Pork Chops and Apples

So I have been slacking on posting my cookbook updates. I also have been bad about taking photos of the food I make. I just want to eat it! NOW! Ha!

So I'm going to try to get back on the wagon. Last night I made Pork Chops and Apples from Betty Crocker's New Good and Easy Cook Book

Pork Chops and Apples p. 71

6 Pork Chops

3 or 4 unpeeled apples, cored and sliced

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbs butter

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Brown chops on all sides in hot fat (I used olive oil). Place apple slices in greased baking dish. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Dot with butter and place chops on top. Cover, bake for 1.5 hours.

Okay here is the deal, I didn't have 1.5 hours and my chops didn't seem thick so I browned them, used my Pampered Chef apple slicer thingy (if you want to order this please let me know, Brentt Roberts is my Pampered Chef dude and would love your business...shameless plug). The apples were thin and peeled so they cooked fast. I cooked it all for about 30 mins and it was perfect. The apples make a yummy addition to the pork chops and it has a buttery cinnamon sauce you can put on top. We had corn on the cob, tomato slices, and rolls too. It was a very yellow looking dinner, but whatever it was good. No photos because we ate it all up!

Now a little note about this cookbook. It is super old, 1962 apparently. The book is actually made into meal plans so you can pick a main dish and it shows what sides and even desserts to serve with it! I didn't use it that way because since it was from 1962 the sides were weird (what are pickled crabapples anyway? people ate that?!). One of the fun things is it shows you how to garnish your meals. The good ol' days where housewives would spend time making the meal look pretty. So fun!

Mommy and Me!

For my own Mother's Day gift I decided to get professional photos of Ella and I together. I don't have many photos with my mom because she always hated the way she looked in photos. The ones I do have I love, especially the ones when I was little. Ella is growing so fast and I want to make sure that I have photos of both of us throughout her life.

I went to Memories By Aly for a mini-shoot with just the two of us and it was fun! We were freezing because of course it was the only day that week it rained. Ella is not a smiler, so a lot of the photos she isn't smiling in them but looking a little annoyed/mean mugging. Oh well - memories!

Here are a few photos:

My little girl is growing up so fast! It was around this time last year we found out we were having a girl. It was a shock since I had convinced myself she would be a boy. I believed that I would spend my life with dirty boy socks and Thomas the Train toys. In one happy moment dolls, bows, and pink came into my life and I have never been so happy! She is a pill sometimes, but I could never ask for a better gift!