More Dining at Home!

With so little going on personally in this Covid-19 ‘era’, my usual blog topics have been reduced to very few as pertains to what we’ve been up to, where we’ve dined out, historic properties and travel.  Cabin fever is slowly setting in for us as I’m sure it is for many of you.  I have ventured outside of what’s going on in our yard and what we’ve been eating…but even then it has been limited to researching and writing about some of my collectibles.  I do have another topic in the works but it will be about a week before I can finish researching and writing that post…

So for this post, once again it’s all about what we’ve been eating!

We decided that we felt like Barbeque!  Before the Covid-19 pandemic raised its ugly head, we’d had a great meal at Taste O’ Texas in Loudon Tennessee.  So I called to make sure that pork ribs were available and then I placed our take-out order.

Restaurants are struggling, many trying to survive just through take-out and delivery sales.  Here in Tennessee, restaurants can now open for indoor dining with limited seating allowed…no more than 50% of tables can be occupied.  With limited seating and many members of the public wary of going out to eat, a large number of local restaurants will probably go out of business.  Very few restaurants have a business plan that allows them to be profitable with a 50% occupancy rate…

The first photo shows Laurie's half rack of Taste 'O Texas's ribs all cut up and ready to eat!  The second photo shows my half rack plated with its side of creamed spinach. (The side was from our freezer) As we remembered them from our first visit, the ribs were very nice…not quite falling off the bone…but as we like them, requiring a little gnawing and pulling to devour them.  There weren’t any leftovers!

We certainly hope that Taste ‘O Texas survives this economic disaster…both for their sake and ours!  This restaurant is located at 1562 Highway 72 North in Loudon Tennessee.  Phone: 865-657-9684.  Their website is at: https://tasteotexas.com/.

Although from time to time, we do try to get creative in the kitchen, much of the time we just resort to what is simple and easy…and not necessarily what is the healthiest either.  Does anyone recognize this entrée?  Laurie added extra noodles, more cheese, lots of hamburger and plenty of spices.  We sided it with some nice fresh steamed green beans.  Hint…the foundation for this entrée came straight out of a box!

Yes…It was one of the many versions of Betty Crocker’s Hamburger Helper, this one being the Cheeseburger Macaroni.  This is the first time we’ve eaten Hamburger Helper since long before we moved down to Tennessee almost 10 years ago.  It was stick to our ribs satisfying, nicely complemented by the side of buttered green beans.

Staying simple…but also being a bit more creative, Laurie recently prepped this pan of pork and potatoes for baking.  Those nice thick boneless pork chops came from Costco and those potatoes were bought prepackaged from Ingles.  The secret in this case, was all about the marinade that both the chops and potatoes were coated with before going into the oven.

Laurie made enough of the sauce/marinade for us to have a bit extra for the meat if we so desired…and indeed I did!  It was simple enough but the combination that she came up with worked extremely well.  The base was Olive Garden’s Ranch Dressing.  Then she added less than a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar, coarse ground pepper, some crushed red pepper flakes, both garlic and onion powder and finally a bit of extra virgin olive oil for a smooth consistency.

Once again, we sided our entrée with our new favorite fresh vegetable…broccoletti!  This product is also known as brocolini, aspiration, sweet baby broccoli and broccolette.

Note: If you don’t like broccoli, you have company.  Laurie doesn’t like it either…but she really likes broccoletti!  You might want to give it a try...

…and here is our finished platter of ‘Baked Pork Chops ala Olive Garden’ with the accompanying roasted potatoes.  We both agreed that it was a very satisfying and enjoyable meal…with lots of flavor going on.  Laurie did think that the pork chops were a little overdone but I could see a little pink and I thought that they were just about perfect! 

Yes...there were leftovers, but that's another story!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave