Dinner ….

Getting out of the boring cooking rut

Things Got Boring

For the last few months, my wife and I felt like our home cooked food was in a rut. Kind of the same 8-10 dishes rotated around over a 2 week period. In January, I decided to fix that. I did a ton of recipe research from good sources like Food & Wine and Serious Eats, among others. And came up with a set of about 50 recipes to try out over the coming months. They are mostly weeknight doable recipes, but they are scattered over every region of the world.

Tonight we did an upscale Southern dinner: Cider and mustard braised pork chops, with apples, rice pilaf and broccoli. Took about 45 minutes to cook and was genuinely good and different from our normal pork chops.

Costs Are Way Up

Given inflation, the solution of “go out to dinner” when we are bored at home isn’t working well anymore. We are paying $100 to have a cocktail, burgers, and a couple beers at a local, nice, bar & grill. For $30 we had a very nice, different, home cooked meal.

Side note: Just a couple years ago, 2 pork chops, hard cider, an apple, rice, broccoli would have been about $15. Joe’s economy sucks.

Try the idea. Find new recipes, build a weekly menu, shop for it, and stick to it. That’s our plan.

Recipe

Here’s the recipe, if you want to make it yourself. The source is Bon Appetit. I have made some modifications, including scaling the recipe to just 2 servings.

Ingredients

2 1½"-thick bone-in rib pork chops (about 2 lb. total)
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. Morton kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 medium Granny Smith or Gala apple, halved through equator
1 medium shallot, peeled, halved lengthwise through root end
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
¼ cup Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 cups sweet hard apple cider (such as Angry Orchard)
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
10–12 sprigs thyme, tied together with kitchen twine
Finely chopped chives (for serving)

Directions

Pat two 1½"-thick bone-in rib pork chops dry with paper towels. Sprinkle all over with sugar, kosher salt, pepper and pat into meat firmly. Heat 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil in a large cast-iron skillet until oil is shimmering. Cook pork chops until deeply browned, about 5 minutes total. Reserve to a large plate.

Cook apple and shallot, cut sides down, in same skillet, gently pressing down on them with a spatula to create contact with pan, until golden brown on cut sides, about 2 minutes (it’s okay if shallots fall apart). Transfer apples only to plate with chops.

Reduce heat to medium, add garlic to pan, and cook, stirring constantly, just until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add mustard, flour, and butter; stir to coat shallots. Pour in cider, chicken broth, and vinegar, scraping up browned bits and flour stuck to bottom of pan and incorporating into liquid. Add thyme, tied together with kitchen twine, and bring mixture to a simmer. Partially cover (use a baking sheet if you don’t have a lid) and simmer until sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon, about 20 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Place pork chops and apple in sauce, arranging apple cut side up, and partially cover. Simmer until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a pork chop registers 145°, 7–10 minutes. Remove from heat; sprinkle with finely chopped chives and season with more pepper to serve.

Enjoy!