Panko Pork

...fun to say (alliteration and all ) AND fun to eat. Well, at least I enjoyed it. Dh can't get behind pork being the OTHER white meat, though he loves bacon well enough.

I finally cracked open my panko crumbs that I bought weeks back and made Panko-Crusted Pork Chops with Creamy Herb Dressing from the new Cooking Light. I really liked it. The panko makes the dish really crispy, eh? In this recipe, you brown the panko-crusted pork in a non-stick frying pan and then you bake it. The side dressing pictured above looks more than a little sad, but it was quite tasty with it. ( I find I'm usually rushing by the sauce preparation time, and my side sauce never, EVER looks as pretty as the one in the magazine picture. er well. lol. No food modelling here!) The whole dish will cost you 6 points.

sidenote change: The recipe is supposed to cover 2 chops, but I actually did 4- one for each family member. I gave the last chop- with the least coating, to my dd who likes everything plain and calls breadcrumbs and such "sand." Anyway, it seemed to be enough to cover 4 chops reasonably well.

Also pictured here is a new find from Costco- Uptime dumplings! They're available for a short time and are selling like hot cakes apparently (said the lady at the Uptime Dumpling Costco stand anyway). You get 5 dumplings in each serving. The ones I tried were 2 points for the Pork, Bokchoi and Shrimp ones and 3 points for the Chicken and Cabbage ones. The sauce isn't pictured on my plate here, but they sell that too. It's also pretty reasonable point wise. The dumplings are quite delicious. :)

My crazy looking squash in the picture has Splenda brown sugar (also from Costco). It tasted like the real thing, too.

In exercise news, we went for a nice long walk in the conservation area trails today. It was so nice out and beautiful. I want to make family hikes more of a regular thing...with less whining. We took a loop that took us an hour up and down hills, so I was quite proud of my family- in spite of the minor complaining.