Even in the boot...

I am still cooking up a storm! The first few days were a hard adjustment, but I'm finally used to the boot and am confident that my foot will be as good as new in a little under 5 weeks.

One of the new cookbooks I found under the Christmas tree is Molto Mario by Mario Batali. I have never before cooked one of his recipes, but I am going to be working my way through this book because if this first recipe was a preview, we are in for some delicious food!

Tonight I made Cotolette alla Zingara. Translated from Italian, zingara means gypsy. I don't know why this dish of Pork Chops with Peppers and Capers is named after gypsies, but I'm gonna go with it.

The most exciting part of this recipe for me was that I had to brine the pork chops overnight. Jeromy has made several brines for our turkeys over the past few years, but I have never once made a brine myself. I was so excited about the brine that I pulled it out of the refrigerator and said, "Jeromy, look! My first brine!" I hope I am as proud of myself when showing off our firstborn child ;-)

The ingredients for the recipe:

Dinner on the stove:

The finished product:

I added garlicky broccolini from this month's issue of Food and Wine and some whole wheat couscous. This is definitely a larger meal that what I normally cook during the week, but it was sooooo worth it.

My final note, tonight, I'm really disappointed in Massachusetts.