Apple-Cranberry Stuffed Pork Chops

I don't know exactly where, when or how I obtained the recipe on which I based tonight's dinner, but the magazine page I worked from indicates that it's a Redbook from April 2008.  I wouldn't be surprised if I've really had it sitting around that long -- as we had recently cleaned out the recipe book; getting rid of stuff we'd probably never make, and singling out those that we needed to actually, finally try soon.  Anyways, this is the dinner I cooked, modified to our tastes, what we had on hand, and (we think, some better) ingredient choices:

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup finely chopped dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup finely chopped celery
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
• Dried sage, about 2 teaspoons
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Granny Smith apple
• 3/4 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
• 6 one-inch thick boneless center-cut pork chops
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 and 1/2 cups apple cider
• 2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard with honey (Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?")
• Salt and Pepper

PROCESS:

Using a sharp knife held parallel to the board, cut a pocket in each pork chop, leaving three edges in tact.  Set them aside.

Melt 1 Tablespoon of the butter over medium heat in a large nonstick skillet.  Then add the onions, celery, cranberries, garlic, sage, and a little salt.

Cook it down for a few minutes until it starts to soften and become translucent.

Then add the apples.

After a few more minutes, when the apples look cooked and a little soft, turn off the heat and stir in the cheese.

Stuff each pork chop with as much as it will hold.

I found that, even though it looked like way too much overall, there was just enough stuffing to fill them all quite plentifully.  Season the chops with salt and pepper.

Melt the other Tablespoon of butter in the now empty skillet, again over medium heat, and add the chops, being careful not to let the stuffing spill out.

Flip the over after about 4 minutes to cook on the other side.

After 4 minutes cooking on the second side, add the chicken stock to the pan.

Let it cook for a few more minutes until they are done, turning the chops over once more if you like.  I also chose to cover them loosely with a pot lid, to help the cooking along.

Transfer the chops to tin foil, and cover to keep warm.

What you should have left in the pan at this point is chicken stock, and maybe some bits of stuffing that fell out.  Now, add the apple cider and the  mustard, and whisk it all together.

Bring it to a full boil, and let the sauce reduce down to about half to one-third of its original volume.

Finally, serve each chop up with a spoonful or two of the sauce.  We had ours, as you can see, with steamed carrots.

This was very, very yummy.  What else can I say?  you should try it.  :)

Broccoli Bake

Having trouble getting your kiddos to eat their veggies?  I have the solution!  Lol.  This is an old family recipe of ours, which I suppose I could say is a secret recipe....but I honestly can't imagine that there aren't millions of people all over the country making the same or a very similar dish.  It's very, very easy, but also quite unhealthy and deadly (you'll see), so we reserve it for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It really wouldn't be good (on your waistline, I mean) to eat this more than a couple times a year.  But it's uber-delicious.

Gather your ingredients:

• Frozen broccoli (you could use fresh, but you'd have to peel the stalks and then cook it before even starting this recipe; frozen is already prepped and pre-cooked and therefore ready to go)
• Town House crackers
• Cheese (we just grab cheese ends from the deli, it really doesn't matter what kind)
• Butter
• Non-stick spray

That's it.  Easy peasy.

Chop up the cheese and layer it in your baking dishe(s) with the broccoli....broccoli first, then cheese, then broccoli, then cheese and so forth until the pan(s) are full, but always finishing with cheese on top.

Crush up some crackers in a plastic bag (for this iteration of the recipe, I ended up using one sleeve of crackers per pan).

Cover each pan with a flat layer crushed crackers.

Melt some butter (I simply put it in a measuring cup in the microwave), and pour it over the top.  As if the all the cheese already in there wasn't unhealthy enough, I used 2 full sticks of butter for each pan.  I tried to do a pan with only 1 stick, but the crackers just didn't soak up enough to bake properly.  Trust me.  ;)

Pop it into a 350-degree oven and bake it uncovered until it's bubbly and GB&D (that's golden brown and delicious).  It took about an hour.

Allow it to cool for a few minutes before serving (it needs time for the cheese and butter to firm back up slightly, otherwise you will have a lot of liquid going on in the bottom of the pan).

Eat it and enjoy the hell out of it, but don't dare ask about nutritional content.  We can't count that high.  :)

Coq au Vin

In the interest of getting our butts back in gear, cooking more at home, and ensuring leftovers for lunches (we've been spending an obscene amount of money in restaurants and on take-out lately), we recently selected this Coq au Vin recipe to try out, from Julia Child's beloved Savenor's Market.  Having never done a Coq au Vin before, I planned to stick to it as exactly as possible, but there did end up being a few small changes.  Here's how it went (our version, not theirs)....

INGREDIENTS

• ½ pound of sliced bacon, cut into quarter-inch pieces
• 40 frozen pearl onions
• 3 pounds of chicken thighs and legs, skin on
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 cups red wine (the original recipe called for pinot noir, burgundy or zinfandel -- I just used up what I had leftover, and honestly I have no idea what kind it was)
• Dried thyme
• Dried parsley
• ½ pound of button mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 2 Tablespoons of butter

PROCEDURE

First, I gathered up and prepared most of the ingredients (chicken, chicken stock, wine, bacon, onions, garlic, butter, and mushrooms).

Next, I decided to skip the step in the original recipe of blanching the bacon, and went straight into browning it on medium-high heat in a dutch oven that would be big enough to hold all the chicken.  This took about ten minutes.

Removing the crisped bacon (but not the rendered fat) from the pan, it was then time to work on the chicken.

I worked in two batches, heat still on medium-high, putting half of the chicken pieces and half of the onions right into the hot oil and leaving it for a few minutes to brown.

Then, I flipped it over, added half of the garlic, salt and pepper, and left it for a few more minutes to brown on the other side.

All of it (chicken, garlic and onions) was then removed from the pan.

I dumped the fat out of the pan, and added the chicken stock and wine to deglaze.  After which, the chicken, onions, garlic, and bacon were put back in, along with some parsley, thyme and two bay leaves.

I brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat and covered it, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Next, I took the chicken pieces out of the pan and set them aside, and it was time to work on the sauce.  I didn't remove the onions (as suggested by the original recipe) or any of the other stuff (garlic, bacon, etc).  The mushrooms were added to the pan, and the heat was turned up to full blast so that it could boil and reduce down.  At this point I also started a pot of white rice cooking, so that we could serve the chicken on top of that.

I let it boil for probably another 20 minutes, until the volume had reduced by approximately three quarters.

Then I removed the bay leaves, stirred in the butter....

....and added the chicken pieces back in to get re-warmed and coated in the sauce.

It was plated on top of a bed of rice, with a scoop or two of the mushroom-onion-bacon fortified sauce.

I have to say that at first, particularly as I was starting to reduce the sauce down, I though that maybe this recipe was too much trouble, and not worth all the effort.  But once we finally dove in and started eating it, I realized that I was wrong.  Very delicious!!

It only seemed complicated because it was my first time making this.  And it really didn't take very long (about an hour and a half start to finish).  I think I could easily do this one again, without even having to look at a recipe, now that I know the basic techniques involved in a classic Coq au Vin.

Pot Roast

Hubby and I recently became members of the M.F. Dulock Pasture Raised Meats "meat club," wherein for a certain set price each month, you get a minimum of 5 pounds of the butchers' selection of various meats and offal, plus bones for stock above and beyond that 5 pound base weight.  This month, included in our bag (which incidentally weighed a good amount over the 5 pounds) was this beautiful two-pound bottom round.  We decided to turn into a pot roast.

We did our Googling, and chose to base our efforts on this recipe by The Pioneer Woman.  We of course, as usual, added our own twists and turns to it.

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 275-degrees.

Step 2: Generously salt and pepper the meat.

Step 3: Roughly chop a whole onion and toss it into a large enameled cast iron pot (or whatever oven-safe pot with a lid that you have) along with a couple tablespoons of very hot (but not smoking) olive oil.  Cook them for a few minutes until they start to turn brown:

Step 4: Remove the onions from the pot and repeat the quick browning procedure with some chopped carrots.  You  may or may not need to add a little more oil to the pan -- you be the judge....for the record, I didn't add any myself.

Step 5: Remove the carrots from the pan and brown the meat on all sides, again adding a touch more oil if you think you need to.  I did choose to add a little oil at this point.

Step 6: After removing the meat from the pan, deglaze it using a little bit of red wine (or beef stock or water if you don't have wine).  Pictured below is the wine the we happened to have sitting around last night, so that's what I used.  I only used enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan, though, because I needed to reserve about 2 cups of it for another upcoming recipe.  I wanted more liquid than that for deglazing, however, so I added a little of my homemade beef stock, too.

 

Step 7:  Here, because I wanted more vegetables in our final dish than just carrots and onions, I opted to chop up two russet potatoes and a few mushrooms.
 

Step 8:  Now it's time to put it all back in the pot.  First, in goes the meat.  Then, pour in as much beef stock as is needed to cover it about halfway up.  Next, toss in all the veggies.  Finally, top it off with Rosemary and Thyme....as much as you like, and fresh if you have it (we used dried).

 

Step 9:  Put the lid on your pot and bake it all together for about 2 hours.  (I think the rule is about an hour per pound of meat.)  We happened to let ours go for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

This is what it will look like when it comes out.  Try not to dive in too fast, though....it's very, very hot.  Plus, you still need to make the gravy.

Put the meat on a plate to let the juices redistribute, and scoop the vegetables out of the pot, leaving all the liquid still in there.

Bring it to a boil on your stovetop to reduce it down as much as you like.  We let it boil for 5-10 minutes, then used a cornstarch slurry to give it one final thickening.  (I know that some schools of though, including my beloved A.B., frown upon letting corn starch anywhere near gravy, but since I am currently not eating wheat unless it's necessary or a special occasion, we opted to skip the usual flour route -- it still tasted great.)

 

Slice up your meat, plate it with a scoop or two of the veggies, top it with the gravy, and enjoy!!

Everything was delicious, and the meat was so tender.  The only thing I would do differently next time is perhaps cook it for a little less time, because the potatoes were squishier than I would have liked and meat on the rarer side is always preferred in our house.  But other than that, it was a definite success that we are happy to have lots of leftovers of for lunches.