#Pioneer woman baked pork chops and rice zip#
#Pioneer woman baked pork chops and rice free#

This high-protein dish is paleo and keto diet friendly. It’s comfort food in the extreme, so when you have an “idle Tuesday” moment, make a Fiesta Pork Chop and Rice Casserole.Easy Low Carb Egg Roll in a Bowl combines all the flavor of egg rolls without the carbohydrates from the egg roll wrapper or the fat from the deep frying. It’s one of those dishes that you can make ahead, then bake when you’re ready. So I’m pulling an oldie but goodie out of my recipe box today. Sometimes life just gets in the way of cooking, cleaning and posting about silly mishaps in the kitchen. I’m still waiting to hear how the surgery went and what the future holds for Marylyn, so my MAN-ic Monday isn’t a joyful one today. Suddenly my whole world flipped upside down and my petty sulks about not being more productive all weekend flew out of my head. So last night I was just sitting at my computer, contemplating nothing more serious than what I was going to write about today when I got an email from Marylyn’s husband… it was an “idle Tuesday” email to tell me that she had been admitted to the hospital and was scheduled to have emergency surgery this morning. I found out what unconditional love is from Marylyn’s Mom. She was always encouraging, no matter how badly we had screwed up or gotten ourselves in a fix.

She handed out hugs as often as she handed out popsicles. We were only 13 and couldn’t even imagine the possibility of her Mom not being fine and healthy! I don’t know which memories sustained Marylyn through the following year of her Mom’s illness, but for me it was the dance routine, eating liver and onions with her family and the infamous Lollapaloosa Sundae that we managed to share and eat while riding our bikes all the way across town one beautiful fall day. It became even more important to me when we found out that her Mom was dying. I was SO proud of my efforts and the fact that I’d actually learned an entire dance routine that Marylyn created! That perfect little moment in time has stuck with me for 45 years. Marylyn and I performed that dance routine twice that night – once for her Mom while she filmed it, and once for her Dad when he got home from work. They were still a bit too short, but at least they covered most of me and I could breathe when I zipped them up. Marylyn’s Mom came to the rescue with a pair of her “old pants”.

#Pioneer woman baked pork chops and rice zip#

The tops and and hats all fit just fine, but the pants were a whole ‘nother thing! We giggled as I tried on pair after pair, struggling to zip them, then laughing when I looked down at my bare ankles and calves. Marylyn was a skinny little thing and I was a giant. We were looking for clothes to match the routine and the song. Once we had the routine down pat, we headed to her bedroom to paw through all of her costumes. We squirreled ourselves away in her basement and practiced a dance routine to the tune “Buttons and Bows”. One of the best times of my life, the year I turned 13, was spent at Marylyn’s home. I wasn’t good, but she never let me know it. Marylyn taught me to dance! She had infinite patience and would spend hours teaching me fancy footwork and turns. I was into music, but wished I was into dance. I’d curl up on the floor in our kitchen, near the radiator, with the phone cradled on my ear, just talking about anything and everything. We talked on the phone for as many hours as we could get away with (before our Moms cut us off). We spent hours cycling back and forth to our houses.

I don’t remember HOW we met, only that one day I didn’t know her, and the next day we were stuck together like glue. We met at the end of 6th grade when she moved to our little town in upstate New York. I have a wonderful friend from my childhood named Marylyn. The line in the essay that defines the “big stuff” in my life goes like this: The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind

#Pioneer woman baked pork chops and rice free#

If you’ve never heard of an “idle Tuesday” moment, it’s from the original essay by Mary Schmich which was later turned into the hit song by Baz Lurmann, titled Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen. It was bad enough that I was feeling like a slug, but then yesterday evening I had one of those “idle Tuesday” moments. Is it Monday already? Really? Truly? The weekend flew by and I had good intentions, but managed to do absolutely none of the things on my “fall cleaning” list.