It's a cheesy cheesy night, at least our dinner was

I spent all day running around the house like a chicken with my head cut off. I re-organized all my kitchen cupboards and got my baking supplies all sorted out and in a logical manner.  No more running around trying to find everything the next time I get an urge to bake, yea!!  And with the exception of the clothes that we were wearing today, every piece of laundry has been done as well as some other cleaning. So I decided to make me a cheesy treat for dinner, and to make Johnny happy I included some breaded pork chops as well.

I love cheese, not the processed kind but real cheese.  I blame my mother for that one, and feel really bad that due to a dairy allergy that she can no longer enjoy the deliciousness of all that cheesy goodness.  Then I realize it just leaves more for me, sorry mother.

Homemade cheese potatoes and cauliflower with cheese sauce was my original plan for dinner, which is a good option for me but John likes to have meat with his sides so I threw some breaded pork chops onto the menu as an afterthought.

Today's ingredients were simple and staples around the house: skim milk, butter, flour, pepper, garlic powder, potatoes, cauliflower, pork chops and breadcrumbs.

First thing I did was get out the food processor to slice the potatoes for me because I was feeling a bit lazy from cleaning all day. Once they were all thinly sliced I tossed them into the casserole dish to await the cheese sauce.

The cheese sauce was really easy to make and I made it in 2 batches, one for the potatoes then again for the cauliflower.  I use about 1 cup of milk for 2 potatoes (I like things really cheesy) so in a saucepan over low heat I added 4 cups of milk, about a teaspoon each of  pepper and garlic powder and 2 Tablespoons of butter and constantly stirring with a whisk brought it to a small rolling boil, removed it from the heat,  then added 4 teaspoons of flour (one at a time and made sure the previous was mixed in before adding the next). I have a giant Pyrex measuring cup that I had put 16 oz of shredded extra sharp cheese in and then added the milk mixture to that, stirring constantly with the whisk until it was blended.

Pour the mixture over the potato slices and mix it all in until it's all covered.

You can bake your pork chops separately or just toss the meat directly on the potatoes, which is what I do. It adds a little bit of extra flavor to the potatoes that I enjoy.

The pork chops are easy to bread and I haven't had any complaints yet about them. Just take a food storage bag, I use the twist tie ones, and put about a half cup of breadcrumbs in it. Rinse the meat under some cold water for a sec then toss it in the bag and shake it around until covered, then put the meat on your pan or in this case the potatoes, then keep repeating until all the pieces of meat are done.

Then the potatoes and meat go into the preheated oven at 350F for 40-60 minutes or until the meat is fully cooked (use a meat thermometer to check) and the potatoes are as well.

Let the potatoes sit for a few minutes before serving. This is the time that I make the cheese sauce for the cauliflower. Tonight it was the time that I noticed that I forgot to turn on the steamer so I had to pop the cauliflower in the microwave and after 5 min on the fresh veggie setting they were done.

For the cheese sauce for the cauliflower I used the same process to cook it but cut all the ingredients in half.

And for once I remembered to take some pictures before the food got devoured.

 

A Little Bit of Cauliflower, a whole lot of cheese sauce

MMMM, Cheesy potatoes

Not a lot of color in tonight's meal but it sure was tasty. 

Thanks for stopping by and reading this, feel free to comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Jessa