{"id":429,"date":"2014-07-19T16:03:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T21:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/originalorknot.com\/?p=429"},"modified":"2014-07-20T14:30:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-20T19:30:15","slug":"did-you-know-this-or-how-to-make-dinner-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/?p=429","title":{"rendered":"Did you know this? \u2013or\u2013 How to make dinner easier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026Or that could also be “How to make dinner more easily,” because, though they say different things, they’re both accurate, and I am<\/strong><\/em> a grammar Nazi.<\/p>\n

If you take some\u00a0pork chops\u2014preferably nothing expensive that’s good for grilling; this is a handy\u00a0way to use those on-sale chops that aren’t that great grilled or fried\u2014if you\u00a0take them and cover them with some kind of gravy\/sauce (I make up\u00a0a pack of McCormick’s Pork Gravy and combine it my own homemade white sauce, plus whatever seasonings move me at that moment\u2014though you could certainly<\/em> use a can of undiluted Cream of Something soup and I would\u00a0understand), cover it tightly and stick it in the oven at, say, 250\u00b0 to 300\u00b0F, and let it cook for a few hours, you can call it Smothered Pork Chops. And if you take your Black & Decker Handy Steamer<\/a> (well, okay, mine’s about 20 year old and looks like this<\/a>) and put some brown rice in it and leave it to cook for about an hour, you have some rice to go under the yummy sauce. And if you then take a package (or can) of frozen (or canned) peas & carrots (peas just seem to go with pork, to me), you have dinner. But\u2014and this is the important part\u2014you’ve hardly had to make<\/strong><\/em> dinner. You put the entre\u00e9 on at 2:30. You put the rice on at 4:45. You do have to go in at some point approaching the dinner hour and take the chops out so the rolls<\/a> can go in, and start the peas & carrots simmering. But that really doesn’t take much time at all. That barely takes you away from your reading. Or knitting. Or watching the game on TV. Whatever you’re doing that’s way<\/strong> more fun than making dinner!<\/p>\n

And, if, like me, you’re in the habit of having a glass of wine or a beer while you’re preparing dinner, this plan moves that first glass up to 2:30. Which does make\u00a0for a very<\/em> cheerful Saturday night, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026Or that could also be “How to make dinner more easily,” because, though they say different things, they’re both accurate, and I am a grammar Nazi. If you take some\u00a0pork chops\u2014preferably nothing expensive that’s good for grilling; this is a handy\u00a0way to use those on-sale chops that aren’t that great grilled or fried\u2014if you\u00a0take them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}