What have I been doing (cooking edition)...2/24/12...

Sorry I've been gone so long... in the middle of a bunch of fun projects, so I plan to be posting quite a bit in the next couple days...

I did try a new recipe last night (although I didn't get any pictures so you will have to just imagine it)...  The recipe is Pork Chops Marsala, and I found it right here on Cooking Light.com (it is one of the many recipes I pinned on Pinterest).

Those that know me really well, know that I don't eat red meat, and contrary to what commercials would have you believe pork is really not the other white meat, but I figured that all mixed in with the marsala sauce I could just pretend that it was chicken... it sorta worked!!

We found this recipe as written, kind of -meh-.  After I type the recipe, I will add some things that I will change if I ever make it again, so you might want to read those too!!

Pork Chop Marsala
Yields: 4 servings (serving size 1 pork chop and 1/2 cup sauce)

Ingredients:
6 tbsp all-purpose flour, divided
4 (4 oz) boneless center-cut loin pork chops (about 1/2 inch thick)
Cooking spray
1/3 cup minced shallots (about 2)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 (8 ounce) package presliced mushrooms
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup Marsala wine or dry sherry
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Preparation:
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Place 1/4 cup flour in a shallow dish.  Dredge pork in flour. Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add pork to pan; cook 4 minutes on each side or until browned.  Remove pork from pan.

Add shallots, garlic, and mushrooms to pan; saute 3 minutes or until moisture evaporates.  Add remaining 2 tbsp flour and thyme to pan, and cook for 1 minute stirring well.  Combine chicken broth and marsala, stirring until smooth.  Gradually add broth mixture to pan, stirring constantly with a whisk; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Return pork to pan; cook 2 minutes or until desired degree of doneness, turning to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

* This is a really easy dish to make, so I was disappointed that there wasn't much taste at all!!  If I were to try this again, this is what I would change...

-double the amount of shallots to 2/3 cup
-double the amount of garlic to 4 tsp
- half the amount of thyme to 1 tsp
- double the amount of marsala wine to 1/2 cup (you will need to increase the cooking time if you increase the liquid amount in order to burn off the alcohol).

I think by doing all these things, the flavor would be increased and it would be a fabulous recipe!!!!!

What I did this weekend...

It's been a while since I blogged, but I'm still here, I just haven't really had anything fun and/or creative to blog about.

The hubby and I went to Las Vegas last week to celebrate his brother's 40th birthday.  We went with 3 other couples.  It was a good time!

So last week, I spent pretty much the whole week just getting the house back in order, the laundry all done, and then the boys were out of school Thurs and Fri for conferences, so we did a few fun things those days.

This weekend, the 7 year old had a 9:00 basketball game, then my mom and I went to the KC Home Remodeling and the Lawn and Garden show at the American Royal.  Then on Sunday, I did laundry, cleaned up, went to a 31 party, went grocery shopping, then watched the Grammys!

I'm sure you all feel so honored to have a run-down of my weekends!  Today's plan is to clean the bathrooms, vacuum the house and then if there's time work on some fun creative projects... I will post later if I get anything done!

Candlestick-y things...

So my neighbor used to be a consultant for Southern Living at Home.  She recently decided to end her consultant-ship (is that a word?), and was selling off all her inventory on hand at rock-bottom prices, so I bought a few things from her like two of these candlestick-y things...

 

 So, when I got them from my neighbor, I really liked the color, but then I placed them in my living room and I decided I didn't really like the color anymore.  So, I decided to spray paint them!!  The glass "jar" part is permanently attached to to the base.  Step 1: tape off the glass so no paint gets on it...

 Next: Cover the top of the glass with wax paper and tape it down securely so paint won't get inside the "jar".

The next step is to sand off all the current paint and rough up the base so the spray paint will stick to it... in this picture you can see the difference... the one on the left has been sanded, the one on the right has not yet been sanded...

The next step is to spraypaint... my only question was, "what color?"  I debated for a long time and then because our living room is a pretty dark grayish-green and our furniture is chocolate brown, and we have a white fireplace and white trim and white blinds...

So I decided to paint them white to bring some of the white off the walls into the center of the room...

 I used Rustoleum White Satin and a Rustoleum Matte Clear coat.

I decided to fill it with some orange-y pebbles that I had stored in my guestroom closet until last week!!  I will probably also get some candles to go in there too, but I didn't have any of those laying around...

 Here's what they look like on the coffee table in front of the love seat!  I LUVVVV them!!!