Sock Monkey Giveaway WINNER!

I kinda wanted everyone to win this one because I got SO many fun ideas for new monkeys... but there could be only one, and the random number generator chose #14, who is:

thamarai

Funnily enough, thamarai also lives in Eindhoven. So, random number generator apparently decided to keep things close to home this time!

thamarai said...

Cutie cute! :) The blog looks awesome, seriously! A sock monkey with a saree sort of a thingy maybe..:)

So it appears that I will be learning how to make and drape a saree. I have a suspicion I might need to do a few trial runs for this one!

thamarai, drop me an e-mail and we can discuss specifics! I'll need a few weeks to make her and then I'll get her to you! Congratulations!

P.S. I am having plans for another monkey giveaway to celebrate a "grand opening" of sorts in the next few weeks but I need to finish another rather important to my life here in The Netherlands project first. So stay tuned!

Crunchy Pork Chops & Garlicky Spinach Tomato Salad

Nigella Lawson is this week's FNCCC chef! From browsing her recipes, I take it that she really really likes chocolate. There were some really yummy looking dessert recipes but I went another direction and did pork chops instead!

Crunchy Pork Chops with Garlicky Spinach and Tomato Salad
Courtesy Nigella Lawson

Ingredients
Pork chops:

• 2 pork chops, approximately 8 ounces each (Mine weren't that big, probably closer to 5 oz)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup bread crumbs (You will only need 1 cup of bread crumbs if you also plan on breading yourself along with the pork chops! I used about a half a cup and still had oodles of waste)
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan
• 1 cup ground nut oil or similar, for frying (I used 1/4 cup peanut oil and probably still could've used a bit less)

Garlicky spinach and tomato salad:

• 3 medium tomatoes
• 1/2 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 4 cups baby spinach leaves (I don't think you can even find baby spinach here, so I just used regular)
• Salt and pepper
• I added a sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese to this too

Directions

Trim the thick white fat off the pork chops, cutting carefully around the outside edge. Lay the chops between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and, using a mallet or a rolling pin beat them until the meaty part of the chop is half as thick. You will need to beat around the bone, so turn them over once as you go. I skipped this entire process. My pork chops were already rather lean and quite thin to begin with.

Beat the egg in a shallow wide bowl with the mustard, oregano, and salt and pepper. On a large plate or platter, combine the breadcrumbs with the Parmesan.

Press each of the chops into the egg mixture, coating either side. Then dip the eggy chops (for no reason whatsoever I start giggling every time I read the phrase 'eggy chops') into the bread crumbs, covering them evenly. Let them lie on a cooling rack to dry slightly while you heat the oil in a large frying pan. When a small cube of bread sizzles if dropped into the oil, then the oil is hot enough. Cook the chops until they are a deep golden color, about 5 to 7 (or 3-4) minutes a side (depending on how thin you've managed to get them and how cold they were before going in the oil).

Meanwhile, quarter the tomatoes and take out the seeds, then cut the shells into strips and dice them. You can take off the skins, too, if you prefer, by steeping the tomatoes first into a bowl of just boiled water for 3 to 5 minutes. Combine the diced tomato, minced or grated garlic, oil, and lemon juice in a bowl, and season well with salt and pepper.

When the chops are ready, toss the spinach in the tomato mixture until well coated and divide the salad between 2 large plates, putting each chop alongside.


The Verdict: Both Martijn and I loved these! The outside of the chops was perfectly crispy and the inside was nice and tender. The salad was also wonderful. These also come together REALLY fast. I think I had dinner done in less than 20 minutes which is practically a world record for me. I highly recommend giving this recipe a try!

Hop on over to I Blame Thank My Mother for more FNCCC and Balancing Beauty and Bedlam for more Tasty Tuesday recipes!

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P.S. If you missed my new blog design reveal post, go back and check it out! I'm giving away a customized sock monkey to one lucky person.

Menu Plan Monday- March 15, 2010

I'm trying to get back into my normal routines that I've let go by the wayside. Life is at least 70% simpler if I menu plan, and I KNOW this. Why is it so dang hard to follow-through and actually DO it!

• Pasta with Salmon and Dill Sauce
• Hutspot- It's starting to warm up a little but it's still not so warm that a nice winter comfort food isn't still tasty.
• Crunchy Pork Chops with Garlicky Spinach & Tomato Salad- FNCCC recipe for this week! Watch for it on Wednesday.
• Caramelized Ham- (recipe is in Dutch) We have a little beenham in the freezer so I figured this would be a good way to use it!
• Bierock Casserole- I've never had this but it looks tasty enough.
• Sauerkraut Tarts- (recipe is in Dutch)I can use leftover sauerkraut and ham for these.

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P.S. If you missed my new blog design reveal post, go back and check it out! I'm giving away a customized sock monkey to one lucky person.

Het Loo

I have to admit that I'm really stretching the limitations on my "H" for this week since technically het is the Dutch equivalent of "the", but I hope that Mrs. Matlock will see that my heart is in the right place and not think of me as a rule bending heathen.

Het Loo Palace (Paleis Het Loo) was the residence of the royal family for nearly 300 years, and has now been restored into a museum and gardens for the public. You can't take pictures inside the palace itself, but check out this link to take a peek into one of the bedrooms.

The gardens of Het Loo are absolutely lovely though and you CAN take pictures out there!

This type of garden is called parterre, which is "an ornamental garden where beds and paths are arranged to form a pattern."
Immaculately trimmed scrolly hedges are surrounded by topiaries and different types of annuals and perennials which are also framed with hedges.

There are many statues and fountains throughout the gardens.

If you turn around and look back at the palace, you will see these lovely golden doors. How'd you like your back doors to look like that?!

Surrounding the garden is a massive moat of epic proportions. Okay, massive moat of epic proportions might be a bit of a hyperbole, but it sounds more impressive than "little wimpy ditch around the outer edges."

A wide variety of plants go into the gardens so that they can be enjoyed year round.

I'd really like to know where I can find seeds for an orange tree like this though!

I should mention that Loo is pronounced more like "lo" (rhymes with "though") and not "loo" (rhymes with zoo). I know better, but I say it like "loo" and giggle because I'm immature and it sounds like what Brits call the toilet. *ahem*

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I'm participating in Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday! Click the link below to see what other hopefully happy things people have posted about.

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P.S. If you missed my new blog design reveal post, go back and check it out! I'm giving away a customized sock monkey to one lucky person.

Chicken Pinwheels

I had to look HARD this week or a recipe that I wanted to make. I'm suffering from "lack of motivation to do anything lately" syndrome. It'll pass, but it's making feeling excited about cooking hard right now. I did actually cook for last week's challenge, but I was suffering from "lack of motivation to post about it" syndrome. It'll go up at some point in the future, because the pictures are sitting here staring me in the face saying "Why didn't you love me enough to post about me?"

Anyhow, now that that blathering is out of the way I'll get to the point! I made Michael Symon's Chicken Pinwheels for the FNCCC this week. I had my eyebrows raised at some of the ingredients (pickles?) but decided to go for it. The recipe is for 8, but I only cooked for the two of us.

Ingredients

8 boneless skinless chicken breasts
6 ounces sliced ham
8 ounces smoked bacon
4 eggs beaten
3 diced pickles (dill, sweet, or sours, your preference)
1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons chopped tarragon (I used dried and added it into the sauce before putting things in the oven instead of as a garnish at the end)

Directions

Place chicken in between plastic wrap and pound out until 1/4-inch thick (I rather enjoy using my meat mallet for such things). Place 1 slice of ham and 1 slice of bacon onto each breast of chicken. Lightly scramble the eggs and let cool. Divide eggs evenly over chicken and spread out. Top with diced pickles and roll into pinwheels. Once chicken is rolled, tie with string to secure (Unwaxed dental floss or... undyed cotton crochet thread works if you don't have kitchen twine). Heat the butter in a saute pan and brown chicken rolls. Remove chicken rolls from the pan and set aside. Add flour to the same saute pan, and cook until light brown. Add the chicken stock, making sure to stir out any lumps. Return chicken to pan and place in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour (I think 1 hour is too long. It might've been because I was only baking two rolls, but I took them out after about 40 minutes and they were well on their way to being VERY dried out). Remove from oven and sprinkle with chopped tarragon. Slice each breast into 4 pieces and serve with 2 tablespoons of sauce.

The Verdict: We both liked these. I was actually suprised how well they turned out. The stock I used was a tad on the salty side, but that's fixable. Also the cooking time needed to be tweaked a little but in all it's a pretty good recipe!

Thanks to Sarah at I Blame Thank My Mother for hosting The Food Network Chef's Challenge every week!

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P.S. If you missed my new blog design reveal post, go back and check it out! I'm giving away a customized sock monkey to one lucky person.

The Big Reveal & A Giveaway!

Giveaway is now CLOSED! Thanks to all who entered.

After weeks of much hair pulling and becoming more intimately involved with CSS and HTML than I ever wanted to be, I am ready to reveal my super secret project- My new blog design!

In order to celebrate the new monkey-tasticness of it, I've decided to giveaway a monkey to one of you lucky lucky people. Even better, I will customize him (or her) especially for you! What YOU need to do is tell me what type of monkey you'd ask for if you won.

Need some ideas?

I've also found some new fuzzy socks to make monkeys from!

Again, to enter all you need to do is comment on THIS post (if you're reading via the RSS feed, click through and make sure to comment on the post) and tell me what kind of monkey you'd like if you won. If it's wildly complex, you might need to give me some time to work my magic! I'll ship worldwide and use the random number generator to pick a winner. Giveaway ends March 17, 2010.

Good luck!

Green Gorgeous Giethoorn

Giethoorn is a village in the province of Overijssel. It literally means "goat horn," and was named that way because the first settlers found masses of goat horns everywhere in the area. It's referred to as the "Venice of the North" because there are no roads in the center of the village.

People park their cars and hop into a boat to make their way into the center of the village.

All of the homes have thatched roofs which kindof makes it a fairytale-like village to wander through.

The homes are pretty much right on the waters edge. I'd always be worried I was going to drop the lawnmower in the canal if I lived here.

Here you can see one of the canal "streets."

Boats galore!

You CAN get around via the footpaths and footbridges in the village if you don't have a boat and don't feel like going for a swim (you can't really swim, the canals are only about 1 meter deep).

I think that it's quite a picturesque place to visit, though there really isn't a whole lot to do other than ride the canal boat and take some nice pictures. I don't know that I would make a trip JUST to go there, but if you're nearby I'd say it's worth a peek!

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I'm participating in Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday! Click the link below to see what other great goodly things people have posted about.