Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: Simon Belmont's Porkchops

I have Cucco's Kitchen's cookbook, but it focuses on Legend of Zelda recipes. So I pilfered one he made from Castlevania.

His recipe calls for a two 2-inch bone-in pork chops. I used pork loin because I needed something to last a week. Using pork loin led to a somewhat dry slab of pork, so I'm assuming the bone-in pork chop would be jucier. I'd simmer it less next time.

The sauce is super excelent. Very savoury with a touch of sweetness, and a lot of onion flavor. I used it all cause I'm freezing the meals and when I warm them up, I want the pork chop to soak in it. I might simmer it longer without the pork to reduce it a bit.

Good stuff, no wonder Simon gets hearts for eating this.

# Belmont Pork Chops

Cucco's Kitchen
9.0 servings

4.0 pounds pork chops
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
2.0 tbsp olive oil
5.0 cloves garlic (peeled) (minced)
8.0 sprigs thyme leaves
1.0 cup onions (diced)
1.0 cup beef broth
1.0 cup red wine
1.0 tbsp soy sauce
1.0 tbsp herb de provence
1.0 tbsp Worcester sauce
2.0 tbsp unsalted butter
1.0 tbsp dijon mustard
4.0 tbsp brown sugar

1 - Season the pork chop with some salt, pepper and herb de Provence.
2 - Put a pan over medium-high heat
3 - Once it’s hot, add in the butter and 1 tbsp of oil oil, move the pan around till the the butter and oil and mixed
4 - Add the pork chops in the pan and add the thyme. We are going to sear them on both sides until they're nice and golden, about 2 minutes per side. Don’t concerned with cooking the chops through at this point, we just want a nice sear.
5 - Once both sides are seared and have a nice golden color remove them from the pan and set them aside to rest.
6 - Grab a paper towel and wipe away some of the extra grease.
7 - Add in the other tbsp of oil.
8 - Reduce the heat to medium and add the chopped onion. Cook them till they are translucent.
9 - Once they start to become translucent add in the minced garlic to the pan and cook, stirring it until the garlic is fragrant.
10 - Add in the beef broth, soy sauce, Worcester sauce, brown sugar mustard and red wine. Cook and stir for about a minute until the sauce is combined.
11 - Next add the browned pork chops back into the pan and nestle them inside the sauce.
12 - Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil.
13 - Once the sauce boils reduce too low, simmer and cover for 35-45 min till the pork is fork tender. Turn the pork over once half way through the cooking time.
14 - Once time passes and the chops are ready, remove from heat. Plate the chop facing up, pour some of that delicious sauce on top and bam, the Castlevania pork chop is done!

Makes 9 servings at ~400 calories per serving

Calories 415
Total Fat 18g
Total Carbohydrate 7g
Protein 44g

Normally yields 2 servings.

#thisweeksmeals #cooking

This Week's Not-So-Fancy-Pants Meal: Hamburger, Deconstructed.

I wanted hamburgers, I made hamburgers. No bread for diabetic and "the half loaf I have left is too small for the burger" reasons.

Ah, all the meals have been cooked for today, and now it's time to sit back and relax with some quality educationally enriching entertainment.

My American Dream has changed from "a small house in the country," to "one of those home ice machines that makes Sonic style ice" cause I can probably afford a mortgage for that last one.

Unpopular opinion: I don't like smash burgers.

I don't hate them. I just prefer thicker juicy burgers. The lacy texture of smash burgers always comes across to me as burned. They don't TASTE burned...but they have the textures of burned.

This message brought to you by "Searching for a good burger recipe."

So my EmuVR doesn't just do games. It'll allow you to watch videos. If you tell it to open a video, it'll spawn out a 90s era VCR and a VHS tape. Put it in the VCR, and you're watching TV in late 80s!

So, one of the VR Events I go to often will occasionally start to lag. The host usually tells us to go into "Non IKR" avatars, which are avatars without "skeletons." Usually just heads and hands. I was using one with a picture of my head for a head, and ghostly hands. I didn't like that.

So I used a NeoRoid creator to make one that is a little more me, while still just being "head and hands."

She's a cutie.

September 21st is over, but it will forever live in our hearts....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hpU6UEq8hA

He's still alive! I gave him a quick haircut which lead to my first basil leaves. They taste STRONG. ❤

For those who liked my Deep Dive into the Shooting Script of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I'd like to point you to some work I did on ALLLL the different drafts of The Motion Picture: http://dolari.net/startrek/tmp/index.html

I'd love to do one like that for Wrath of Kahn, but have never found any early drafts. If you have one, lemme know. :)

What? No! Ame was that kind of gentle sounding but deeply-but-quietly unhinged streamer I really liked!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUrwpoSLWwI

So with the movie over and some of the changes annoted, there are a some things there that absolutely should hae been removed (the dumb bastard joke and some on-the-nose moments), but some things I'd like to have seen kept (Saavik being given a more "young leader in training" role).

Saavik in the movie comes across as just a new character, and in the script she seems to be set up as a replacement for Spock in future sequels. I also like that there is the BEGINNING of a David/Saavik relationship, and that it's not capped off at the end. Again, the feeling of setting something up for future movies.

This is the only draft of Wrath of Khan I was ever able to find, which is the Nick Meyer shooting script so sadly I can't do a comparison like I did with ST:TMP. If you have any of the early drafts, I'd love a copy/loan of them so I could do that comparison. Wrath of Khan also has an interesting (if much less volatile) history to its scripts. :)

Annnd Saavik ruins the moment by referencing a line from earlier during Kirk and David's fight to the death. For a joke.