Avocado Salad

This is my first shot at replicating the avocado salad I had at a French household.

This sounds similar:
http://www.acozykitchen.com/avocado-salad-with-honey-mustard-dressing/
At least in terms of dressing... so...

I made a good dressing of:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed
• almost 2 tablespoons lemon dijon mustard
• 1 TBS champagne vinegar
• 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsps. fresh parsley

I like the way the dressing turned out, but my avocados are overripe and mushy. I threw them in the fridge to chill will the dressing, but it's a futile attempt. I have a feeling I'll be mashing them and making avocado mustard dip. 

Sausage and rice with veggies

Tonight I prepared Trader Joe's chicken sausage with apples (3 sausages) in my Le Creuset skillet with about 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 2 cloves fresh garlic. When the sausage finished cooking, I sliced it and added the broccoli from one broccoli crown and a couple cups of fresh chopped cauliflower. I let that sizzle for a while until the vegetable soaked up all the "juice" and then I added another tablespoon olive oil, the last of my French butter (probably three tablespoons) and about three tablespoons champagne vinegar.

And then I added the long grain white rice I had cooked in the steamer with garlic powder and four color black peppercorn. (It was 1.5 cups unprepared rice) And stirred it all up and let it cook until the rice turned a soft yellow (and wanted to stick to the bottom as I stirred. I stirred constantly.)

I was nervous about it because of the champagne vinegar, but it was good. Really good. I had two plates and I'd really like another...

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.

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.