Since the weather in North Carolina plays ping pong between all 4 seasons during this time of the year, sometimes its hard to have a set in stone menu for the week. Saying that, I have several meals that revolve around the weather. Beef Burgundy is one such meal. I have made Julia Child's recipe as well as Rachel Ray's. Mine fall somewhere between the two and it is a serious family favorite. The Yorkshire Pudding aka popover recipe is one that I have made for years and a recipe used by my mom. However, due to our weather patterns, we grilled out burgers at my parents' house on Monday.
Chimichangas on Tuesday, are a recent addition to our family faves that we tried last July.
Wednesday brought a love and a fail of recipes to my collection. Caramelized Onion & Bacon Smothered Pork Chops were fantastic! My only changes to this were: boneless pork chops, beef broth and 1/2 & 1/2 in place of heavy cream. Unfortunately, the Au Gratin Potatoes were the fail for the night. The only change was 1/2 & 1/2 instead of heavy cream, all other directions were followed (including the rest time) - but it was still VERY watery. I have never ran into this when substituting the 1/2 for the heavy cream. After reading the comments, I did find where the author says 1/2 will not work for this but there were others who used heavy cream and it was still watery/soupy. I have several more au gratin recipes that I want to try or already have tried, so I won't go back to this one to figure it out, because even though it was edible, we have others we'd rather eat.
Thursday brought us back to a stand by as the steaks were marked down at the grocery store. They were prepared simply; just sprinkled with kosher salt and pan seared until medium rare.
As much as I love to cook, there are times that I would rather work on a project, especially if I am in a great flow so the week ended up with Pizza Hut and Hunger Games, but that is fine, because that is life.
The other day, I wanted to make 2 new recipes and I didn't have a spice blend it called for. So, instead of running to the store, I Googled how to make it. I have a cabinet full of spices, so I figured that if I can make my on Not Lipton Onion Soup Mix, I can make spice blends too!
I searched and read and searched and read and came up with a mixture that would work for my family and I proceeded to make it! Now I have an abundance of Cajun Seasoning in my cabinet!
Later in the week, I didn't realized I had used all my McCormick's Montreal Seasoning. So, I did the Google thing again, and made my own.
The best part about doing this is that I know exactly what is in the blend and I am able to control the salt. The jar for the cajun seasoning is a 4oz jelly jar and was plum full. The extra was in a small dish that I used for the Lemon Thyme Pork Chops and Scalloped Potato Casserole.
The jar the Montreal Season is something I wanted to reuse since the lid was nice and tight. I used it on Hamburger Steaks and then again later for some Smashburgers with some other things like dill weed and more garlic powder added to it. As soon as I am out of another seasoning blend, I will make a homemade version up and share!
