Crossroads

Tonight I've been enjoying Eric Clapton's Crossroad's Guitar Festival ('07) on PBS. It was excellent! Wow. I haven't heard Jeff Beck in years; and the bassist he had playing with him, Tal Wilkenfeld, is an amazing young woman. Very reminiscent of Stanley Clarke, although she doesn't plunk the strings like he does. Anyhoo, check out the video. (That is if I did this right.) Of course, there were other excellent performers, Willie (as in Nelson), BB King, Sheryl Crow, etc. But I really enjoyed Jeff Beck's performance the most. Think I'll have to buy a couple of cd's for Christmas presents.



If it doesn't work, give her a google. It's worth the time.

Speaking of crossroads, I'm continuing to turn the corner and beginning to enjoy the kitchen as it should be enjoyed. Tonight, I cooked yet another delicious recipe from America's Test Kitchen cookbook. I had decided upon pork chops and was just going to bake them and thought I would take a look and see what ATK said to do with them. Low and behold, I had every ingredient I needed. Amazing. I did, however, substitute fresh thyme because I didn't have any dried. Everything was a tad overcooked as I had to run and pick the kid up from church and I was a couple minutes late in getting home and taking them out of the oven when they should have been. Oh well. They were still very good.

ATK Crunchy Pork Chops

• 1 (5 oz) box plain Melba toasts, broken into rough pieces
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t garlic powder
• 1/2 t onion powder
• 1/2 t paprika
• 1/2 t dried thyme
• 1/8 t sugar
• 6 T mayonnaise
• 4 boneless rib pork chops (I used 5)
  

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the Melba toasts, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, thyme and sugar in a zip lock bag. Seal the bag and pound to course crumbs, leaving some crumbs the size of small pebbles. (I put the bag of toast in one zip lock and then put that bag in another zip lock. I always seem to get holes in my bags when I beat them. This way, it stays inside the bags and you don't get the crumbs everywhere. I then transferred all the crumbs to the second back because, yes, the bag with the crumbs was full of holes.)
2. Add 2 tablespoons of mayo to the bag and work the mayo into the crumb mixture. Transfer the crumb mixture to a large plate.
3. Working with one chop at a time, coat with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise using your fingers, then coat thoroughly with the crumb mixture. (I put the plop of mayo on all the chops before going to the step of putting crumbs on them. This way, you don't have to pick the mayo jar up for each chop and get it all goopy.) Press on the breadcrumbs to make sure they adhere, then lay the chop on a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet.
4. Bake the pork on the wire rack until the coating is golden brown and the center of a chop registers 135 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, 16-22 minutes. Transfer the chops to a clean plate and let rest until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 145 to 150 degrees before serving, 5 to 10 minutes.

I also whipped up some more of that Green Goddess salad dressing. It is soooo good. I am loving all my new Penzey's spices that I purchased for the new kitchen. It is all so fresh and makes such a difference in the taste of food.

And then for dessert, as if all that wasn't enough fat, we had Chocolate Pots de Creme. Jim had made them before leaving on Monday. All I had to do was whip up the cream and top them off. OMG. They were deadly. I could only eat half. He taught me last year how to cover whipped cream so it will last a day or so. I can hardly wait to dig into it again tomorrow night.



Push the plastic wrap up against the whipped cream to keep the air from getting to it. (Don't you just love my green seran wrap? The teenager bought it for me on "sale." Hmmm, wonder why it was on sale? ha.)