Dinner: Grilled Pork Chops & Dandelion Greens with Sapphire St. Sunset Cocktails

Monday is CSA pick-up day, and it's always very exciting for me to find out the ingredients we have to invent our dinners with. After a very serious (steep!) hill run through Bird Rock and a shower, I was ready to get together with Dylan and do some cooking. As you can see, we had lots of tomatoes to deal with - so we roasted them all with olive oil, garlic and salt, in preparation for making a sauce for tomorrow night's turkey meatballs. The sauce starter will sit overnight, and then tomorrow I'll simmer it down and add more garlic, maybe some red wine and basil.


Next on our list was finding a use for the big brown bag of CSA oranges we got. It wasn't hard to figure out - all I had to do was look out the window at the gorgeous sunset for inspiration. I promptly juiced four oranges and set to work coining my own signature cocktail that I call the Sapphire St. Sunset. Sugar rimmed glasses, plenty of ice and then a shot of Stoli Raspberry, a shot of pomegranate juice and the rest fresh squeezed OJ. Yum!


Next it was time to figure out what to do with our bone-in pork chops. Dylan made a spiced rub with chili powder, paprika, salt & pepper and grilled the chops to perfection, and I mean PERFECTION. Meanwhile, I finished baking our Trader Joes par-baked french rolls and sauteed some dandelion greens with olive oil and garlic.


Our version of date night never gets old - a super-fun activity together (cooking!) and then sharing a delicious meal. We do have to do the dishes after, but that's life I guess!