Smothered Pork Chops

This recipe from Cook's Country is easier than it looks. It takes a while to make -- figure at least 30 minutes prep time, then an hour and a half in the oven ­-- but the short ingredient list means that it's easy, just time-consuming. And the result is tender pork chops soaking in a thick and delicious onion gravy.

Make sure to have a backup plan for once you've eaten all the meat, because you'll probably still have gravy left afterwards. Serve it over brown rice.

Ingredients

• Spice mix:
• Note: if using the spice mix we have on the counter, that has no salt in it; you will need to salt the chops and sauce.
• 30mL Lowry's Seasoned Salt
• 15mL onion powder
• 5mL garlic powder
• 5mL sweet paprika
• 5mL freshly ground black pepper
• 4 bone in blade or rib end pork chops, ~225g each
• 250mL all-purpose flour
• 125mL peanut oil
• 2 onions, quartered through the root and then sliced thinly
• 750mL water
• 15mL cider vinegar

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Combine the spice mix components.
3. Put the pork chops on a drying rack over a rimmed baking sheet (to catch drips). Rub 2.5mL of spice mix on each side of each pork chop.
4. Combine 20mL of spice mix with half the flour (125mL). Dredge each pork chop in it.
5. Heat the oil in a deep-sided skillet over medium high heat. Pan-fry each pork chop until golden brown on both sides, ~3-4 minutes per side. Return the chops to the rack.
6. Pour off the oil/pork fat/flour/spice mix from the skillet into a liquid measure. Return 64mL to the skillet over medium heat.
7. Mix in the remaining flour and stir until it becomes a thick, peanut-butter-coloured roux, ~3 minutes.
8. Add the onions and remaining spice mix and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions begin to soften, ~2 minutes.
9. Slowly stir in the water to form a smooth gravy.
10. Simmer for ~2 minutes, until it starts to thicken.
11. Pour half the gravy into a baking dish. Put the pork chops on top, overlapping them if necessary. Cover with the rest of the gravy.
12. Cover the baking dish tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 1.5 hours.

Maccarony Cheese

Two Ounces of best Glocester Cheese, 4 Ounces Cheshire Do. grated – put it into a Stone Mortar with two Eggs, two or three Spoonfulls of Sack or Mountain Wine, beat it ’till it’s well mixt and Light – Boil the Maccarony in Water very tender, then drain it well, put it on a Dish or Plate and lay the prepared Cheese all over it and brown it with a Salamander.

This late 18th century recipe for macaroni and cheese comes courtesy of Cooking in the Archives. We adjusted the cheeses somewhat and doubled it; the recipe as we cooked it is presented here.

It's very tasty and comes together extremely quickly and easily. It also, unlike most macaroni and cheese recipes, calls for no dairy apart from the cheeses themselves, which are both aged and cultured -- no milk or cream. This makes it good for lactose intolerant folks such as myself.

Ingredients, for 1 lb short pasta:

• 120g double gloucester cheese
• 240g medium (1 yr or so?) cheddar
• 4 eggs
• 60mL sweet or dessert wine

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Cook pasta al dente. 
3. While pasta is cooking, grate cheeses into a bowl. Add eggs and wine and beat together. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Drain pasta and put in a baking dish. Spread the cheese-egg mixture evenly over the top of the pasta. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned.

Lemony Pesto Pasta with Peas

From The Lemon Bowl, this recipe scales well and comes together incredibly quickly. As written it's for ½ lb of pasta; I've doubled it for consistency with the recipes from The Classic Pasta Cookbook, but as cooked we actually scaled it up by a factor of 3, ensuring that it would feed all of us and leave us with copious leftovers.

Symbol suspects that it would be even better with bacon (or pancetta?) crumbled into it.

Ingredients

• 500g small pasta (we used mostly orecchiette with some shells mixed in)
• 500mL frozen green peas
• 150mL prepared pesto
• 150mL fresh basil, thinly sliced
• 60mL freshly grated parmesan
• 10mL lemon zest
• 5mL chili flakes

Procedure

1. Bring the water to a boil and cook the pasta in it.
2. When the pasta is ~2 minutes away from al dente, add the peas.
3. Drain the pasta and transfer it to a bowl (or back to the pot). Toss with all remaining ingredients (piecemeal or after combining them first, whichever is more convenient).

I did say it came together really fast. :)

Quick Cashew Chicken

Courtesy of ChefSavvy, a relatively quick cashew chicken recipe -- their stated time of 20 minutes seems a bit optimistic, but it still comes together reasonably quickly despite the long ingredient list.

We actually made a double batch (twice the ingredients listed below); it scaled up nicely.

Ingredients

• Sauce:
• 60mL soy sauce
• 8mL rice wine vinegar
• 8mL brown sugar
• 8mL sesame oil
• 15mL hoisin sauce
• 450g chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes
• 64mL cornstarch
• 15mL oil
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 250mL unsalted raw cashews
• green onions and sesame seeds for garnish

Procedure
This is a stir-fry, so once things start hitting the wok things go fairly quickly. So it's a good idea to prepare all the ingredients in advance.

1. Combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl.
2. Put the chicken and cornstarch in a large ziplock bag. Toss to coat the chicken.
3. Toast cashews over medium high heat until golden brown. Remove from the heat immediately.
4. Heat a wok and coat it with oil. Add the chicken and stir-fry until browned, 3-4 minutes.
5. Add the sauce and stir. The sauce will thicken almost immediately as it absorbs cornstarch from the chicken.
6. Add the bell peppers and stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes.
7. Stir in cashews, then remove from the heat, garnish with sesame seeds and green onion, and serve over rice.

Fettucini al Limone

This is basically fettucini alfredo cut with lemon. It's extremely easy to put together, short on ingredients, and deliciously refreshing.

The book says to cook the sauce "until the cream has reduced by half", the same as for alfredo. However, this will result in a thicker sauce than a plain alfredo, thanks to the curdling effect of the lemon juice. Taking the sauce off the heat a bit earlier will result in a higher sauce:pasta ratio while still maintaining alfredo levels of thickness.

Ingredients (for 1 lb dried, store-bought pasta)

• 45mL butter
• 30mL freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 5mL freshly grated lemon zest
• 250mL heavy cream
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 125mL freshly grated parmesan

Procedure

1. Put the pasta water on to boil.
2. Put the butter, lemon juice, and zest in a large skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, bubble it with the lemon for about 30 seconds.
3. Pour in the cream. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the desired thickness is achieved. Remove from the heat.
4. Meanwhile, add the pasta and some salt to the boiling water and cook al dente.
5. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Return to medium heat and toss with the sauce and the grated parmesan for about 15 seconds until the pasta is well coated. Serve.

Notes

The book says to cook the sauce "until the cream has reduced by about half", same as for alfredo. however, the lemon juice curdles and thickens the cream quite dramatically. So you can get away with taking it off the heat earlier and get the same consistency, or you can cook it down the same amount for a thicker sauce than a typical alfredo.)