Pork chops

I did not grow up eating pork chops.  When my mom made pork, it was usually in the form of tonkatsu.  Red Sox Daddy hasn't eaten red meat in nearly a decade so my red meat repertoire doesn't get the work out that chicken or turkey do.

Recently, the kids have become interested in eating pork chops because of Tom and Jerry.  "Meat" in these old school cartoons often take the form of pork chops.

While breaking food shopping cardinal rules right and left this morning (don't food shop on an empty stomach, don't go "off list") I picked up three pork chops for dinner.  They were on sale and I wanted to pick up a "protein" for the kids and GFCF Kid had nixed spaghetti with meat sauce on my way out the door.

Today started out crappy and continued into extremely blah territory.  A combo of being tired from a very long trip home from Cape Cod last night, PMS and one child whose on again off again is-it-a-virus-or-seasonal-allergies symptoms are on again.

By the time I got motivated to think about dinner I had about an hour.  I was excited about the meat.  One thing I do love about Whole Foods is there meat.  The butchers are nice and hook you up with just about anything you need, fresh, hormone free, sometimes even local.

I hopped online because truth be told, my forays into cooking pork chops have left me dissatisfied.  I needed to do some research, but I didn't have much time.  I found a recipe that fit my multiple needs, quickly, at the second site I went to: Food Network.

It's a basic pork chops recipe with simple, already-in-your-pantry ingredients and I could tell by reading it that the chance of drying the meat out were decreased by certain steps I hadn't taken in the past.  Also, it didn't call for mustard, a condiment that my kids do not like.

I did some tweaking:

• I used safflower oil instead of olive oil and likely used more than 2 Tbs.

• I used half a sweet yellow onion rather than the shallots.

• I used cooking saké instead of white wine (we don't drink wine so never have it on hand).

• I used 3 bone-in pork chops and they were massive, just shy of 2.5 lbs. total.

• I used Imagine Foods no-chicken stock because that's what I had on hand.

• I used a very generous table spoon of Earth Balance rather than the butter.

• I initially placed the chops in a prepared baking dish, covered the dish with foil and baked for the allotted time at the recommended temperature.  I then transferred the chops to the cast iron skillet I had used to brown them which I had then used to cook the onion.  I covered the cast iron skillet and put the chops back into the oven for 5 more minutes.  When I checked them, they were still a bit pink in the center so I re-covered the skillet and put them back in for 5 more minutes.  Cooking time is going to vary depending on the thickness of your chops, but cooking them in the onion stock liquid will forgive some overcooking by keeping the chops moist (is that kind of steaming it?)

I served the chops with white rice, apple sauce and leftover sweet potato fries.  The kids liked the pork a lot and both requested seconds.  GFCF Kid did not try the onions.  The Omnivore did and didn't care for them.  I, however, loved the onions.  They were so good with the rice!

Enjoy, you pork eating carnivores...