Pork Chops and Special--- Er, Applesauce

My birthday dinner rocked my socks clean off. Eric made Greek-style porkchops and fresh, homemade applesauce. Here are the recipes and some photos! Enjoy.

For the applesauce, you'll need:

3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a combination of good cooking apples like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.)
 4 strips of lemon peel - use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
3 inches of cinnamon stick
1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
up to 1/4 cup of white sugar
1 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt

First, put all of your ingredients into a large pot and cover it. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Take in the beautiful view of your significant other while you wait, like so:

After it's simmered, turn off the heat and remove the cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Here comes the fun part: Mash it up! You can use a potato masher or a pastry cutter or the flat end of a meat mallet or whatever you want! The ingredients will be soft enough that this shouldn't be a tough job.

You'll notice that our applesauce is pink. This batch was made with the peels on, which we have discovered is NOT an ideal method. On the upside, it was pretty to look at and you can pick the peels out while you eat. Once it's all mashed, it's ready to serve, either hot or cold. Any leftovers can be frozen!

We had this delicious, flavorful applesauce alongside the Greek-style porkchops. It was incredible.

For the porkchops you'll need:
2 thicker-cut pork loin or 2 boneless pork chops
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon oregano flakes, crushed
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Combine all the ingredients and marinate your pork chops. You'll want to do this for at least a couple of hours, but ideally, get them soaking and leave them overnight.

After your porkchops have marinated, grill them over medium heat for about 8 minutes on both sides, until they're cooked through. Serve with all the juices you can muster for ultimate flavor. We enjoyed our porkchops with applesauce and macaroni and cheese, along with a side salad and champagne!

(You'll notice the pretty "Melting Pot" logo on the champagne flute-- those are from our first Valentine's Day date! It was a really special birthday dinner.)

Birthday Food

This week Eric spoiled me with some AMAZING...

Incredible...

Other-worldy food.

On my birthday morning he made me homemade donuts! If you have never had homemade donuts, you are seriously missing out and you need to make these right now. Seriously, stop what you're doing and make these. For my birthday dinner, Eric also made me some mouth-watering Greek-style porkchops, along with macaroni and cheese and ::homemade:: applesauce!

As part of the celebration, I will be posting some of these recipes for you to try out and enjoy. I cannot stress how incredible these meals were, and I cannot get over the fact that my boyfriend took that much time and effort to come up with that menu and make those meals just for me. Things have been a little rough lately with the job situation and money situation, and school is incredibly demanding, so being spoiled on my birthday and being able to appreciate each other has been a wonderful birthday gift in itself.

Let's start with donuts!

You'll need:
Pillsbury Grands biscuits (in the tube-- we do it upright)
vegetable oil
a deep skillet
a circle-shaped cutter
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
(this recipe makes 8 doughnuts)

Pour enough oil in your skillet so that it's about 1-1 1/2 inches thick. While it heats over medium heat, take your biscuits out of the tube. First, flatten one biscuit with your hand until it's about 1/4 inch thick. (There is no need to flatten with effort! Just enough to say it's flat.) Next, take your circle-shaped cutter-- we used a shot glass-- and cut a circle out of the middle. You'll do this for each biscuit.

 Now, you'll start frying! The oil should be hot enough that the dough starts frying immediately.

You'll fry the doughnuts AND the doughnut holes. The best part is watching the doughnut holes turn themselves over in the oil! The round doughnuts won't do this, so you'll need to flip them over once the bottoms are golden brown.

This will only take a few seconds, so pay attention!

Once both sides have fried nicely, you'll remove the doughnuts and place them on a paper towel-lined plate to absorb the excess oil.

To make the glaze, place the powdered sugar in a small bowl and add the milk and vanilla. Mix with a fork until smooth. When all the doughnuts are fried and you're ready to eat, pour a little glaze over each one. And get ready to have a tastegasm.

Stay tuned for the pork chop and applesauce recipes!

A Germy Exchange

Eric and I headed to Oklahoma this weekend to get away from the city and to enjoy one last "hurrah" before school really starts to demand all my time and the weather becomes an obstacle. It was really nice to go on a road trip together and see his family, and we managed to pack a lot in to a few short days, all summarized below!

A few highlights from the weekend:
-Getting to talk with my very best friend about our worries, our hopes and our love

-Spending the day with Eric's nephew, who is probably THE most energetic 8-year old I've ever met.
-Making up new words to songs on the radio on the drive down
-Watching Eric daintily spit out his sunflower seeds into a bottle with his pinky in the air
-Celebrating our friend Kelly's birthday at his house where he made spaghetti and meatballs from scratch
-Hanging out with Eric's sisters and parents and enjoying way too much food in a 3-day time span

A few LOWlights from this weekend:

-Making two 13-hour drives in a 4-day time span
-Finding out that one wheel on my car is likely to fall off the next time I drive on the highway (there goes $200 in repairs)
-Watching Eric and Kelly pick up dead rats/large mice with minimal sanitary equipment and subsequently worrying about lyme disease
-Enduring ridiculous allergies AND catching a severe cold which is still going strong

Despite the less exciting moments, we had a great time this weekend. It was a nice change of scenery and it's always great to get to see friends and family that live far away. That being said, I'm going to go down some DayQuil and reminisce over mountains of Kleenex and cough drops.

Sinful Burgers

Tonight Eric and I got a little adventurous with our burgers. We added several terrific ingredients and I love you all so much that I decided to share the recipe!

First, gather your ingredients (our recipe makes 4 burgers). We went with a spicy tropical theme:

Ground beef (80/20 makes moist  burgers, but you can go leaner if you want)
1/2 small can crushed pineapple
1 jalapeno, chopped
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup shredded cheese
1/2 an avocado, mashed (not soupy)

Also, any toppings of your choice. We had American cheese, shredded Cheddar Jack, tomatoes, avocado, and lettuce.

First, you need a strong man to tenderize the meat and cook up the onions in a small pan until they're soft.

Add the onions to the meat, along with the jalapeno and the drained pineapple. Once those ingredients are combined, add the cheese and divide the meat into patties.
 

Next, cook up the patties either on a grill, or you can cook them in a pan like we do (in a tiny kitchen, in a tiny apartment). It's best to only flip them once, so be patient after you start cooking. When they're done, add cheese if you so desire and let it get nice and melt-i-licious.

Serve them up on a bun with the extras of your choice, and enjoy the delicious sinfulness!

Pictures from Hawaii

At the end of July I flew out to Hawaii for the first time ever, and I stayed with Eric for 12 days. It was awesome. Many people told me to go to this island or go to that island, and as I had about $100 to spend over those 12 days, I mostly just nodded and smiled and stayed on Maui, except for a short 10 minute trip I took to Kona on one of Eric's flights.

That's right! I got to fly with my boyfriend in his professional workplace. I've flown with him several times before in little 4-seater planes, but never on an "official" flight, so it was pretty cool. It's always fun to turn to the other passengers and point to Eric and say "That's my boyfriend" and see them be A) jealous and B) suddenly much more interested and impressed with the incredibly scenic and smooth flight.

We did SO many things out there, and I could write up a novel about that trip-- but I'm already in pajamas and I have some Pinning to do, so instead, I shall tell my story in pictures! Enjoy!

First of all, Eric bought me a gorgeous new Anne Klein carry-on that has ::wheels::  Up until this point I've been using an old blue duffel bag I got free with my $50 purchase at Aeropostale 10 years ago. Especially on this trip, with my 6 connections (no, not exaggerating) the wheels were quite valuable.

 

This is Baby Beach; it's off to the side of Baldwin Beach, and the water is enclosed by a wall of lava rocks, which means the seaweed and killer sea creatures are far less likely to find their way into the area. 

 

Our first full day together in Hawaii; we took this picture at Baldwin Beach. Unfortunately it was cold, windy and cloudy-- but still beautiful!

This is Eric's good friend David. Everyone thinks he is French because of his accent-- he's not. He's actually from Israel. In this picture, David is drinking from a coconut at a small market we stopped at near Kihei. David took me around the island that day since Eric was at work, and it was really nice to not have to be stuck in a house all day in Hawaii!

My man flying as a captain for Pacific Wings! *sigh* I think I fell in love with him again about 12 times during that 45-minute flight...

 This was the gorgeous view above the clouds on that flight to Kona, just as the sun was setting.

This is the view of the shoreline of Maui on the way to Hana. I jumped on a flight with Eric and David and it was absolutely breathtaking. The beaches there are Baby beach and Baldwin.

I GOT IN THE OCEAN (at Big Beach in Kihei). This is a huge deal-- after years of jellyfish stings, Shark Week, and a traumatic Splash Zone experience at Sea World as a child, getting in the ocean was a pasttime I gave up years ago. But I figured, I'm in Hawaii. I can't NOT get in the ocean... It was awesome.
Two. Minutes. After this was taken, I was pummeled by a giant wave, my swimsuit was violently readjusted by the surf, and I proceeded to recommit myself to abstinence from the ocean. But for 5 minutes it was a great time.

 It was pretty sunny on Big Beach-- Eric cares a lot about skin health, so he took precautions.

 Eric had no trouble getting all sandy at Big Beach in Kihei. Sand in the crack? Not a problem for this guy!

 

 We took this picture as we entered the Royal Lahaina Luau...

The luau was fabulous-- the entertainment was just incredible, and sitting here just thinking about the food has made my mouth fill up with saliva. I know, that's gross. But that's how good it was! Add to that the all-you-can-drink Mai Tais and Blue Hawaiians-- people, that is what paradise is supposed to be like.

 

One afternoon we drove out toward Hana and stopped at Twin Falls. We hiked into the farm where the waterfall is located, and waded through frigid tundra runoff  very cold water to get to it. This is Eric directly under the water. I chose not to become hypothermic, and opted to be the picture-taker instead.

 

At the house where Eric was living there was a kitten, Nudles, who was extremely playful-- he even plays fetch! This is photographic proof that Eric (who claims an eternal hatred of cats) actually sat down to play with a cat. In this picture, Nudles is taking a break from fetch to attack Eric's foot.

It was a wonderful trip. I'm always going to remember my trip to Hawaii as an extremely fun, relaxing, romantic 12 day adventure.

Where did you go this summer?