We Call it Schnitzel

In my childhood home, we would have called this fried pork. In Paul’s house, it was pork cutlets. In our home now, its schnitzel.

Yesterday morning when I pulled out a bag of pork chops for dinner, I was just thinking of dinner. I didn’t realize what this simple dinner would do for my “Mom” rating. Each one of my kids, after they heard what was for dinner, began singing my praises.

One of them even went so far as to give me a hug.

Its amazing what simple ingredients can do when combined.

Pork Schnitzel

• Pork chops
• Panko
• Eggs
• Salt and Pepper
• Oil
• Lemon

Remove all the bones from the porkchops, cutting as close to the bone as possible. One at a time, cover each pork chop with plastic and pound it until its pretty thin…maybe 1/4″ or so. I usually have one of my kids do this. They like having permission to beat on things.

Lightly season porkchops with salt and pepper.

Mix Panko (For 6 chops, I used about 1 1/2 cups) in a pie plate with salt and pepper – I measure by taste here…once the panko tastes suitably seasoned, I stop.

With a fork, mix 2-3 eggs and a couple tablespoons of water in a 2nd pie plate.

Heat oil in a large flat-bottomed pan until its hot enough that a when you drop in a few pieces of panko they begin sizzling immediately.

When oil is hot, dip each pork chop in the egg mixture, then in panko and gently place in the hot oil.

Cook until golden brown on each side, maybe 3 minutes for each side.

Squeeze a bit of fresh lemon juice over each cutlet and serve. I usually make a quick mushroom gravy to go over the schnitzel.

And if you don’t know what to call them, just call them delicious.

The Golden Egg that was laid by the Goose

Last year we attempted to raise ducks and geese as meat birds. The raising of them went very well. The plucking of them…not so much. We decided to stick with chickens and turkeys.

So all winter we have had a gaggle of geese and a raft of ducks roaming the farm. Well, at least we did until a couple of weeks ago when we were visited by a band of coyotes and were left with one goose and three ducks.

Other than the fact that they poop everywhere, they’ve been kinda fun to have around.

But most fun of all is the pretty white gifts they leave for us every morning in the driveway. Every day we pick up two duck eggs and one goose egg. Yesterday, Ryan saw the eggs in the fridge and got a hankerin’ for deviled eggs. Why this child who has no concept of time thought that it would be a good idea for him to boil a bunch of eggs without any adult input, is beyond me. But he did. With no timer. Never looking at a clock.

When I got home, I asked how long they had been cooking. “About 10 minute” he said. So I set the timer for 5 more minutes and hoped for the best.

And got the worst. His 10 minutes appear to have equated to 2 real-time minutes. They were barely soft boiled. Fine for eating, bad for deviling.

Lucky for us, however, he had used the last few eggs from a carton of store eggs I got before the birds started leaving us white ovals of deliciousness. So not a huge loss there.

But the whole episode left Paul with a hankering for deviled eggs. So tonight, I made deviled eggs.

From goose eggs.

And they were golden.