Valentine’s Day Breakfast

We were still at our Gatlinburg time-share on Valentine’s Day, but it was my day to come home so Bev’s power shopping friends could move in, so we had a Valentine’s Day brunch.

We had a Groupon for Mel’s Classic Diner in Pigeon Forge and it sounded like the perfect place as I could have my favorite breakfast food and Bev could have her preferred lunch food – I love a traditional diner, where the owner cooks and the entire menu is available all day – and it has a jukebox.  Click on the above link for more info.

Bev ordered the philly cheese steak with fries and I ordered "Ms. Nita's Mo For Your Money Special" – two eggs, hash browns, biscuit and gravy, sausage, and bacon.  I forgot a shot when it first came on two plates, but this is how it looked after I fixed it - cut up the sausage, eggs, and potatoes together and moved the biscuit and gravy to the main plate (for the photo).

The cooks posed for a shot as we left.

Bev’s sandwich had a good flavor but would have been better had they chopped the meat (as is traditional) rather than just slice it as it was a little tough.  Mine was excellent with eggs cooked just the way I like them, the hash browns had a nice golden crust and the biscuit and gravy were very good.  And to add to our dining pleasure was the outstanding service by a very friendly and happy server.  If you're ever in Pigeon Forge and like diner food, I'd suggest you give Mel's a try, conveniently located on Wear's Valley Road (US 321) about 100 yards off the Parkway (US 441) - I know I'll go again.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  More From Gatlinburg - Hot Sauce

Two years ago:  Potato Pancakes At Almost Heaven South

Larry

2/14/12 meal date

A Couple Of Gatlinburg Breakfasts

We spent this week at our time share in Gatlinburg, Tn (I came home Tuesday and Bev and the power shoppers are still there) and were very excited at the prediction of up to 6” of snow on Saturday – I could get my snow fix.  But alas, we just had enough to barely hide the color of roofs, so we just did our usual things.  We usually eat most breakfast meals in the condo then go out for a late lunch or early dinner, and what follows are two of my breakfasts.

When Bev packed up the food stuff for the trip, she tossed in a piece of pork loin that hadn’t been cooked for our pork marsala meal.  She fried it in a little olive oil and butter then scrambled the eggs in the same pan, which gave them a great extra flavor – Mom always cooked the eggs in bacon grease, but I do that very sparingly now.

The second day, it was a ham and egg sandwich which included deli ham, cheddar cheese, mayo and the egg.  When I grew up a fried egg sandwich was always made by breaking the egg yolk and frying it hard and so I've always done it that way.  When we used to go to breakfast with friend Ashley, she nearly always ordered a bacon and egg biscuit with the egg over easy and I always thought “that ain’t right.”

Unless you’re a new reader, you know I like fried eggs with runny yolks and even while watching Ashley, it never occurred to me to use an over easy egg on a sandwich, until now.  What was I thinking – talk about food habits run amok – this was it.  So for this meal, I fried the deli ham in a little olive oil and butter and when it was done, I moved it over and added the egg.

For the sandwich, I added the hot ham to the bottom mayo’d bread, then the cheese, then the hot egg (the cheese melted some this way) then broke the yolk and added the top bread.

I wish I'd remembered to add a little green onion but I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten my last hard fried egg – what have I been thinking.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Gatlinburg In The Winter

Two years ago:  Valentines Day Supper At Almost Heaven South

Larry

2/11/2012 & 2/12/2012 meal dates

Pork Marsala

A while back, I’d mentioned that Bev had a list of dishes she wanted in the near future and that we were trying to clean out the freezer and these, plus a blog post, led to this dish.  One dish on her list is Chicken Marsala, the item we need to eat from the freezer is pork loin, and the posted recipe was Stuffed Pork Tenderloin from Ask Chef Dennis in which he used Marsala Sauce.  All I could do is ask myself “why hadn’t I thought of that.” 

I’d purchased a year’s subscription to the online video cooking school, Rouxbe, but hadn’t taken any lessons for a couple of months and needed to get back into it.  So the Saturday before the Super Bowl, I did the series on sauce making and was anxious to apply my learning’s, providing another incentive for this dish. 

Back in September, we made a Chicken Marsala dish that we both loved so I decided to use the same recipe and just substitute pork chops for the chicken breasts.  I told Bev I'd cook if she'd prep so she got everything ready (I did the meat) - I know why chefs have a sous-chef.

The cooking began by browning the chops in olive oil/butter.

I removed the chops and added the onion and country ham and then the mushrooms and garlic. 

When the mushrooms had cooked down, I added the liquids. 

When the sauce had thickened five of the chops went back into the pan and cooked to 145* internal temp.

We sided it with some reheated orzo left from the beef stir fry a few days ago.

I thought it was as good or better than the chicken, but Bev said it didn't have as much of a Marsala flavor.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Cosmopolitan

Two years ago:  Dippy Eggs Ala Larry

Larry

Prime Rib – It’s What’s For Breakfast Again

Unless you’re a new reader, you know we try to eat our leftovers and I use many of them for breakfast, such as these two meals.  We had scalloped potatoes, meat, and jus leftover from our recent prime rib dinner and I used all three in each meal.

The first one was simple warming of the potatoes and meat in the microwave and topping the potatoes with an over-easy egg.

For the second one I considered more options like a frittata and basic scramble, but I wanted to thicken the jus.  I’d recently completed the sauce making classes from the Rouxbe on line cooking school and wanted to make a Velouté sauce (butter, flour, broth) – turns out I’d been making this sauce for years and calling it gravy.  I had 1/3 cup of jus, so I used 1/3 Tbsp each of butter and flour.

I heated the diced prime rib meat in a little oil then added pre-warmed scalloped potatoes and beaten eggs to make a scramble.

The final concoction was a wet burrito.

I thought both meals were good but not company quality – I needed to kick up both of the potato dishes a little – Tabasco perhaps.  The gravy sauce could have cooked longer to thicken a little more, but the eggs were done and getting cold and I hate cold food.  The burrito wasn’t quite as good as the recent swordfish taco.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Fried Pasta - It's What's For Breakfast

Two years ago:  Nothing

Larry

2/5/2012 & 2/8/2012 meal dates

Belated Christmas Dinner

Cooking by our friends David and Peggy generally meals making a sandwich or heating up something in the microwave so for the last couple of years we’ve given them a prime rib dinner as a Christmas present and they recently came over for this year’s meal.  Preferring the smoker version, I can’t remember the last time I cooked prime rib in the oven and I’d never used it for the reverse sear method.

I used my normal homemade prime rib rub and applied it about an hour prior to cooking.  To cook, I laid it on a rack over a jelly roll pan, inserted a remote probe thermometer, and popped it in a 220* oven.  Then, I ran into a couple of problems – I misunderstood our meal time and the oven cooks a little faster than the smoker, so the meat was going to be done too early to just wrap in foil and put in a cooler until supper time. 

I tried cutting the oven temp back to 200* and then 175*, but the internal temp kept rising and was soon at my pull temp of 120*.  So rather than using a cooler, at 4 pm, I wrapped it in foil and put it in the toaster oven which I sat on 120* – it wouldn’t do 125*.

Then at 6:00, while we ate our salads, I increased the heat to 140* to rewarm the outside – the inside had gone up to 125* and remained there.  Then at 6:30, I unwrapped, and put it into the 450* oven for about 12 minutes for crust development.

Everything was delicious and the meat still turned out very well although it did have a little more well-done around the outside than normal which probably happened when I raised the temperature in the toaster oven.

We served it with au jus, scalloped potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and garlic cheese biscuits – David and Peggy don’t like the same veggies.

Later on we had chocolate lava cake with ice cream but I failed to get a shot of it.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Chicken With Fennel And Olives Ala Marie

Two years ago:  BBQ On A Cool Day

Larry

Saturday Humor

My Favorite Animal

Our teacher asked us what our favorite animal was, and I said, "Fried chicken."

She said I wasn't funny, but she couldn't have been right, because everyone else in the class laughed.

My parents told me to always be truthful and honest, and I am. Fried chicken is my favorite animal.

I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA. He said they love animals very much.

I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef. Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal's office. I told him what happened, and he laughed, too. Then he told me not to do it again.

The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was.

I told her it was chicken. She asked me why, just like she'd asked the other children, so I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken.

She sent me back to the principal's office again. He laughed, and told me not to do it again.

I don't understand. My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn't like it when I am.

Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most................

I told her, "Colonel Sanders."

Guess where I am now...

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Turkey Salad

Two years ago:  Tex Mex Day In Tennessee

Larry

German Night Again – Pork, Spaetzle, Green Spargel

We’ve wanted to try making spaetzle and we had a bunch of pork loin roasts in the freezer that need to be used, so we found a couple of good sounding recipes and decided go German.  The menu was pan fried pork chops with cream gravy, spaetzle, and steamed asparagus (as close as we could get to spargel – white asparagus).

We like the cooking of Tyler Florence so we used his recipe for the chops.

Smothered Pork Chops – Tyler Florence

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons onion powder

2 tablespoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 pork chops, 3/4-inch thick, bone-in

¼ cup olive oil

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup buttermilk

Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Directions

Put the flour in a shallow platter and add the onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper; mix with a fork to distribute evenly. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels to remove any moisture and then dredge them in the seasoned flour; shaking off the excess.

Heat a large saute pan or cast iron skillet over medium heat and coat with the oil. When the oil is nice and hot, lay the pork chops in the pan in a single layer and fry for 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove the pork chops from the pan and add  the onions and cook until golden brown. Add a little sprinkle of seasoned flour to the pan drippings. Mix the flour into the fat to dissolve and then pour in the chicken broth in. Let the liquid cook down for 5 minutes to reduce and thicken slightly. Stir in the buttermilk to make a creamy gravy and return the pork chops to the pan, covering them with the sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes until the pork is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with chopped parsley before serving.  I cooked them to 145* internal temp.

We decided on this recipe for the spaetzle and since Bev just bought a chunk of Gruyere, we went with the cheese part as well but used our pork gravy rather than the sautéed onion. 

Spaetzle - courtesy of Roland Radler, owner of Brats Brothers in Sherman Oaks, CA. 

Ingredients - adapted

1½ cups all-purpose flower

¾ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 eggs

3/8 cup 2 percent milk

2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

¾ tsp Onion powder (added by us)

¾ tsp Garlic powder (added by us)

Directions - adapted

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Sift the flour and salt and pepper together in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and milk in a medium bowl. Alternately mix the milk mixture into the flour until a smooth dough is formed – more like a thick pancake batter.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over medium heat and add 3 T butter.  Press batter thorough a spaetzle maker (we used a colander) into the water. When the spaetzle float to the top of the water, remove them with a slotted spoon to an oven safe dish. After first layer of spaetzle, add a layer of Swiss cheese. Continue layering until all of the spaetzle and cheese have been used.

Our spaetzle maker was a colander over a pan of water.

Bake the spaetzle until the cheese is melted, about 30 minutes.

We steamed the asparagus, topped it with grated Gruyere, and popped it in the warm oven for a few minutes.

My plate.

This was as good a pork chop as I've ever eaten and the other diners agreed.  This is surely a keeper but the gravy recipe didn't make quite enough for both the meat and a side dish.  I liked the spaetzle but didn't get it quite right because, without thinking, I used self-rising flour which made it too light.  The colander seemed to work fine for cooking as did cooking it in three batches.

After practicing on the spaetzle another time, I'd gladly serve this to company.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.  This was as good a pork chop as I've ever eaten and the other diners agreed.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Just A Couple More Breakfasts From Leftovers

Two years ago:  Store Bought Ravioli For Supper

Larry

1/31/2012 meal date