I saw this sandwich on a menu and then on a blog post from someone who had eaten a sandwich like this one at a restaurant yesterday. I am a firm believer in signs, especially food related ones, so I decided to make this sandwich when I got home from work yesterday. Peanut butter and chocolate is one of my favorite food combo's, and because I am Italian, it's pretty much a requirement to love good bread, so I knew this was going to be delicious.

I had a couple pieces of Italian bread laying around, peanut butter and some mini chocolate chips, which worked out well for this recipe. It took no time at all and was extremely delicious...this could be the end of my weight loss :)

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread

Peanut butter

Mini chocolate chips

2 tsp. butter

Thinly coat 1 side of each slice of bread with butter. Take one slice and smear peanut butter on the non-buttered side. The add a good amount of chocolate chips and cover with the other slice of bread, butter side up. Place sandwich in a panini press, George Foreman Grill, or just in a skillet. Cook until the bread is nicely toasted, and the chocolate has melted. Remove and place on a plate. Try to allow it to cool first before eating...this is the hardest part.

I HATE leftover food! I cannot stand to throw out food because it wasn't used in time or because no one ate the leftovers. I am constantly bringing in meals for people that I work with, because not only does it give me a great deal of satisfaction to give people good food, but because I am so happy that it's not going to waste!

If I end up with a couple of odds and ends from other meals in the refrigerator, I cannot help but think about what to do with them all day until I figure it out. I almost feel like it consumes my life until I make something deliciously tasty out of the leftover bits! 

This meal was definitely an accumulation of foods that either were leftover from another meal, or needed to be used before they went bad...or in the case of the pork chops, both! I need to cook the corn on the cob while it was still at its peak of freshness and deliciousness, and I had a couple of pork chops that were already beaten until thin, that were left over from the stuffed pork chops that were made over the weekend. I also noticed that I had a handful of tater tots left over in the freezer that could probably be used to round off this slapshot meal. It definitely didn't end up being the most elegant meal, but it was super delicious!

Ingredients:

Corn on the cob, husked

Left over Tater Tots

Pork chops, beaten until thin

Homemade bread crumbs (see previous post)

Left over sauce from the tiny bit in the bottom of the jar :)

1 egg

Splash of milk

Olive oil or vegetable oil for frying

Cook the Tater Tots according to the instructions on the bag, and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, place the ears of corn into the water and cook for 15 mins. While the corn and tots are cooking you can get started on the breaded pork chops. Crack an egg into a bowl and add a splash of milk (or water) and whisk until combined. The milk or water helps to loosen the egg so that you don't end up with scrambled eggs on your pork chop. Place bread crumbs on a plate. Take a pork chop and cover it with the egg mixture, allow the excess to drip off back into the bowl. Then, cover it with the bread crumbs (just like you would if you were breading chicken). After each pork chop has been breaded, heat a skillet with enough oil to coat the bottom. Over medium heat, gently add the pork chops to the pan, making sure not to crowd the pan. Because the chops are thin, they will only need a couple of minutes on each side. Remove pork and place on newspaper or paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

Remove Tots and Corn once they have finished cooking and arrange all items on a plate. I also took the little bit of left over red sauce from the fridge and heated it up in the microwave, to use as a dipping sauce. You could use any other sauces that you like, or completely omit it, depending on your tastes.

Bread Crumbs are probably one of my favorite things to make because they are so easy and you always have the ingredients on hand. I have to be careful of the MSG that is in most bread crumbs, so making them myself is much safer and cheaper! Depending on what you are using them for, or what you are putting them on, will determine what type of spices you can or want to put in.

Ingredients:

• Day old bread, toasted
• Spiced of your liking (yesterday I used garlic powder, salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme

Take your toasted bread and cut it into 1 inch pieces. Put bread into a food processor with a pinch of the spices that you would like to use, and pulse the processor until you have crumbs the size that you would like them. You can leave them a little larger if you want a more rustic look, or more fine for a more even breading.

I hosted Christmas brunch this past Christmas for my family, and my husbands family. It was the first time that our parents had met, and I had tons of anxiety about how the meeting would go since we would be getting married in 6 months. To top the normal anxiety over two completely different families meeting, I also had to create something for everyone to eat. Our families are complete different, not only in their daily lives and beliefs, but also in their tastes in food. My mother in law is a vegetarian, which is  no problem, but she is also allergic to night shade veggies (which is basically everything I eat!). And my parents are not fans of beans, rice and burritos, which is what my mother in-law really only eats. A week before Christmas, I finally decided on a menu. I would do bagels, homemade veggie cream cheese, orange juice, etc, but I still needed a main star dish!

So I finally figured out that I would make a quiche. I did some research and found that all quiche's start out with basically the same ingredients, and then you can add whatever extra ingredients that you would like. I decided that everyone would like cheddar cheese (who doesn't love some Vermont cheddar cheese) and spinach. The more I make this dish, the more I experiment with different added ingredients, my husband especially loves when I add bacon to the  mix :)

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 cup half and half

1/2 cup mayo

2 tablespoons flour

1/3 cup minced onions

8 or so, ounces of shredded cheddar cheese

2-3 cups chopped fresh spinach

5 cooked strips of bacon (I used have the amount, because I only put it on half of the quiche)

salt, pepper, garlic powder

1 frozen deep dish pie crust

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Hand whip eggs, half and half, mayo, and flour in a bowl. Then fold in onions, cheese, spinach, bacon, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Pour mixture into the pie crust, and place in oven. Bake for 45 mins. Remove from oven and let sit for about 10 mins to set up.