Kicking Things Off With A Bang-ish

I have cooked a few meals in Denver, but tonight was my first attempt at a serious Julia Childs inspired French Dinner. I made pork chops with a dry herb marinade and sides of butter sautéed potatoes and provincial tomatoes. It took me about 1.5 hours of heavy lifting in the kitchen, plus some prep time this morning. Most of it was worth the effort.  Here was the outcome:

Yes, my plating does leave something to be desired - hopefully that will come with time, like a fashionable streak of grey hair.

The pork chops were de-lish, I'd give them a 4 out of 5 on the yum scale. I whipped up the dry marinade, which I didn't know was a thing you could do until today, and let them sit in it for about 8 hours. I then did a quick browning of the chops  and then popped them into the oven for 35ish minutes, longer than MC [Ms. Childs] would have, but she did not live in altitude. They were definitely worth the wait. They were juicy, with flavor the whole way though, and more filling than you would expect. I will for sure be making these again.

The potatoes were less of a success, only getting a 2.5/3 on the yum scale. This made me so sad because I LOVE potatoes and butter and don't understand how the combo would go wrong. The recipe basically consisted of peeling the potatoes and sautéing them in butter for 20 mins then adding the spices. Unfortunately I did not have a potato baller like the illustrious MC, so mine were not the perfect spheres of wonder I am sure she made, but I honestly was not completely keen on the taste on its own. I think I can American-ize them in a way that makes them more palatable. I tried putting some lemon juice on the leftovers, so we will see if that makes them better. MC tends to suggest these potatoes with every meal, so I have a few more attempts to make them into something I like.

The last thing on the menu was provincial tomatoes. I ended up with a ton of them so they got some of their own side plating as well:

Poorly Plated Provincial Tomatoes 

They were quite good on their own, but were spectacular when mixed with the pork. I would give them a solid 4 out of 5 on the yum scale. The breadcrumb/herb mix was to die for and really complimented the flavor and texture of the pork. MC does NOT recommend these two as a pairing, so maybe I should question my own taste...however it is the only thing I know. And this is my blog (ha, MC!). They were pretty simple to make - you just juiced the tomatoes and filled them in with the herb mixture. I kept the leftover herb mix and think I might toss it onto some asparagus with butter later in the week if I need something to spruce up a meal.

All in all it was a fairly successful dinner. As Ian said "If this is the beginning of your cooking, I can't wait for what's to come." Me too. I don't think I'll have the time to cook this extensive of a meal more than 1-2 times a week, so in the future posts may be more about the moving/settling in process, but I have a feeling that my mom is going to be the only consistent reader, and I know she'll be thrilled to read about that.