Recipe for Curried Pork Chops and Gravy

This is by no means low in calories; I would call this comfort food. My dad was all about making comfort food. Back in my childhood, no one really thought about cutting out the fat in dishes, because the fat was where all the flavor was. Though I don't make this dish very often, I would like to say I do have it on the table for special occasions, like Easter or birthdays.

Here is what you need to make curried pork chops and gravy:

2 heaping tablespoons of butter
4 pork chops
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup of Bisquick
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder
2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
2 cups of milk
1 package of Lipton Onion Soup Mix

Here is what you do:

Heat up a skillet on medium low heat; add the butter and let it begin to sizzle. Dip the pork chops in the egg and dredge through the Bisquick (Save the Bisquick for the gravy). Place the pork chops into the sizzling butter and let it pan fry on one side until there is a nice crust on it and then flip it over to fry on the other side. Take the pork chops out and drain on a paper towel or napkins while you make the gravy.

In a blender add the milk, curry, mushroom soup and milk. Blend for just a couple of seconds and slowly add to the skillet, stirring all the time. Add the Lipton Onion Soup Mix and continue to stir the gravy until it is done.

Serve with mashed potatoes and a green salad if you like.

Enjoy!

Recipe for Red Snapper

I try to have a good fish dinner at least twice a week for my family. I like fish, but I don't like fish that has a strong fishy taste. If there is a hint of a strong oily fishy taste my family will not touch it and neither will I.

Here is what you need:

1 pound of red snapper fillets
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of minced garlic
2 tablespoons of lemon juice (real not bottled)
1 cup of buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1 small diced onion
1 cup of sliced black olives
Aluminum foil


Here is what you do:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place a layer of aluminum foil down in your baking pan so there is little clean up after the fish is baked. Spread half of the oil onto the aluminum foil, and then spread the rest of the oil onto the fillets. Next pour about 1/4 cup of buttermilk onto the foil. Arrange your fish on the foil, cover with garlic, onions and black olives and then cover with the rest of the buttermilk. Sprinkle the red pepper flakes over the layer of buttermilk.

Bake the fish for 15 minutes. The fish should be light and flaky. When you take the red snapper out of the oven squeeze on the lemon juice over the fillets and serve with a side salad and baked potato if desired.

Dad's Recipe for Homemade Sausage

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and we showed up at church just as the sun was coming up over the horizon. It was cold. My jacket wasn't enough to really keep me warm, but it had to do. I made myself comfortable by covering my hands with my jacket sleeves, while I enjoyed the service. After sunrise service was over, we went into the fellowship hall to have breakfast.

The men had been up since 3 a. m. cooking breakfast for the crowd. What a wonderful breakfast feast it was! There was bacon, ham, and home made sausage. The sausage was out of this world! When I asked about the sausage, I learned that it was made by one of the men of the church. The man is a farmer and he raises hogs, and he donates meat and sausage from several hogs every spring to raise money for the church and to help feed some of the less fortunate people.

On the table was two huge bowls full of scrambled eggs, and a big crock pot full of homemade grits. There was a platter of cheese and fruit, and platter after platter of homemade biscuits. After breakfast was over, I was helping to clean up, and the cooks told my pastor and me to get all that we wanted and take it home. I made two to-go plates loaded up with bacon, ham and sausage. I wrapped up more than a dozen biscuits to go also. Oh! That was the best breakfast I had ever had in my entire life!

This Easter breakfast reminded me of the homemade sausage that my dad used to make. We didn't have hogs, but my uncle did, and my dad helped my uncle make sausage for our families and to have for sale. I don't think the sausage tasted just the same as what my dad and uncle made, but the sausage I ate yesterday put me in mind of it.

I'm going to give a really cut down version of how my dad and uncle made breakfast sausage. You need to have a meat grinder to make good sausage. Dad made sausage rather hot, because that is the way we liked it, and so did the customers that bought it.

Here is what you need to make homemade sausage:

6 pounds pork shoulder
1 pound of fat back
5 teaspoons of kosher salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
2 cloves of chopped garlic
2 tablespoons of red pepper
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons of sage
2 teaspoons of thyme
2 and 1/2 teaspoons of black pepper
1/2 cup of sherry vinegar

Here is what you do:

Cut up the pork and fat back into small pieces and feed it into a meat grinder. After you have ground the meat add all of the other ingredients and and mix it together until the meat and spices are totally infused into the meat. You will then split up the sausage into approximately 1 pound packages; but before you do you will want to make sure your sausage tastes the way you want it to. Sample some of your sausage by frying it up in a skillet. The sausage should have a good balance of heat, tang and spice.

Enjoy!

Recipe for My Almost Homemade Country Breakfast

My dad was all about comfort foods; now days it is not so good to eat too much comfort food because it will make you gain weight if you don't move around enough to burn it off. Since I can only eat a child's portion I can eat almost anything, as long as I don't do any snacking at night.

I remember waking up in the mornings with bacon or sausage frying, and dad would make homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs and hash browns. My dad did everything the old fashioned way, which is always better than the mass produced foods, but since I am not the cook that my dad was, I like to do things my way. This meal takes about 25 minutes to prepare and serve. When the biscuits are done so is everything else if you cooked everything while your biscuits are in the oven.

On my griddle I lay out some premade hash browns. They come in a box and they are shaped sort of square. I also lay out some sausage patties made by Jimmy Dean. While they are cooking on the griddle I scramble up a bunch of eggs. If you want to cut down on the fat, omit half of the yolks. If you are scrambling 2 eggs, leave off one yolk if you wish.

Open up a can of Grand's Biscuits and lay them out on a pan and bake them according to the directions on the package.

Open up an envelope of instant gravy. It says to add water, but I add milk and water. Bring it to a boil stirring frequently.

Although this is a breakfast meal, you can have it for supper too. You can have it any time your heart desires.

When it all gets done serve it up on plates and enjoy!