Recipe Facelift

I am pretty excited for the recipes this week because not only are they delicious, but they are posted on my new recipe website, hosted by Recipefy.  I've been using a Google website that I created to store my recipes, but after only 10 weeks of posting I had reached my photo upload limit (really??).  That was going to be a problem.  It took some digging but I came across this site which is basically like Facebook for recipes.  Most people would not be that excited about it, however, I am over the moon.  Yes, it does mean that I have some serious work to do, moving all my recipes over there and updating all the links in the blog, however, it will be worth it in the end to have such a professional looking, user friendly collection.  Onto the food...

Most of the meals for this week were "indoor cooking" meals but there are some real favorites in this set (does it seem like I am always saying that?  I love good food).  Pork Chops with Country Gravy is a nod to the southern style sausage and gravy that is fun to indulge in for brunch every now and again.  It is a white gravy and is so delicious you would be hard pressed to believe it is "healthy".  We serve these chops with mashed potatoes.  We have not tried it yet but if you like sausage and gravy, you could definitely use this gravy to make a nice hearty breakfast.

We followed up this heavier meal with Garlic and Herb Oven Fried Halibut.  We really liked the crunch of the panko on these fish filets.  You can use any mild, white fish - just adjust your cooking times depending on the thickness of the filets.

The grill dish that we enjoyed this week was London Broil with Tomato Corn Relish.  London Broil can be a tough cut of meat so let it hang out in this marinade for awhile and resist the urge to over-cook it.  The relish is the perfect compliment (and a good way to work some veggies in!).

Honey Cashew Chicken with Rice was one of our "new to us" recipes this week.  Cashews are the number one nut in my book.  I do not pick them out of the mixed nuts (anymore) but I do give myself a mental fist pump when I end up with a solid handful that includes a lot of cashews.  Fun fact - cashews grow on trees and the nut itself grows off the end of a "false fruit" - the cashew apple:

Long story short, the richness of the cashews really round out this dish for me.

Finally, we are featuring another Mark Bittman creation - Sweet Potato Chile Mac.  I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical about this dish and probably would have passed over the recipe if it had not come from his collection.  That is the power of good branding for you!  The dish went over very well and Flick actually declared "the guy who came up with this is genius!".  Enough said - give it a try for yourself and see what you think!  We used a pressed sausage (more along the lines of a kielbasa) as opposed to a crumbly sausage and it came out great.