Tasty

In case anyone's wondering how last night's meal was: Very tasty.

Vodka-Lime Marinated Pork Chop:

- 1/8 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup vodka
- 1/8 cup lime juice (around 1/2 a lime)
- A few sprigs of fresh sage, torn up
- Leaves of one sprig of rosemary
- One whole sprig of rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme (turns out I'm tarragonless)
- A couple pinches of salt

Mix it all together, and pour it into a ziplock bag. Add a few round slices of lime, and the pork chop (in my case, 1 1/2 lb rib chop). I had planned to use lime vodka as well as lime, but then discovered I didn't have any.

I let it sit in the fridge for 1 1/2 hours, and then had it sit on the counter for another 45 min to get to room temperature for even cooking.

Note: The lime juice will "cook" the outside of the chop a bit. I may use more oil in the future to balance out the acidity further. Feel free to adjust, especially if you plan to marinade overnight (which would just improve the flavour).

The chop was then grilled on a grill at just under high heat. 4 minutes a side, with a 1/4 turn every 2 min (to give the diamond/square grill marks). This left it a nice light pink inside, and still moist.

Aged Cheddar & Roasted Garlic Whipped Red Potato:

- Red skin potatoes
- 2 year-old cheddar
- Garlic
- Little bit of oil
- Butter
- Whipping/heavy cream

For the roasted garlic, I took a few cloves, cut them lengthwise, drizzled them with oil, wrapped them in foil, and put them in my toaster oven at 375F for 25 min.

Pretty standard whipped potato style here. I took a couple medium-sized redskin potatoes, scrubbed, chopped, and boiled 'em. Once they were fork tender, I drained the pot, tossed in some 2 year-old orange cheddar, the roasted garlic, BUTTER (fie to you who use margarine or chicken stock!), and whipping cream. Then I took a hand mixer (not blender) to them on low speeds. Usually I hand-mash, but I was looking for consistency and air this time.

Green beans were standard. I've taken to microwaving fresh veggies of late. It's quicker than stovetop steaming, and supposedly retains more of the nutrients. I overdid these ones by about 30 seconds though... they were still fine, but not as crisp as I'd like. Beans + bowl + some water in the bottom. Plastic wrap over the bowl, with some steam holes poked in, and in the microwave for 2 min. Let cool a bit.

Dessert should be obvious. Fresh strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and kiwi cut up in a bowl. Baskin-Robbin's World Class Chocolate on top, and melted white chocolate drizzled on top of that. Easy stuff. I had started a whole white chocolate and marshmallow thing, but the mallows were stale and ended up browning and then solidifying, so I just kept to melting the white chocolate in the microwave and drizzling it on.

As for the drinks that went with? The first one was sour. I'll use less lime in the future and maybe a splash of triple sec. The 2nd one didn't work, as the creme de cassis and godiva curdled. I found this odd, since you should be able to mix creme de cassis with cream (I've done it in the past). So I stuck with Godiva on the rocks with dessert.