beer glazed pork chops

You're welcome for this recipe. While it's a bit of a travesty to pour a perfectly good beer into a pot for cooking on a hot summer day while the smoke & aroma of pork on the barbie fill the air, this glaze is completely worth it. Not that I wouldn't recommend poppin' a couple tops while dinner's on the grill. Or with dinner. Heck, have 'em after. And this works perfectly for grilled chicken, too.

One word of caution: I used an amber bock that we really like to drink, and the flavor of the beer came through perfectly. I'd skip lighter beers and use an amber or stout, and go for one that you actually enjoy drinking. As the saying goes, "If you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it."

Oh, and one more word of caution: the glaze goes from almost perfectly-reduced to burned in about 2.7 seconds. So once it gets close, just park yourself next to the stove and pay attention. Trust me on this.

bbq pork kabobs

More produce from the in-laws = more recipes created. But this one really shouldn't be a recipe. It's more like a list of 4 things that get skewered. It does look scrumptious though, doesn't it? I was looking around at my 2 red onions (we don't eat much red onion), my 5 kiwis, my pork chops, and my... well, that's about all we had, when it hit me: bbq sauce & red onions like to have the occasional fling. Put them with the pork, and we'll have some jazzed-up bbq pork. Skewer them & call them kabobs, and my desperation combo will look intentional (see? I wasn't kidding).

And yes, there's a reason that nothing's charred. I was waiting and waiting for Mr. Improv to finish what he was doing so he could take over on dinner and I could head out on a run. And when he finally came out, the skewers were already on the grill. And I was faced with either missing my run or missing my photo op.

I chose to flip those practically raw skewers, slather just enough bbq sauce on them to look legit without igniting a fire for Mr. Improv, and then headed off on my run. So the pic is a bit different because, well, when you actually cook food, it ends up looking, you know, cooked. Ahem.

sweet butternut squash with pork chops

Butternut squash soup is one of the great things about being alive. Especially when you've got a recipe like the one hiding in my recipe box (let's just say, bacon is involved). But when I came into 2 big squashes a few days ago, I challenged myself to find new things to do besides just roasting them or turning them into soup. Friday was the vegetarian version. Today is for Mr. Improv, who for all his love of veggies, loves his meat, too.