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.