Another Sunday Cookfest

I went a little overboard again the other Sunday. When my mom was over this weekend, I told her how much I had made, and she thought I was insane. She suggested that since I live above a Whole Foods, I could just go downstairs by 2-4 shrimp, 2-4 scallops, come back upstairs, sear them in butter, season with salt and pepper and be done with a meal.

Hah, I laugh in the face of your practicality. Instead, I cooked six pork chops and about five pounds of short ribs, another loaf of bread, sauteed some chard, roasted zucchini, carrots, cauliflower, red potatoes, and king mushrooms. I know I'm just one person, but I am a person of big aspirations.

(with cranberries, raisins, apricots)

At first, I wanted to make meatloaf because it's economical, and I'm currently fascinated by the idea of actually trying to be a frugal ninny. A recipe from Paul Deen on the Food Network site looked promising, until I read the part about a ketchup and brown sugar glaze. I couldn't do it, at least not yet.

(prepped pans - zucchini/carrots with thyme and red potatoes/king mushrooms)

I discarded the meatloaf idea and went with pork chops and short ribs, neither of which are economical. Why I needed to have two types of meat, I don't know. Probably because I still wanted beef after I found a pork chop recipe.


First I roasted some vegetables, these zucchini and carrots are the same as what I made the previous Sunday. I need to move onto other produce.

Here are the roasted potatoes and king mushrooms. They were fantastic, and all it took was some olive oil, salt, pepper and oven time. The king mushrooms have a great meatiness to them.

I was an idiot and forgot to buy anchovies, so I just roasted these with the Parmesan, olive oil, salt, and red pepper flakes.

I used a recipe for Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Cranberries and Red Swiss Chard. To saute the red chard, all one needs is some butter, garlic, chard and salt. I didn't know it could be so easy to make fantastic tasting chard. Try it.

Instead of using the thick pork chops, I went to Chinatown and got thin ones that were maybe just 1/2 an inch to 3/4 of an inch thick, so I just finished these in the pan and ignored the cooking in the oven part. They were out of frozen cranberries at Whole Foods, so I made do with a can of cranberry sauce. Unlike the lasagna, this dish was still good when I had it for the fourth time in a week.

The recipe for Braised Short Ribs is not as good as Mark Bittman's recipe Short Ribs with Coffee and Chilies. I also got my short ribs from Chinatown which meant that they weren't the huge logs with the Flintstone bones that are sold at Whole Foods, but the thin ones that are sliced in the opposite direction with 3-4 small bones in each piece. I cut down the braising time as a result, and it tasted fine, but carrots and tomatoes cannot compete with coffee, and pasilla and chipotle chilies.