bakin'/bacon.

One of the things I'm trying to do better this year is plan/cook meals. It will save us a lot of money; I planned a week's worth of meals and it's lasting us two weeks because we have leftovers every other day. Last night, Nate helped me make these recipes:

• Caramel Apple Pork Chops
• Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans

Yum! Relatively easy, but if you're making both at the same time, there's a lot going on so it's nice to have a second person take over one of them. (Tip: Break the ends off the green beans before you cook them, and peel the apples … I was just lazy; the apple skins were still good and I left the bean ends on my plate.) My grandparents got Nate an electronic food thermometer for Christmas to use when grilling, but it has been super helpful in the kitchen. I could easily check to make sure I wasn't over-/under-cooking the pork so it was nice and juicy.

Basically what we concluded from this meal is that if you wrap it in bacon (or turkey bacon in our case) or melt butter and brown sugar over it, it will be delicious! :-) Nate said this meal qualifies as "Top 10." It will definitely be a go-to plan when we have guests over.