Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Rain Rain Go Away - Let me Grill Another Day

The showers left after a couple hours and I was ready for the grill. I don’t know about you but I love to grill. Tonight’s menu actually came from Real Simple magazine. I am not a subscriber but was drawn to it as we waited at my immunologist for his bee venom shots. The “20 Minute Meal” headline with a beautifully shot meal on the cover grabbed my attention. The recipe that sounded particularly appealing was the Grilled pork chops with maple syrup sweet potatoes. I thought of the sweet potatoes sitting in my pantry. This would be a perfect meal. Unlike the magazines that include recipes that would require me to go to ten different specialty shops before I had all the ingredients, The Real Simple recipe was just that real simple. I had everything I needed right in my cabinet.

I do admit that I jazzed up the pork chops with barbecue sauce DH made the other day and added a can of B&M Maple flavor baked beans. This part of the meal had mixed reviews. The good part was the barbecue sauce. One, in an effort to be more frugal I have really been trying to use food items up, to buy less / just what we need, and to cook less (no leftovers unless I have a plan for them). Two, I used my marinade holder for the first time. I received it several years ago but have never used it. I have been really missing out. The silicone bulb baster with measured container worked wonderfully.




It was a great place to store the extra barbecue sauce that DH had made and it bathed the pork chops just right with the sauce on the grill. The bad part was the beans which were a letdown. I had chosen them because they were relatively low in carbohydrates compared to the other beans on sale, but the maple flavor was overwhelming and fake. All and all though, another great meal from conception to ingestion.

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