Friday, February 10, 2012

a break from blogging, not from cooking

OK, so life has apparently gotten in the way of blogging (as well as the format of blogger), but here are a few pictures for you guys of a meal that I made the other week. I've actually been cooking a lot, but taking the time to take the photos while cooking is just something I've neglected to do.

Then blogger takes way too long to create posts with pictures, so that's been another reason this has been on the back burner. Excuses, excuses...

First, here's some music I was listening to while cooking. Robert Earl Keen



So I got the recipe here:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pork_schnitzel/

I also made sauteed bell peppers and herb pita bread with cheese.
Here's what I started with:
Panko, cheese, bell peppers, pork, egg, garlic herb pita (Thank you H.E.B.)

Chop the bell peppers first. This will take longer than you think. Then saute them with a little olive oil and onions if you like the flavor onions add (I do). I also add chopped garlic, salt, pepper, basil and sometimes oregano.


















Once those get going, start getting your breading together for your pork. Line it up with a plate waiting for the battered pork. Flour mixture, eggs, Panko break crumb mixture. I think next time I might use corn starch in the flour mixture. I've seen this work really well with chicken.









Once they're all covered in bread crumb goodness, put some butter or olive oil in the pan (or both actually) and get the pan really hot. When you flick water into it, it should pop.
Put those little guys in there. By the way, keep the bell peppers sauteing on another pan/burner. They're probably not done yet. If they are to your liking, just put it on low to keep them warm.

These thin slices of pork really don't take long to cook at all. I think I did mine for 2-3 minutes per side since they were so thin. The breadcrumbs don't get a full chance to brown if you don't cook them long enough though, so maybe get thicker slices so you can cook them for about 5 minutes per side.
Then...you're done with the pork...here's what you get...
Golden deliciousness.


While you keep working on those, put your oven on broil for the bread. I put an Italian blend of cheese on the flat breads, but you could use whatever is most melt-able and tastes good to you. Once the oven is preheated, put those babies in there for just 2 - 3 minutes. Check them every now and then until the cheese is melted and looks kind of like this:















I pile the bell peppers on here and eat it like an open faced bell pepper pizza/sandwich thing. YUM.

Now for the sauce. I didn't have all the ingredients that this recipe called for, but I usually don't use recipes anyway. Don't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen.
For the Chicken Stock, I actually used Turkey stock that we canned from last Thanksgiving. I had done a Maple Glazed Turkey with Sage Butter wrapped in Bacon. Yup, Bacon Maple and Sage. I make it every year now, so here's the post about it from Thanksgiving 2010 (MAN...a LONG time ago).
Anyway, I used that stock to deglaze the pan. Then, since I didn't have sour cream, I mixed plain Greek yogurt with cream cheese and dill. Once I got that mixed together, I tossed it in the pan with the bacon maple sage turkey stock. Here's what we ended up with.

Drool.
You can put the sauce on top of the pork, or make a little bed of it for the pork to lay on (or both).

I paired it with Robert Monteverdi Pinot Grigio and it was awesome. I'm normally not a huge white wine fan, but this was excellent. It's fairly sweet, but not so sweet that this dry red wine lover couldn't handle it.

Here's another picture for you. YUM.
As a side note: refrigerate the sauce it you can use it as a chip dip, bagel spread or reheat it for your cream dill sauce again.