Leah celebrates a birthday…

Today my wife turned 31, and I thought it would be nice to celebrate the day by surprising her with a special dinner. After Ethan took off for another day at JK, I took Jonathan to the mall and hit the market to look for something tasty to make for her birthday supper. The last meal I attempted to make Butter Chicken for her and Chris, but it wasn’t received very well. I did the recipe right and thought it turned out great, but Leah and Chris are not that brave when it comes to spices to the Indian dish was too much for them to handle. Not wanting a repeat of that for this dinner, I wanted it to be special cause Chris was working the afternoon so Leah and I could share a quiet dinner together. The plan was to feed the kids first, especially since they don’t like the fancy dinners… and while they played with their toys or watched the tube Leah and I could enjoy a meal together.

After looking around the market, I thought a ‘meat & potatoes’ approach to tonight’s meal would be a sure fire winner. Leah didn’t like steak that much and we eat a ton of chicken, so those two were quickly out. I then remembered that she loves pork chops, so I came to the decision to make stuffed pork chops for her birthday. So I hit the butcher and got six great chops. The plan was to not try to cut into the chops for stuffing them, but to use two chops and double them up so you’d have two chops with stuffing in the middle. The plan was to grill them first and then back them with the stuffing to finish them off. I also picked up some fresh baby potatoes and baby carrots for the sides. This was a good plan, and here is how it unfolded, in pictures!

(These are the chops I got from the market, from a great local butcher.)

(Here they are going on the grill… just to make sure they are decently cooked before going in the oven.)

This is what they looked like when I took them off for their stuffing/teiring)

(Here are all six chops, grilled and ready for the next step…)

(This is the stuffing, a cornbread misture that I think complimented the pork rather nicely…)

(Here is the stuffing getting padded onto one of the chops…
from there I sandwiched another chop on top to complete the piece)

(Once completed, the stuffed chops were wrapped in tin foil, then tossed into the oven for an hour at 350…)

(Baby potatoes, peeled and ready to boil…)

(The finished product: stuffed pork chops with veggies on the side.)

(No birthday dinner is complete with out a little red wine.
This lovely little Cabernet Merlot came from Chile…)

(This is the dinner that was waiting for her when Leah stepped in from working on her Birthday…)

(Last picture of Leah, posting with a new fleece that she got for her b-day…)

So overall, it was a very successful dinner. When Leah called in and asked what we were having for supper, she confessed that she worried a bit when I said I was making something for her birthday, as she thought it was going to be something weird like the last few attempts I made in the kitchen. She was very happy with this one and liked the chops and the wine very much. Ethan loved the carrots as he kept sneaking into the kitchen and snatching them from the bowl on the table. He seemed to liked the brown sugar in them, but it’s carrots… can’t get upset when the kid eats too many veggies. Better than the sweets!

So I’m glad to have done something nice for Leah on her birthday. After a hard week at the daycare, it was nice to give her something special at the end of the week as well. Unlike my few previous attempts, this meal seemed to be a great success, cause this time I actually tried to work with a meal I knew she already liked but made it with a little twist. It worked out well, and I’ll get around to clean up tomorrow…

Until then, have a good Friday everyone!

Peter