Pork Chops with roasted Sweet Potato, Tomatoes and Garlic covered in Honey and Balsamic Vinegar

Hello

This evening I cooked pork chops for the first time and they were so good. I wanted to make dinner and if I ate one more piece of chicken I might sprout wings so decided on pork chops. On my and my mothers weekly trip to ALDI  today, we picked up six Irish pork chops for 4.99 euro! We also bought some sweet potatoes (which are cheaper in Tesco fyi), and some of my new favourite taste, balsamic vinegar.

This meal as always is really easy.I love one pan dishes where you just throw everything in one big roasting dish and then everyone helps themselves. I am a great believer in just lashing stuff on and seeing how it turns out. Fortunately this time everything turned out edible and not looking half bad either which is always a bonus.

Here is the recipe, method and some pictures.

Enjoy

Roz x

 

Ingredients (serves 2-4 people)

6 Pork Chops

1 large Sweet Potato, chopped and cubed

4 Tomatoes, quartered (could also use cherry tomatoes)

6 cloves of Garlic (more or less depending on what you like)

Half a Lemon juice

Salt and Pepper

Balsamic Vinegar

Honey

Method

Chop sweet potato and peel garlic.

Place in roasting dish and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and honey.

Place in oven for about 20 mins at 200 degrees.

Fry and slightly brown pork chops.

Add to roasting dish with tomatoes. Add lemon juice.

Leave for about another 20 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

Sweet Potato

Out of the oven

 

 

Chicken Chi Chi

Hello

It has been awhile since I have posted about actual cooking so this evening I made dinner. I spotted this recipe in some little booklet that came with a Sunday paper. So you know never just throw those things out without having a nose first. They can be very good and give easy recipes.

I was drawn to this recipe firstly because of its name ‘Chicken Chi Chi’ (Chi Chi is a name I call my dog Travie ha). It looked pretty easy to do but had a lot more ingredients than I’d ever used before. The best way to describe this dish is a really nice sweet’n’sour type. It has some sour ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce but it also includes brown sugar.

It takes about an hour to do and that includes preparation and cooking time. I served it with some basmati rice with peas (you can find my recipe for that from my earlier posts ;)) and some fresh bread for all the juice.

This dish could easily be made vegetarian by simply leaving out the chicken breasts and substitute the chicken stock cube for a vegetable one. You could add more peppers and maybe mushrooms or courgettes.

Here is the recipe, method and some pictures. Don’t be afraid to try it yourself. You will impress those with a dish better than the local Chinese takeaways :). Also feel free to add or exclude any of the ingredients listed depending on your own taste. Make sure you taste the sauce to be sure its not too sour, if it is simply add a little more brown sugar.

Enjoy

Roz x

Ingredients (serves 3-4 people)

4 Chicken Breasts, skinless

1 large Onion

2oz Sultanas or Raisins

Juice of half a Lemon

1 Pepper (any colour), chopped

1 Chicken stock cube, crumbled

3oz butter

2 tblsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tblsp Vinegar

2 tblsp of soft dark Brown Sugar

5 tblsp of tomato ketchup

1/4 pint of Water

1 tblsp of Plain Flour

A little salt and pepper

Method 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Heat 1oz of butter in saucepan

Add onion and chopped pepper and fry gently

Add remaining sauce ingredients (basically everything but the rest of the butter, flour and chicken) and bring to the boil. Stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 15 mins. (I didn’t wait 15 mins and it turned out fine :))

Flour the chicken breasts.

Melt remainder of butter in frying pan and add floured chicken breasts till brown on both sides.

Place chicken in a shallow heat proof dish and then pour over the sauce.

Place in oven for about 45 minutes.

Serve with rice and enjoy.

Sauce

Floured and browned Chicken

Out of the oven

Served 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Bean Casserole

Hello

I recently made a green bean casserole for the first time and can’t recommend it enough. I first had this dish last Christmas as made by my sister-in-law in San Francisco. It is a big festive dish in the US but I had never come across it here. Not only is this dish so tasty it is extremely thrifty to make at the total of all ingredients listed costing no more than five euro. The ingredients listed below makes enough for 2-3 people.

Ingredients

1 can of Cream of Mushroom soup

2 packs of Green Beans

Fried Crispy Onions (now available at ALDI)

A little Milk

Method

Cook green beans but leave them al dente (or a bit crunchy ;))

In a dish layer green beans then soup then some onions.

The little milk in ingredients is to add to soup to make it more pourable.

Make sure the top layer is without onions when first put into oven.

Put in oven at 200 degrees for twenty minutes or until bubbling.

Add some onions on top and pop back in for another 5 minutes.

Serve and Enjoy.

This dish is great as a side to anything be it fish, chicken or meat. It’s also a nice variation form the standard potato that I as an Irish girl am so attached to.

Roz x

Ready to Serve

Crispy Onions found in ALDI at 1.59 euro and great in many dishes.