Giada's Pork Chops with Fennel and Caper Sauce

I made this for dinner Tuesday night. Quite yummy and Husband liked it as well. Here's the recipe...

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

4 boneless (2 inch thick) pork chops

3/4 teaspoon salt (and more for seasoning chops)

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (plus more for seasoning chops)

2 fennel bulbs with fronds-thinly sliced

2 large shallots--thinly sliced

1/3 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley--plus 1/3 cup

1/2 cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigio)

1-28 ounce can diced tomatoes in their juices

1/2 lemon, zested

2 tablespoons capers

Directions:

In a large heavy skillet heat the oil over high heat. Season the chops and brown on both sides (about 4 min on each side). Set chops aside and cover loosely with foil.

Add fennel, shallots, 1/3 cup parsley and cook over medium heat until beginning to brown-about 5 min. Add the wine and using a wooden spoon scrape the bits from the bottom of the pan. Add tomatoes and stir. Add the chops back to the pan nestling them between tomatoes and fennel so that they are mostly submerged in the juices. Cook until fennel is tender and pork is done--about 12 to 15 minutes.

Place pork on serving dish. To finish the sauce add lemon zest, remaining parsley and capers. Stir. Spoon over pork chops and serve immediately.

Blah

I don't have much to say. I have been so super busy with work I really haven't felt much like blogging. I've been working all weekend and will be working Memorial Day as well. In fact, I don't have another off day until Saturday the 30th. So sad. Being a grownup is no fun sometimes.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Think of me. I'll be inside at Walgreens from 9am-5pm.

Addict

I'm the type of person that finds something she likes and completely immerses herself in it. I do this with television shows, books, places, etc. Case in point--my Harry Potter obsession.

I have tried to stay away from it. I have tried to convince myself that I wouldn't like it even though countless people have told me otherwise. This weekend I gave in.

Husband was out on a man-date watching Wolverine at the movie theater and I was home alone with the puppies with nothing too interesting to watch on t.v. I walked out to the family room, opened the bookcase and there it was...the book I bought over three months ago and decided not to read. I went back in to the bedroom, snuggled under a blanket, and cracked the cover.

I. Am. Completely. Hooked.

I started reading around 9:30 p.m. and I finally put it down around 5 a.m.!!! Ridiculous...but I loved it. I talked Husband in to taking me to the library tonight (my car is at the shop for service so we're down to one car for the next 24 hours) so I could get the next book. I'm off to begin New Moon now. Thank goodness I'm off work tomorrow.

Searching

So I've decided that it's time for some new bedding in the master bedroom. I love, love, love the bedding we have now (and have had since October 2006), but it's time for a change. Here's what we have now.I love the colors! But as I said, it's time for a change. I don't want anything too feminine. No flowers. Not sure what colors I'm looking for. I found this on the Bed Bath and Beyond website.
What do you think? Too similar? I think the paisley might be exactly the same now that I'm looking at the picture again. Hmm... What about THIS? Oooh I love that plum color! I saw this in the new catalog that came in the mail yesterday, but I don't really like duvets. They always seem to bunch up.
Oh well. I'll keep you posted. I'm off to the dentist now.

Getting Old

Husband and I discovered something last night/early this morning. We are getting old. We just can't stay up late like we used to. Remember when you were in college and you could go to class (or not go as some of us did not) all day, take a quick nap in the afternoon or early evening and then stay up until 3 or 4 am??? How did we do that?! These days if I'm working the morning shift (with my job I either work 8am-4pm or 2pm-10pm) I get home at about 4:45pm, start thinking about dinner, make dinner, eat dinner, watch a bit of tv and by 9pm I'm ready for lights out. I lay in bed and I'm asleep by 10pm. Sad, isn't it?

What has prompted this blog post is our outing last night. I am a BIG Dave Matthews Band fan. I have been since high school. So when I found out DMB would be making a stop in Birmingham for their Spring tour I jumped at the chance to get tickets. I took off work yesterday so I wouldn't be completely exhausted for the concert. Husband still had to work until 6pm so I met him out at the store and we drove to the amphitheater. The concert started at 7pm and ended around 11pm. We didn't make it back home until about 12:30am due to a traffic jam in the parking lot and having to stop for food because we were starving. We both had to get up around 7:30 this morning to get to the store around 8:30. Let me tell you....this was no easy fete. We are both tired and grumpy--to say the least.

The only consolation is that the concert was FABULOUS! I have seen DMB live 3 times now and can say with certainty that it is the best live show I've ever seen--and I've seen to my fair share of concerts.

Just a few things

Hello all! I've not been so great about blogging lately, but I'm working on it. Things have been super busy around here. Friday we had the grand opening at the pharmacy complete with a ribbon cutting and the mayor of Chelsea. Husband's parents were in town for the big event. We also participated in a health fair Saturday. We did blood pressure and blood glucose screenings. I think we had a really good response from all the folks that made it out to the fair. Hopefully we'll be seeing some return on investment in the form of some customers!

We went to see Wicked about a week and a half ago. It was phenomenal!!! I absolutely loved it!!! Husband--not so much. But he stuck with it and humored me.

I wanted to share a couple of things with you guys. These are things which I beleive I absolutely could not live without.

This lip balm is so fantastic! It is super moisturizing and has SPF 15 too. I don't wear a lot of lipstick. I usually just use this and some gloss on top.

This is Smashbox Photo Op Under Eye Brightner. I don't really have dark circles (not too bad anyway) but this stuff is great. It makes you look WIDE awake.

Happy Monday to you all! I hope you have a great week!

So Excited

Husband and I are going to see Wicked tonight!!! I am much more excited about it than he is. He's not a huge musical fan. Actually he's not a musical fan at all, but he said he would come along. I have the soundtrack with the OBC (original broadway cast) on my iPod and it is fantastic! Check out the links below for some great bits of the musical.

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Defying Gravity
The Wizard and I