Alfredo Sauce - Whatever we happen to have in the fridge version

Thankfully this worked and tasted pretty good.

1 stick of butter
1 cup of half & half
2 tbsp minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp sour cream
3 tbsp ricotta cheese
3 tbsp grated Parmesan
2 to 3 handfuls of mozzarella

Put butter and cream into a cold pan and turn to medium heat. Add the garlic and allow the mixture to heat up until the butter is completely melted. Mix in the sour cream, ricotta and grated Parmesan. Allow everything to heat though and completely combine. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the mozzarella one handful at a time. Be sure that mozzarella is completely incorporated completely before adding the next handful. It may not be necessary to add all three handfuls to reach an adequate thickness for the sauce.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

We served it with fettucini, browned chicken sausage and roasted broccoli! It was all delicious!
I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but this is the leftovers put together for a lunch!

Sunday Dinner!

Tonight, we tried two new recipes, and this is what my dinner looked like:

That would be Apple Cider Glazed Pork Chops. Click the title for the link, but I am going to also copy the recipe here because we liked it enough to keep it.
First, thaw the pork chops. We have boneless chops, which works much better for us. Get the glaze started before you bother doing anything else at all...
Glaze: 
1 1/2 cups apple cider
1/4 cup maple syrup
Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
Combine in small sauce pan and let it simmer down to a glaze consistency...mine took around 20 minutes to reach that point...
In the meantime, rub your chops down with the spice rub:
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Mix together with a fork, then add 1 Tbsp olive oil to make the rub a paste. Completely rub each chop with that paste, then set on grill. I used a grill pan on the stove, since it's February, haha. Cover in glaze and allow to cook 10 or so minutes, then flip and cover with more glaze, and allow to cook another 10 or so minutes. Flip it a third time and add more glaze. Cook until the chops reach 145* internal temp. Then remove them from the grill and allow them to rest about 5 minutes before eating.
These are flavorful and! not dry! Yeay!

Then, I don't know what the name is for the potatoes, but it's been going around on facebook for a lonnng time, and I found it on Pinterest HERE.
I sliced them, and let me tell you, that is not a fun sport!!! Do you have one of those friends you can vent at, no matter what crosses your mind or how you happen to feel? Oh yeah, my friend got a screaming text when I was in the middle of cutting these potatoes!!! In a perfect world, I would have had a half inch dip in the middle of a cutting board to set the potato in, and just sliced to that. This is not a perfect world, this is the real world, so I just tried hard to remember not to cut thru...and I didn't do terribly well. OH WELL! hahaha.... I drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And 20 minutes was not quite long enough...30 would have been better.

And, a classic favorite around here...the roasted broccoli....which I haven't written out on this blog either!
It's better with fresh broccoli, but today I used frozen. Make sure it's dry (as possible...). Cover a cookie sheet in foil. Lay broccoli out in a single layer all over cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper (and garlic cloves if you have them). Bake 20-25 mins at 425*. Then when it's done, drizzle with lemon juice, and sprinkle on lemon zest and Parmesan. YUM. But...my kids don't love the lemon, so sometimes we leave it off.