Seasonings

These are the seasonings my mother-in-law gave to Chase and I. They are so very good!! I'm not sure where she got them from but maybe she'll comment and let us know.

I used the Roasted Garlic & Black Pepper last night on our pork chops. The other kind is Rosemary Citrus.
On both labels it says that you can sprinkle some over olive oil or melted butter to use as a dipping sauce for bread. We haven't tried that yet but I'm sure it's really good.

There is a great Linguine recipe on the side of the Roasted Garlic & Black Pepper jar that I think I'm going to make tonight for dinner. Check back for that review.
The Rosemary Citrus jar says that it can be used on fish or chicken. Or add 1 tsp to muffin mix for a little extra flavor. Or mix with butter to use as a spread for biscuits.

Anyways, if you ever see them anywhere pick one up and give it a try.

Chef Paul's Spices

In my post last night I mentioned that I use Chef Paul Prudhomme's MAGIC spices. You can go to his website by clicking on his name and read about all his different spices. I wanted to show you what they look like and tell you the kinds we use.

We have:
Barbecue MAGIC
Fajita MAGIC
Blackened Steak MAGIC
Blackened Redfish MAGIC
Vegetable MAGIC

Click here to see all the types of MAGIC Seasoning Blends.
I may have to go buy some new ones today, they all sounds so good.
Here is the link to his Recipe site. I'm sure there are some really yummy sounding recipes on there.

I hope you try Chef P's Seasoning blends and let me know if you like them.

Pork Chops for Dinner

Tonight I decided to cook Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, Asparagus and French Bread. It was really good! Chase gave it an A+!

First I pealed and cut 5 Yukon Gold potatoes and placed then in a 2 1/2 quart pot. (Actually Chase did this for me because I cut myself on the first potato. Oops!) I covered the potatoes with water and then brought the water to a boil(FYI...don't boil water first-> add potatoes then boil). Cook them until they are soft and fall off of a fork. Strain and place in a bowl or back in the pot. I added maybe 5 Tbsp butter. Yum! I also add a splash of milk, salt and pepper. Mix and Mash until you're happy with the consistency.

Next, I washed and cut the ends off the asparagus and placed them in a pan lined with aluminum foil (the aluminum foil makes clean up a breeze). This time I sprinkled the asparagus with olive oil and some Vegetable Magic by Chef Paul Prudhomme's MAGIC Seasoning Blends. We bought it at Publix. Chef Paul has a few different kinds and they are all really good.
I placed them in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. (Next time I'm going to add some seasalt as well).

Publix had there pork chops on sale today. They looked really good and we hadn't had them in a long time. I cooked them in our Caphalon Grill pan instead of out on the grill since it had been raining all day. I covered them with a seasoning that I got from my mother-in-law. I'm not sure where she got it from but it's really good. It's called Roasted Garlic & Black Pepper. Also I spread a little olive oil on both sides before placing them in the pan. I cooked them for 4 minutes on the first side and 3-4 minutes on the reverse side and they were done. Quick and Easy!

Aren't they pretty! Wow and they were REALLY good!!!

I bought a long loaf of fresh French bread from the Publix bakery. This bread is our new favorite side to our dinners. I cut off pieces, spread some butter on both sides and baked them in the oven for just a few minutes until the sides were crispy. YUMMY!!

Like I said before, Chase gave this meal an A+!! I would recommend giving it a shot. There are lots of great seasoning combination's to try on pork chops that are great. So don't opt out on this one just because I couldn't give you the exact name of the seasoning I used.

Give it a shot and if you have question, PLEASE let me know!!!

Chicken for Dinner

Tonight I made asparagus, butter beans, corn and "Best Lemon" chicken.

The asparagus was canned and didn't turn out as good as the fresh kind I usually cook. But it was okay, just a bit on the mushy side.
The butterbeans were the Seasoned kind by GLORY. All I did was heat them up and they were great!
I used regular canned yellow corn and added butter, salt and pepper to taste. Yum!

On to the chicken... I got the recipe off the frozen bag of chicken. It is called Best Lemon Chicken.

The recipe calls for:
4 frozen Tyson chicken breasts
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
ground red pepper -I would recommend only using 1 teaspoon or so. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons but I only added 1 tablespoon and it was HOT! It's also optional if you don't like spicy. That's actually the way I'm going to try it next time.
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
1. Rinse frozen layer off chicken and place in a shallow baking dish.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and pour over chicken.

(This recipe can also be used when grilling and if you choose to do so save 1/4 of the marinade for basting the chicken while cooking on the grill).

3. Marinade for 20 minutes. Place in 375 degree oven for 40-50 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked.

Serve it all with a tall glass of sweet tea and call it dinner.
ENJOY!!

Happy Cooking,
Chef Williamson

Cheesy Ham and Hash Browns

Last night it was pretty late when I decided to make dinner. So I made this Homestyle Bakes meal. It only took 15-20 minutes on the stove top. It could be baked but that would have taken 35 or so minutes. It turned out tasting pretty good. It's really cheesy so only make it if you like cheese. I decided to serve it with green beans. Yummy!

Spaghetti and Meatballs for Dinner

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted but Chase and I have been really busy and I haven't been doing much cooking. Last night I threw together some spaghetti sauce and cooked some noodles and called it dinner.

First, I put on some water on to boil for the noddles. Once it started rolling I added the noodles and cooked them for the amount of time given on the box. SIMPLE!!!

While those were cooking I poured some spaghetti sauce into a sauce pan over medium high. Since we didn't have any hamburger meat I decided to add meatballs instead.
I used CASA meatballs that we bought from Sams. They are great and really quick and easy to fix. The directions say to place 5-8 meatballs in a microwave safe bowl. Add 1 tablespoon water and cook in microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir and cook for 1 more minute or until meatballs are cooked. Once they were cooked I added them to the sauce.
I added about 12-15 meatballs to our sauce and the sauce was GREAT!!
I wished that I had had some tomato paste to thicken up the sauce but we didn't so it was a bit runny but...

...it was still really good!!!!