Turning an old favorite dinner "downside up"!

Oh, it has been fun playing in the galley! Bob let me get a copy of "Culinary Artistry" - wow that'll inspire anyone to want to create wonderful food. Being limited by space and equipment is a little difficult - but an intrepid "wannabe chef" can manage.

Ingredients: beautiful thick boneless pork chops, an acorn squash, and some fresh brussels sprouts. Hmmmmm. Had a hankering for something different - something off the wall, a different twist on the same ol' stuff.

The plan: steam the squash in the oven as usual, season & brown off the chops and simmer in some white wine, blanch the sprouts and season with vinegar & perhaps some butter.

Gee, doesn't that sound like fun? We were fond of cooking our acorn and butternut squash with chai spice tea bags in the water - but we were out. Hmmmm, improvise?

1 acorn squash
2 tsp. green cardamom pods
1/2 tsp. black pepper corns
1 tsp. kosher salt
Chinese Five Spice powder to taste.

Pour 3/4" water into a 8"x 8" baking dish, add salt and stir to dissolve. Crush cardamom pods and peppercorns and add to water. Cut squash in half and remove the seeds. Sprinkle Five Spice powder on the squash and let sit for 5 minutes before placing cut side down in the water. Bake at 350 f. until the skin gives when gently poked. Turn cut side up and add butter to taste. I have got to say that the kitchen smelled divine while they baked.

The pork chops were also seasoned with the Five Spice powder, browned off in 1 TBS of coconut oil, and simmered in sake, and then the resulting juices were reduced to use as a sauce.

Okay, I'm sure there are veggies that would go better with this, but these brussels sprouts were fresh on the stalk, and needed to be eaten so we'd have some more room in the fridge. Hmmmm, how do you make these wonderful little gems fit the "theme"? Bob likes vinegar - balsamic with a touch of butter on his sprouts and he loves sesame oil on asparagus. Hmmmmm. By now I was thinking I'd made a mistake - but the sprouts were almost done - it became a matter of just going for it! Sesame oil, about a TBS and 2 or 3 TBS of rice wine vinegar went over the little green balls of joy - and they were joyfully good with the nutty taste of the sesame oil and the gentle tang of the rice wine vinegar providing zip the meal needed after the rich, sweet, and spicy tastes of the pork and squash. Everyone agreed that it was a great meal!

It was a fun meal to put together and lighter than it would have been if it had been my mom's classic dinner - pork chops in a mushroom gravy, acorn squash with butter and brown sugar, and brussles sprouts with mayonnaise.

My personal favorite was the squash, scented with cardamom and the five spice powder just made the meal for me!