Personal Egg and Sausage Pizzas

So much potential, and it just didn't pay off for me...but the family liked it.  I found this recipe in the mymagzine that was mailed to my house from Smith's.

I've recently discovered naan flatbread.  I like to eat it warmed up with a bit of butter.  Or I've used the little rounds of naan bread to make mini pizzas for my kids with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.  But this recipe was about Breakfast for Dinner.

The first thing I would say is LINE THE COOKIE SHEETS WITH PARCHMENT.  The flatbread stuck to the pan and the egg mixture baked onto the pan.  Clean up was awful.  The hash browns didn't add a lot of flavor and I wonder if baking them before (or using Alton Brown's recipe) would make a difference.  I bought and cooked sausage links and cut them up instead of pre-cooked sausage patties to crumble.  I think patties would make more sense and be easier to sprinkle across the surface of the pizzas.  I shredded my own cheese instead of buying the finer shredded store bought stuff.  I think a finer shred would act as a barrier to the egg mixture better than what I did.  I didn't dice the tomatoes small enough, but they lost the fresh tomato taste and were really yummy being roasted (yes, this is coming from someone who doesn't like tomatoes).

All these good ingredients ended up for me with a bland taste and not worth the effort.  (A bland quiche is what it reminded me of when I was aiming for Christmas Casserole.)  However, the kids liked it, and Nate ate two full flatbreads.  Maybe with a bit of practice, I can get this one to work.

Salt-Baked Potatoes with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Butter

 Two posts in one day because this recipe needs its own post.  To quote Nate, this recipe is so good that "if we weren't already married, I'd marry you on the spot!"  High praise indeed.

I found this recipe back in 2012 from America's Test Kitchen and I have always been pleased with the results.  (Email me if you need to for the recipe.)

What made today different, and worthy of renew our vows, was that I used Yukon gold potatoes instead of russet and Nate had roasted MANY cloves of garlic earlier in the week to make his own "garlic butter" (without the butter.). When served with sour cream and chives and the garlic butter (and accompanying the Glazed Pork Chops) this was a fantastic dinner.

This recipe takes time (1 1/2 hours) but the results are worth it.  The potatoes are soft and creamy inside and the skins are crispy and delicious.  And even though I made extras to finished off the bag of potatoes, there were no leftovers.  I love it when I get a recipe right.

Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce

 Day 3 of New Recipe week and I'm still working in the Our Best Bites recipe book with Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce (again, the recipe is coming from someone else's blog).  I liked this recipe, but I need some practice with it to make it better.

I overloaded my pan with too many pork chops, so cooking was slow.  I didn't pull out my cooking thermometer, so the pork chops were overcooked and dried.  I only purchased apricot preserves instead of apricot-pineapple preserves and the flavor was definitely missing.  The spices didn't penetrate the pork as much as I would want, so next time I will let it sit for 10 minutes or so before cooking.  (That's a tip from this wonderful pork recipe from Cook's Country.)

With all those problems, the pork did turn out good, and my husband (who doesn't generally like pork) said that I should do this one again.  That is a win in my book.

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas

 Day 2 of new recipes this week and I'm serving rice again to my husband.  Yikes!

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas is another recipe from Our Best Bites (but the link to the recipe is to someone's blog).  This was a 4 star recipe, that my husband liked...with the rice.  Yay!  The store didn't have any snow peas, so canned peas it was, but the chicken was flavored wonderfully and everyone liked it.  (Okay, my son wasn't a fan of the ginger.).  The chicken would be really easy to overcook, so be careful.  However, the sauce needs time to thicken up, so there's a really fine line to work with for perfection.