Where I Have Been and Calling All Cooks' Atlanta Pork Chops and Rice

My goodness....I asked myself  "Where have I been?"  No really!!  I am concerned!!  My last post was May 5th.  That is pitiful.  I had to do some rewind on the old memory tape, and I realized where all I have been.  The first place I had been was the ending of the school year.  It is a massive undertaking to wind down a school year.  Only those who are educators know what I am talking about.  I won't go into the end of the year checklist that is two pages long where you have to run around the 1,000,000 square foot school looking for administrators to initial their line, or the textbook and equipment inventories, or the final posting of grades and completing the gradebook, or the cleaning out of the file cabinets and your desk, or the getting everything off the floor routine so they can perform the all-mighty waxing of the floors.  It truly is an undertaking, and it takes a week to recover!! 

The second place I had been was the beach for a week with Food Police, Son-in-Law, and Husband Fred.  Now that was a pleasure except for the daily food fights with Food Police.  Don't get me wrong - we do not have the traditional food fights where you actually have fun throwing food at one another.  NO............  Our food fights consist of heated discussions of what we should and should not eat for cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight issues.  Let me give you an example of exactly what I mean!!  I made crab-stuffed shrimp one evening and wanted to pair it with a baked potato and salad.  Does that sound good to you?  Yes!!  We even had fat free sour cream and dadgum fake spray butter to put on the potatoes plus fat free salad dressing.  Honey it was a party with all the trans-fat, cholesterol, sodium, and taste not in attendance!!  What can I say!!!  Woo-Hoo!!!  Then said party grinded to a screeching halt!!  "No" says Food Police.  "Let's do grilled yellow and zucchini squash instead of the potato.  It will be healthier!  We had a lot of carbs at lunch so we don't need the potato!!"  What???  We are hungry!!  Ugh!!  The three of us tried to argue our side of things, but the She-Devil (whoops) Food Police won!!  She has that way about her.  That jaw stuck out, and you know she meant business.  We all accepted the zucchini/yellow squash grill, but then I turned to my major passive-aggressive ways!!  I ate one of Son-in-Law's Little Debbie's Oatmeal Cakes (by the way thank goodness for Son-in-Law!!  I can always sneak some food from him.  He somehow can overpower Food Police and get his way with snacks!!  I must take a class from him!!)  I continued my passive-aggressive ways and began to eat Cheetos straight out of the bag at midnight because I was starving.  I got the Food Police death stare which can be rather frightening.   I wonder if she can read minds!!  On the positive side, we had no waterspouts this year that took our electricity away for 2 days - just sun, sea, family, and food fights. 

The third place I had been was my student's National competition in Orlando, FL at Disney World.  Kim and I took 18 students (adolescents - uh oh) on a charter bus.  Enough said!!  It actually was pretty stress-free.  The students behaved very well except for getting in a boiled egg fight, one team over-sleeping on a competition day, and holding up the bus on the way home because three of them got diarrhea from eating too much cheese dip at a restaurant in Valdosta, Ga . Horrors!! We had a 6th, 11th and top 25 in the nation.  I cannot complain!!  The excitement came when Kim and I rode the horrid Jedi - Mount Everest something something roller coaster in Animal Kingdom.  Now before I continue, let me tell you something about myself.  When I was younger, I put on my Bucket List to ride every major roller coaster in the US of A.  That was in the prehistoric age when the coasters weren't as high as the stratosphere, and didn't do all the horrible things they do now!!   I have ridden a standing coaster that goes upside down, a coaster that suspends you like you are flying, and the wooden coaster at Six Flags that feels like it is going to jump off the tracks!!  I just wanted you to know that I am not a scaredy cat when it comes to coasters. On to the story....We load up all giddy with excitement.  I checked my harness one thousand times to make sure it is locked and settled in for the ride.  We literally take off from 0-100 mph in 5 seconds, and then the darn Jedi coaster grinded to a halt half-way up the tracks pitching us forward and backward hard enough to give us whiplash in the blazing heat index of 100 degrees.  Kim began screaming at the top of her lungs something about it being stuck on the tracks.  I look at her and try to talk her down from her fever pitched hysteria.  I said something like "Oh just pretend we are at the beach lying in the sun soaking up some rays!"  She looked at me like I was growing horns out of my head and continued to scream.  She was frightening the 4-year old behind us!!  Yep!!  Then I start getting worked up because I feel like I am on fire.  You know how I hate the heat, and I thought this is how I am going to die - like a vampire in the sunshine pitched at 90 degrees on a roller coaster!!!  Somebody help us!!  Honestly, it was stopped for about 5 seconds, but she and I can be a little dramatic at times.  You think??  We whoosh on, and then the stupid thing pretends to have a broken track.  The next thing I know we are going backwards in the dark, and my old body didn't know which end was up!!  It was the horror of horrors.  I ended the ride feeling a lot dizzy, and thought I had had a stroke.  I thought this is why they tell "older" people not to ride roller-coasters!!  I did a quick neuro-check on myself and found that all was intact.  I bolted off that thing and never looked back.  I thought I will never ever get on a roller-coaster again!!  I proceeded to ride Space Mountain and the Rocking Roller coaster.  The new thing now on roller coasters is called a "Photo-Bomb!"  You learn alot from hanging around the youngsters.  A Photo-bomb is when you anticipate where the picture of you is taken on the ride, and you make some dumb gesture (only nice ones) or some weird looking face.  Well......... and I wish I had a picture for you, Kim and I tried this out.  I decided I would make the blank stare no emotion face.  I saw this for real when long ago my family went with my friend Cathy's family to Six Flags.  She hates roller coasters but said she had to ride them with her children.  When I asked why she said "Well if the coaster jumps off the track I want to be there with them."   I get it!!  Anyway, we ride the coaster, and run to see our picture.  It was hilarious.  We are all screaming at the top of our lungs.  Our faces are contorted into weird masks, and there is Cathy.  She has absolutely no emotion on her face.  Nothing.  No grimace, smile, not even an eyebrow out of place.  It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen.  The only time I ever saw a face like that was during my psychiatric rotation during nursing school.  She would not let us buy that picture.  Well, that face is hard to do when you are trying, but Kim and I got it pretty good on Space Mountain.  I felt like I had accomplished something.  HAHA!

Enough of where I have been.  Let's get to the recipe.  This is the last recipe I am preparing out of the Calling All Cooks cookbook.  I have yet to pick the next cookbook, but I think it might be one of Paula's.  We shall see.  The recipe is Atlanta Pork Chops and Rice, and it was delicious.  I don't know what Atlanta has to do with it but hey who doesn't love Atlanta??

You will need Pork Chops, celery, tomato sauce, brown sugar, salt, dried basil, and rice.

Brown the chops in a little oil.  That picture looks weird.

Remove the chops, and brown the chopped celery.  I added some onion because the recipe called for tomato sauce with onions, but I could not find this at the old Publix.

Add the remaining ingredients to the pan.

Add the chops, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

I served it with a little broccoli on the side.  Food Police gave it her blessing as long as the rice serving was 1/2 cup!!  AGH!!

Here is the recipe.....

Atlanta Pork Chops and Rice

Calling All Cooks

4 pork chops

2 T vegetable oil

1/4 C chopped celery

2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce with onions

1 1/2 C water

2 T brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp basil

1 C uncooked regular rice

In large skillet brown chops in oil.  Remove and add celery.  Cook lightly.  Drain fat.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Add chops.  Bring to a boil.  Simmer covered for 30 minutes.  Makes 4 servings.

Now go have a great day................