Southern Living Rocks My World

First of all, I am a diehard subscriber to Southern Living magazine. I love the food, the photos, and the little "good southern lady" tidbits that try and tell you how to act. That doesn't normally soak in but I at least read those parts...

My friend Sara recently told me about a website called MyRecipes.com. How I had not heard of this, I don't know, but it is a great resource for all magazine recipes (Southern Living, Sunset, etc). Oh and if you don't get Sunset, please do. Sara told me about this as well so I txt'd her that I love her a bushel and a peck for telling me about this.

Anyway, back on point, I made a recipe Monday night from this month's Southern Living. It was grand. It was monumental.

It was freaking good.

Pork Chops with Roasted Green Beans and Pecans
(Aka, holy crap this is good)

Ingredients

• 2 (12-oz.) packages fresh cut green beans
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 4 (4- to 6-oz.) bone-in center-cut pork chops
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup Japanese breadcrumbs (panko)
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 tablespoon butter

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Rinse beans. Combine beans, 1 Tbsp. olive oil, and 3/4 tsp. salt in a large bowl, tossing to coat. Spread beans in a single layer in a jelly-roll pan. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until beans are tender and slightly browned.
2. Meanwhile, sprinkle pork chops with pepper and remaining 1/4 tsp. salt.
3. Stir together breadcrumbs and next 3 ingredients in a large shallow dish. Dredge pork chops in breadcrumb mixture.
4. Cook chops in 1/4 cup hot vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until done.
5. Stir pecans and butter into beans; bake 5 to 6 more minutes or until pecans are golden. Serve pork chops with green beans.

Something I will share about how I varied on this recipe:
- I didn't have Panko breadcrumbs so I smashed up good ole saltines and then chopped up some rosemary and thyme really fine and threw that in with some pepper and the parmesean

-I don't fry things so I put a generous amount of olive oil in my skillet and if it got a little dry toward the end, I sprayed it with cooking spray.

- I used frozen green beans.

Also, I served it with this yummy bread I found at Central Market. It is the Central Market Organics brand (also found at HEB) and it was 2 smallish frozen rosemary baguettes. You lay them out for 5 minutes then toss them in the oven for about 12 minutes and you have yummy bread.

My sister in law's only question: "Does it come pre-buttered?"

I love her.

But no, it does not.

Here is how our plates looked:

Paper towels for napkins, because we are super classy like that

Notice how the bread and butter is strategically placed right in front of me.

Hence the treadmill in my living room...

Stuffed Bell Peppers

My coworker, Christi, came to work the other day and brought her lunch. I asked her what she brought and she said "I made some stuffed bell peppers last night!" That got my wheels turning.

With the Costco way of purchasing, we end up with (4) packages of ground turkey. Other than meatballs or tacos, I don't really do much else with it. I decided to take a stab at this for a nice Friday Night Meal.

First, I coated the peppers and broiled them.

Meanwhile, I mixed onion, turkey, a can of rotel, and some spices in a skillet and got it cooked through. Then I loaded the peppers up.

I put these back in the oven for about 15 minutes..

Then, of course, cheese!

I put them back in about 5 minutes just to get the cheese melty.

While the cheese was melting, I took a shortcut with the rice and beans.

I basically just heated up a can of beans on the stove and put 2 of those packets of Uncle Ben's Mexican Rice in the microwave.. 60 seconds!!

It turned out to be a wonderful and easy meal and Lee LOVED IT.