Divine Lamb Chops

Hi all:

I wanted to make something outside my regular repertoire and decided to try lamb chops.  I have made them before, years ago, but I thought it was time to revisit these delectable morsels.  We all love Greek food in our house, so I decided to make them Greek style.

They are easy to throw together and taste wonderful. With a few simple ingredients, you too can make a dinner fit for a $50 price tag.

Here are the steps:

Rosie's Divine Lamb Chops

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1 package (about 8) small Australian lamb loin chops

Freshly cracked pepper

Freshly grated coarse sea salt (I used Mediterranean Sea Salt) 

2 large cloves garlic - crushed

Freshly squeezed juice from 1/2 lemon

Chopped fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Place the lamb chops in a deep glass dish and sprinkle the lamb chops on 1 side with the pepper, coarse salt, crushed garlic, chopped rosemary and olive oil. Squeeze the juice from about 1/4 to 1/2 of a fresh lemon onto the chops and let them sit to marinate for about 1 hour before cooking.

Sear the chops on both sides, in a heavy skillet. Sear until both sides are carmelized and then place them in an oven proof dish to finish in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 min. Lamb can get tough, so do not over cook these.

I also made my Greek style potatoes with the chops.  Simply wash about 6 medium potatoes (I used red potatoes) and cut into wedges.  Place on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with Johnny's Seasoning salt, drizzle olive oil on them and bake in the oven at 425 degrees for about 45 min. - 60 min.  These are a hit every time I make them.

Done and ........

Done.  Oh, and I made steamed cauliflower with this meal as well. Love it.

Parakalo!!!

Rosie

Easy Piano Arrangement of "If" by David Gates (arranged by Rose Gindl)

Hi all:

The other day, my husband and I were taking a long drive (4 and 1/2 hours) and he very considerately made a playlist of hits from the 1970's, to while away the time in the car. We found ourselves singing away to most of those songs. Somehow, I seem to remember a lot of the lyrics from decades ago. I personally love 1970's music. I will admit here, that I was in high school in the 1970's, so music from that era has an especially fond place in my heart. Ok, I have now officially dated myself with this confession. You can now probably guess how old I am but I won't ever admit it!!

I have digressed:

One of my all time favourite songs from the 1970's is "If" by David Gates (Bread). I have always loved the hauntingly beautiful chord progressions in that song and when I got home from our drive,  I tried to find an easy piano arrangement that I could play : to no avail. Web searches turned up nothing - or maybe I wasn't patient enough to look through all the websites. Anyways, me being me, I thought "I can write an easy piano arrangement for myself" and so I did.

It took me many hours to play around with the chord voicings (David Gates may not agree with my attempt) but I finally have a version that I think, sounds pretty nice.

I am sending it into the universe for everyone to try and I must insist on 2 things:

1). That I am always cited by name (Rose Gindl) as the arranger of this particular piano arrangement

and

2) That a more accomplished piano player than I, video themselves playing this piece and post it on YouTube (citing me as the arranger of course and citing my blog site: everythingisalwaysrosie.blogspot.com) so that I can hear how it should really sound. (without all my flubs, mistakes and poor technique). I hope David Gates is Ok with this experiment.

Below is my arrangement. I play ALL the left hand chords as indicated in the first 4 bars: broken, then held to the end of each bar. I also wrote a very easy Right Hand melody, which I embellish with alot of syncopation. The notes are just guidelines. In the final bar where the right hand has the fermata on F, the left hand plays individual notes as written, which carry on to the final line of the staff paper and end in a 4 octave F Major arpeggio. (I just wanted to fit everything on 1 piece of paper).

I am really hoping someone will video themselves playing this piece. Piano is not my first instrument, so my bumbling attempts at playing it, cause my family to run for the hills. I hope this arrangement sounds as good as I hoped it would.

Enjoy.

Rosie

Easy Homemade Tomato Soup

'Hi all:

Happy Thanksgiving to us here in Canada!  Ordinarily, I would be celebrating with my family with a turkey and all the fixin's, but alas, I came down with a very nasty cold a few days ago so I had to send my family off to celebrate without me.  They are enjoying a full turkey feast, while I am sitting home alone, waiting for the leftovers to come home.  I couldn't risk spreading this cold to my family members; I couldn't let the new baby in the family catch this, nor my brother in law, who has had severe breathing issues since last year. Instead, I am hunkered down with a box of Kleenex and decided to make myself some healthy, healing soup.  It always helps me feel better.

I had some leftover sun ripened field tomatoes and wanted to make myself some homemade tomato soup.  Now, I have made this before with my own cherry tomatoes, but this time, I used large, red, ripe, field tomatoes. Anytime I have seen recipes for homemade tomato soup, it seems so tedious and uses too many complicated steps ; ie. Blanch the tomatoes, skin the tomatoes, put the tomatoes through a sieve!!! Bah!!! Too much work.  I like hearty soups that are chunkier than canned and I have no aversion to tomato skins and seeds. What is the issue with those? Why does it seem these are verboten when it comes to tomato soup?  Well it doesn't have to be that way, with the recipe that I just created today (and it is probably healthier with the skins and seeds left intact).

Here is the simple recipe.

Rosie's Homemade Tomato Soup

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5-6 large field ripened tomatoes

2 c. Chicken stock

2 large carrots - peeled and cut into chunks

1/16 large sweet Walla Walla onion - finely diced

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp. sugar

1 small sprig fresh rosemary

2-3 pinches of garlic powder

1 c. Hot water

1 package chicken bouillon 

Splash (about 1/4 c.) of heavy cream

** Note: you need the sugar, carrots and sweet Walla Walla onion to counteract the tangy tomatoes

Wash and dice the tomatoes into pieces.

    Look at how beautiful and red these are. So flavourful! Now those are tomatoes!!

Add the tomatoes to a large stock pot and crush with a potato masher.

I used this much Rosemary from my garden. Add the rosemary, chicken stock (I used Campbell's), salt, pepper, garlic powder, carrots, onion and sugar to the tomatoes and stir. Bring to a boil, then turn to low and simmer for about 1 to 1 1 /2 hours, until carrots are cooked.  At this point, the liquid had reduced down so I added 1 package of chicken bouillon to 1 c. of hot water and added that to the soup. 

When carrots are cooked, use an immersion blender to blend the soup to a smooth consistency.  Add a splash of heavy (whipping) cream and blend again. Serve with a few croutons sprinkled on top.

I love the texture of this soup and actually love the seeds in it. You cannot even notice that the skins were left on the tomatoes.  It all works! Enjoy!!

This was my lonely Thanksgiving dinner!!

Rosie