letter P: Pork with raspberry sauce

I didn't intend it, but dinner became "brought to you by the letter P."

I got home from work and prepped some peas by thawing them in the microwave. Then I sliced about two tablespoons of fresh spearmint from my garden and added it to the peas. I stirred it up, covered it, and set it in the fridge. (Great picnic item, originally from Eileen Breslin's vegan cooking class at Northampton Community College.) Serve the peas chilled.

Then I made some green tea, also with loads of spearmint and poured it over ice in my Princess House glasses. I also got out a bottle of Italian sparkling raspberry wine. I even allowed by daughter to have a small taste for a special post-birthday toast. That was our apéritif.

First course was canned pears (packed in juice, juice reserved for recipe) with some of the sauce from the meat, served over yogurt. (See below for recipe.)

The pork recipe is a variation of Pork Chops with Raspberry Sauce from Allrecipes.com.

Pork with Raspberry Sauce, Angel-style

4 thin pork chops
Mysterious herb seasoning packet from Aldi spinach rigatoni

pinch of fresh ground course sea salt

pinch four-color peppercorns

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 tablespoons juice, reserved from a can of pears

4 tablespoons champagne vinegar, a gift from my mom at Christmas

3.5 tablespoons Chambord

almost 1/4 cup organic raspberry jam from Wegmans

1. Preheat oven to 200. In a skillet, melt butter and olive oil.

2. Combine seasonings, salt and pepper. Rub on pork.

3. Cook pork in skillet on medium, about four minutes per side.

4. Place on plate and keep warm in oven.

5. In warm skillet, with meat juices still present, combine the juice, jam, vinegar and Chambord. Cook until the sauce reduces significantly. It will thicken when it cools. I put about have the sauce on the meat right away and left in in the oven as I served the first course. Then when I served, the sauce had thickened and I placed more on each.

My daughter ate TWO.

For dessert, we had some pumpkin roll. I didn't make that, Gayle brought it for my birthday. Her friend makes it.

Purple Margaritas

I hesitate to even share this as it is NOT cheap. But the whole point of running a rigid budget, or as close to one as we can, is to splurge as desired. Like the recent cheese fest. I *still* have plenty of smoked gouda.

I have a business meeting tomorrow, but everyone in the group is friends AND tomorrow is my birthday. As the meeting pertains to my personal business, I am responsible for the tab. Normally, we would do lunch. But I have proposed purple margaritas.

I spent $65 for the ingredients for purple margaritas. But when you consider the cost of taking three adults and one child for a light meal, with alcoholic beverages and tip, $65 is the right ballpark. And by entertaining at home, I still have some alcoholic left in the bottle at the end of the day. So, depending on your perspective, it is cheap.

My purple margaritas stem from a girlfriend's divorce. We tried for months to make the perfect margarita. They always turned out too sour or too alcoholic. Then someone told me to try blue curacao instead of triple sec or grand marnier. Didn't thrill me. But when I added chambord, the sweet raspberry flavor was perfect. The blue curacao and the chambord combine to make an incredible purple color.

Be warned: These margaritas will knock your socks off if you're not careful.

Angel's Purple Margaritas
(recipe as printed makes two)
4 ounces margarita mix (or homemade, I have not found a good margarita mix)
2 ounces tequila (my girlfriend is into José Cuervo)
2 ounces blue curacao (it is very blue, Bols makes one...)
2 ounces chambord

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake to mix. I serve with the ice. Wet the rim of the glass and roll in bartendar's salt, if desired.