Eating well

I do love to eat and I was spoiled over the years by having my own splendid cook in residence. Figuring out what to cook for one person is hard. These past months I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of recipes. Some have been successful, others only so so. I refuse to eat TV dinners.
Yesterday, I found a delicious recipe called Pork with Celery Avgolemono. Of course it was supposed to serve six people. I cut the proportions down and made it for myself.

2 ½ tablespoons butter
1 lean, boneless pork chop, cut into bite size pieces
1/3 onion, sliced
1 ½ cups water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
5 or 6 stalks of celery cut into 1 ½ inch pieces
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg
Juice of ½ lemon
Pepper to taste
Hot cooked noodles (served over them)

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a medium size heavy frying pan (I use cast iron). Add meat and cook, turning the pieces over until browned on all sides. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add ½ tablespoon of butter, if needed, to the pan. Add onion slices and cook them over a low heat until they are soft. Return meat to the pan, than add water and the bouillon cubes. Bring to a boil, stir, reduce heat, cover pan and simmer for 1 hour.

Add celery pieces to pan and simmer covered for 15 minutes more.

Pour off ½ cup of the cooking liquid and set aside. Turn the burner under the pan off or very, very low.

In a small pan melt 1 tablespoon of butter and blend in 1 tablespoon of flour. Cook stirring until smooth. Stir flour mixture gradually into the meat and celery pan.

In a small bowl, beat an egg well with a whisk. Keep on beating and stir in the lemon juice. Then, gradually stir in the ½ cup warm cooking liquid that was set aside.

Next, gradually stir the lemon-egg mixture into the warm stew. Season with pepper. Heat the whole thing up, but do NOT boil (or you will have scrambled eggs).

Serve over hot noodles in a soup bowl.

According to Wikipedia, Avgolemono is a Greek soup made with egg and lemon juice mixed with broth, heated until it thickens but before it boils and curdles. Avgolemono translates to "egg-lemon,"


It may not look too pretty, but it was marvelous. I try not to talk to myself while I am alone at home, but last night I kept saying aloud, “Oh, this is good.”

Here are pictures of other tasty dishes I’ve set before myself. They all seem to require lots of fussing, but I’m worth it.