Having a meal at home? What a novel idea!

Ryan and I have been bad. Over the past few months we've been really busy, on vacation, and let's be honest, a little lazy. We have only cooked a handful of meals at home. Many of them consisted of our now famous "fend for yourself night" where we are both on our own for figuring out dinner. Those nights usually mean leftovers, turkey sandwiches, or eggs (and to be honest, a little karate chopping and faux-boxing). So we've been slacking.. We both enjoy eating out but it's definitely a little harder on the bank account and not very healthy.

Why am I telling you all of this? Airing out our dirty laundry? I would only reveal some of our bad habits, if it meant revealing one of our good habits! We are pretty good cooks. And we enjoy it. Yesterday on a rainy Sunday, we cooked a pretty good meal. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top.. just a nice, home-cooked meal. And we actually ate at the table. (gasp!) We have a new dining room table and it's oh so pretty. So pretty that sometimes I don't feel like setting it up for dinner when Ryan is having eggs and cereal and I'm reheating leftovers.

What started our journey back to home cooking? The grocery store(s)! Yes, this past Sunday we went to three "grocery" stores (that's a whole other post). We stocked our fridge and we were feeling inspired.

A few weeks ago I had seen a post on Smitten Kitchen (my favorite food blog) and she made a Martha Stewart dish called a Crispy Potato Roast. Deb over at Smitten Kitchen was making it for Seder as an alternative to the creamy, gloppy, gratins that are tradition. Don't get me wrong, I like a dish with cream and cheese and other tasty ingredients..but I like to save that for special occasions.

So I broke out the ole' mandolin and got to work thinly slicing potatoes and shallots. Smitten Kitchen adapted her recipe a bit from the original Martha Stewart recipe, and I adapted mine as well. To start off, I cut the recipe in half and it was more than enough for the two of us. I also added one sweet potato into the mix because it needed to be used (sneaky thing had been hiding in the bottom of the drawer).

The original recipe called for thyme, I used 4 stalks of rosemary. I also added some Old World Seasoning. Old World Seasoning is my best friend. I got it in gift basket of spices and it use it in almost everything. It has paprika, pepper, salt, parsley, turmeric, caraway, dill, and more! It's a lovely Central European blend of spices that adds a little extra something.

When it was finished baking, sprinkled some Parmesan cheese over the top. Other garnish options that would be fabulous: crumbled bacon, blue cheese, feta cheese, and green onion.


For the pork chops, I kept it simple. I lightly seasoned each side with salt, pepper, lemon zest, chopped fresh rosemary (dried will also work), a little lemon juice, and a little olive oil. I wanted to grill them outside..but Ohio weather pretty much sucks right now. So we sauteed them in a pan. To garnish, I added some fresh rosemary and a chopped lemon slice (rind and all, my mother-in-law will be proud).

For minimal money and effort, we had a tasty meal!
I am promising you all (and myself) to not get in a such a lazy cooking rut. It's just silly!

Saturday Night Dinner in 30 minutes

Ryan and I made a great dinner on Saturday. I'm going to go ahead and take credit for the recipe because I went grocery shopping Saturday morning and picked up a few things and came up with this meal: Sweet and Spicy Chicken sausage with baked redskin potatoes, zucchini and squash over fresh spinach. yum!

I have posted the baked redskin potato recipe before (click here)and I mistakenly said they were roasted redskin potatoes, but they are, in fact, baked. Anyway, they have to bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, so we started prepping. I washed and scraped out the eyes of each potato and quartered them and put them in a large bowl. I usually make this with peppers and onions, but I thought I'd mix things up a bit and so Ryan chopped yellow squash and zucchini and added it to the bowl with the redskin potatoes. Ryan also chopped 1 and 1/2 white onions and added them to the bowl. My only tip for preparing this dish is to make sure all of the ingredients are chopped in to equal size pieces so everything cooks evenly. I coated the ingredients generously with olive oil and added a lot of diced garlic, salt and pepper, dried basil, dried parsley, and crushed red pepper. That went on a foil-lined baking sheet and in the oven at 425 degrees for about 2o minutes. Another tip for this recipe is to make sure the potatoes, squash, zucchini and onion are spread out on the baking sheet. Check after about 10 minutes and stir the ingredients a little so each side can be baked.

After we checked on the potatoes and vegetables and stirred them, Ryan started on the chicken sausages. We have had a variation of these before, and I think they are nice to have every now and then. There are so many kinds of gourmet sausages and it's fun to try them out. Ryan cooked the sausages on a grill pan for about 15 minutes until they were browned slightly on the outside and warmed through.

While everything was cooking I came up with the idea of serving the baked potatoes and vegetables over fresh spinach. To add another kick of flavor, I drizzled balsamic vinegar over the "salad" and also added some lemon juice. The sausages were incredibly moist and I really liked the sweet and spicy flavor. The salad was a nice surprise, the balsamic paired nicely with the potatoes and zucchini and squash. It was a great Saturday night dinner that only took about 30 minutes to make! Take that Rachael Ray...