smothered pork chops

hubby loves pork chops, to me they are just Ok but, decided maybe I just did not know how to cook them right...
been researching different recipes and came upon this one...

http://www.spendwithpennies.com/crock-pot-pork-chops/

and it sounded pretty good...besides, hubby had just bought a big pack of pork chops...
funny thing is, that this is the way I make one version of my swiss steak...

it came out really good and was very tender and it made me kind of change my mind about pork chops a little...

we paired it with some smashed potatoes that Tim made and some mixed veggies...

very yummy, you should try it, you will not be disappointed...

Tuesday night lazy family dinner...Applebees copycat chicken salad

http://mandysrecipeboxblog.com/applebees-oriental-chicken-salad/

this is the recipe I basically follow and since I have made it many many times, I have tweaked a few things to make it our own...and what is funny that everytime I make this everyone says, " wow mom that really hit the spot..."

first of all I make it so much easier by buying Carl's Jr chicken tenderloins, for some reason I love their chicken and this makes it so much easier to buy the chicken already done for you...

then I basically follow the above recipe but we put ours in a tortilla wrap...

the dressing is to die for and I always make more of it, to last for other salads in the week...

yum you must try it...

I love this so much that even tho I can make it at home, every single time we go to Applebees I order this exact thing...

Monday night family dinner, BBQ roasted whole chicken

this BBQ of mine has gotten a really good work out this summer...more than it ever has before...LOL...in the old house, the back yard was kind of hard to get to and in the heat of summer, it wiped me out having to walk thru the whole house with meat in my hand to get to the back yard to the BBQ and then adding to that, if I wanted to watch it, I had to sit outside, in said heat...that just was not me...I have said many many times that heat and I do not get along at all...do not ask me how we ended up living in a place that sometimes reaches high triple digits...
so in the new house (where we moved in May) when you are in the kitchen preparing the meat for BBQing, the back yard is literally 2 steps to the back door and outside...so so so much better...as long as we have charcoal and lighter fluid, it is so much easier to BBQ than heat up my kitchen...the BBQ and the slow cooker have certainly been my best friends this year...what in the heck did I do what I did for 15 years living in the old house?  I am so much happier with many things here, tho I do miss my old neighbors...

I do also have to say that having central air here, vs. having only window air sure has helped this summer pass better for me...a complete life savior...

tonight, anticipating sending some home with little kids, I prepared 2 whole chickens...I like to put some butter and some cut up onions in the cavity and also rub a spice mixture all over the skin...put them on grill using the side only slow cooking version that I taught myself to do...and it comes out wonderful...we had them on for approximately 2 hours...so moist and delicious...and we have lots of leftovers, even sending some home with littles...

paired with hobo potatoes...diced potatoes, seasoned, with some cut up onions, wrapped in foil and put with the chickens on the grill...also had broccoli...

a very good summer dinner...yum

fried macaroni and cheese

at various restaurants, this is my absolute favorite appetizer, especially at CPK...and so I decided to try to make it myself and OMGoodness were they ever good...

I used Kraft deluxe macaroni and cheese (next time I make homemade mac and cheese, I will freeze some for these...)
and the trick to these is to freeze the pasta and then just slightly defrost...then dip individual "balls" into flour, then beaten egg mixture and then into panko bread crumbs (making sure every bit is covered)...and fry in small amount of oil...

next time I will add garlic salt and pepper to the flour...

otherwise, so so good

Sunday night BBQ steaks

when we were first married, and I would ask hubby to BBQ, it never turned out the way I thought it should...the meat would be burned black on the outside and raw inside...I decided to teach myself to BBQ and over the years, I was so happy with myself that I did this...haha, this was in the days before computers and so what I did was go buy a "how to BBQ" cookbook...I love the slow cooking version of grilling...and of course everyone in the family is glad I taught myself to do this...

tonight?

we had some steaks in the freezer, I seasoned them yesterday and today I grilled them...the end...
perfection...LOL

paired with brussel sprouts, french bread and deli potato salad (at the end of the day, did not know what to make to go with steaks and sent Tim to the store...)

all in all a good meal, even though I do not care for steaks all that much...

Friday night beef stroganoff...yum

this is Tim's all time favorite dinner, the one he asks for on his birthday and such...he is having a few problems, a little depressed and I wanted to surprise him with a good dinner...

I use the McCormick's seasoning mix for my usual beef stroganoff and I have never gone wrong using it...

today I decided to try it a little different, here is what I did...

I cut about 2 1/2 pounds of london broil into very thin strips, floured them and seared them...put them into a lined slow cooker, poured some beef broth onto the meat and cooked on high for about 4-5 hours...

I take 2 packages of the seasoning mix and stir into 2 cups of the beef broth and let thicken, added 16 oz of sour cream and stirred till no lumps...

served over buttered noodles and made peas and carrots to go along with it...

Tim was very happy

slow cooker orange chicken and homemade chow mein

for dinner tonight, I wanted something different and orange chicken has been on my "I want to cook sometime" list for awhile...I just recently have started ordering orange chicken when we go out and I do like it...
now, hubby and Tim really like it and I wanted to surprise them with dinner tonight...

this is the recipe I used for the chicken:

http://www.averiecooks.com/2016/02/slow-cooker-orange-chicken.html

and since I have never even tried chow mein, but both guys love it, I decided to look for recipe and try it...

this is the one I used for the chow mein:

http://damndelicious.net/2014/07/02/panda-express-chow-mein-copycat/

everyone really liked both recipes...I invited Sam and Zoie over for dinner too, since they both like things like this and they were happy and props, Sam helped me cook too...

the one thing I would change for the chicken was I think it had too much cornstarch, so I would cut down on that...
and the thing about the noodles was, I would want them to be a little thicker...I had a hard time finding yaki-soba noodles, and I would not put brown sugar in it at all...

other than that, it was yummy and will be put on our regular rotation of meals...