The fancy people at Cooking Light have redeemed themselves! You really can't go wrong when you cook whatever is on the cover of a cooking magazine. The thing is, usually what is on the cover is not quick, inexpensive, or easy. This time it was all of the above, and delicious!
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| I dogear pages. |
Last night we made Pork Chops with Roasted Apples and Pearl Onions and a side of Green Beans with Mustard Vinaigrette. The recipe was from our newest Cooking Light. To recap, chosen because it was fast, easy, and inexpensive.
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| Assembled Ingredients |
For the mustard vinegarette we just needed EV Olive Oil, Fresh Pepper, Kosher Salt, Cider Vinegar, and Mustard Powder. I couldn't find frozen Haricots Verts so I just went with some extra fine whole green beans.
Part of the speed of this recipe that I really enjoyed was that it used frozen pearl onions and frozen green beans. It saved time in washing and prepping and often times frozen vegetables taste better than what is in the produce section. The things you buy fresh at grocery stores are picked before they are ripe to make up for the travel time. Frozen vegetables are picked at the peak of their ripeness and then frozen right away to preserve their state. A great time saver all around and I use them ALL of the time with Landon.
I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, took out the pork chops to come to room temperature, chopped the apples, thawed the onions, and measured out the flour and oils. I put a pan on the stove to warm up with the olive oil. Then added the onions. It's important to only stir them once while they cook so that they get nice and brown bringing out a bit of carmelization. You use canola oil in this pan because it is going in the oven and unlike olive oil, and some others, will not go rancid at very high temperatures.
Then we added the apples and stirred before putting the pan in the oven for ten minutes.
While the apples and onions cooked, I chopped the thyme and put a pan on the stove to warm up for the pork chops.
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| Pork Chop pan. Sprinkled with Salt and Pepper and the pan is coated with Olive Oil. |
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| The thyme mixture ready to stir in the onions and apples. |
The apples and onions came out perfectly and I stirred in the thyme mixture while S finished the pork chops.
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| With everything mixed in together. Smelling fabulous! |
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| Pork chops ready to come off. |
Here's a handy tip... try not to forget that the pan that is currently on the stove with the apples and onions was formerly in the oven. I grabbed the handle. Smart girl. It hurt. So if you can remember, my advice is to put one of those handy little oven mitt sleeves on the handle. Then when you grab it you won't burn your hand off. I don't have one of those, so I used this:
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| Hard to tell, but it's just a giant regular valentine's day oven mitt. Not a gift from S, don't worry. |
I had already mixed up the chicken broth and flour so when Seth pulled off the pork chops, we were ready to make the gravy/sauce in the pan.
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| Boom. Gravy. |
Gravy is best when you are supposed to "scrape up the bits" from the bottom of the pan. YUMMMMM!
Then we got to the green beans. I had already thawed them in the microwave and patted them dry. I eyeballed the vinaigrette and probably shouldn't have. They were too "mustardy" for S and the flavors weren't exactly subtle. I think it was just fine though and would have been better if I would have used the correct measurements.
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| Vinaigrette |
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| Coated Green Beans |
Finally we assembled the plates. Prior to the gravy:
This was fantastic. The onions and apples were so sweet and flavorful with the thyme. The gravy on the pork chops was so savory. The green beans were a nice added crunch and vegetable. It was also very fast and very easy. Also, again THE GRAVY... OMG. Fantastic. When is gravy not fantastic?
There are lots of different ways you could do this. Possibly with a pork loin all baked at once. While eating I was thinking mostly yum yum yum, and nom nom nom, and how can we cook fast, easy and gravy every night. It was really a wonderful flavor combination and something that would taste delicious year round.
Here is an update on the Orzo from Monday: Even Landon won't eat it. She tried it and cleaned off her tongue with her hands. I have decided to give it up. No use trying to reinvent the plain, boring, orzo pasta that had no flavor.
So go ahead and cook this. NOW or next week. But soon. It was delicious. If you cook as a couple it will only take you 30 minutes from start to finish. If cooking as a couple makes you want to murder each other, then it will take you 40 minutes and tell your second chef to leave you alone.
We had the leftovers today. Then I had a skinny cow cookies and cream ice cream sandwich. Sorry. Just needed to get that off of my chest.
- RT
PS Shameless self promotion: Have you "liked" the Raising Texas facebook page yet? You should!
Pork Chops with Roasted Apples and Pearl Onions
Ingredients:
2 1/2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
1 1/2 cups frozen pearl onions, thawed
2 cups Gala apple wedges
1 tablespoon butter, divided
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
4 (6-ounce) bone-in center-cut pork loin chops (about 1/2 inch thick)
1/2 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon oil to pan; swirl to coat. Pat onions dry with a paper towel. Add onions to pan; cook 2 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring once. Add apple to pan; place in oven. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until onions and apple are tender. Stir in 2 teaspoons butter, thyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle pork with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add pork to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove pork from pan; keep warm. Combine broth and flour in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add broth mixture to pan; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cook 1 minute or until reduced to 1/4 cup. Stir in vinegar and remaining 1 teaspoon butter. Serve sauce with pork and apple mixture.
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