I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned it, but Denise and I do have a plan for the blog. We have a calendar and recipes we’re working on, and sometimes what is on the calendar finds its way on to the blog on the day we scheduled it. Often, though, we’re working on things and they just aren’t ready to go when the calendar says. We have some exciting things in the works right now, but this week, you’re getting a quick, simple, but amazing weeknight dinner.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had found, tried, and loved this stovetop-to-oven method of cooking pork chops.  I have messed with it a few times, and want to share my version of the recipe as I think it’s turned out great. These pork chops are juicy and flavorful, with an unusual (to me, at least) but subtle spice flavor to them. They are, even with the brining, a meal quick enough to make on a weeknight for dinner. And the meat is so juicy that they reheat well OR make a great sandwich the next day.

The spice blend in here is inspired by what I remember of a homemade chai recipe I made a few times years ago. It’s the reason I bought star anise in the first place. I never made chai with actual peppercorns, but this is a savory dish, so it suits — I’ve done this with regular and Sichuan peppercorns, and both work well.

Chai-spice brined pork chops

For brine:

• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 Tablespoons salt (I used kosher salt here)
• 2 whole star anise (or pieces to make up about 2 whole)
• 3 whole cardamom pods, smashed to open the pod (but not crush the seeds)
• 1 2-inch cinnamon stick
• 2 pinches whole cloves (about 6-8)
• 1 pinch whole peppercorns (about 4-6)
• 2 cups cold water
• 2 bone-in pork chops, about 3/4″ thick (I used center cut, as that’s what looked good)

Take the pork chops out of the fridge and let them rest at room temp while you make the brine. You will need a baking dish or something comparable to brine the chops. Lay them out in a single layer in the pan.

Put all the spices (salt through peppercorns) into a heat-safe container. I use a Pyrex measuring cup. Bring your water to a boil and pour 1 cup over all the spices and salt. Stir to dissolve the salt, and let it steep for 5 minutes. Add the two cups of cold water.

Pour the spice “tea” over the chops. You are aiming for room temperature brine, and your chops should be covered completely. Add more water to make this happen, if needed. Leave all the spices floating.

Let the chops brine for 30 minutes to an hour. According to the original recipe, you can brine them for up to four hours (in the fridge), but I’ve not tried this.

When your chops are brined, turn the oven up to 400ºF, with a cast iron skillet on the middle rack. When the oven is up to temperature, carefully remove the skillet and put it over medium-high heat on the stovetop.

Remove the chops from the brine and pat them dry. Season with salt and pepper — but remember the brine was salty, so don’t go overboard with the salt.

Carefully add the chops. Brown 3-5 minutes on one side, getting good browning, but not burning the chops. This may cause smoke, so be ready, but it’s worth the hassle.

Flip the chops and immediately put them in the pre-heated oven. Bake for 6-8 minutes, aiming for an internal temperature of about 142ºF. Remove them to rest for 5 minutes. You want your final temperature to be 145ºF, but remember that they keep cooking while resting, so don’t overshoot.

I served mine with simple boiled broccoli and sweet potatoes I’d thrown in the oven earlier to roast. If you want to do a side dish in the oven, consider turning it on and starting the side(s) while the pork chops brown. This is an excellent use of the brining time.

Enjoy the subtle spice flavors in your perfectly cooked pork chops.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, I’m drowning in apples. In addition to all the apple canning projects I’ve been doing, I’m trying to cook with them too.  So I came up with doing a pork loin with a rub using apple pie/mulled cider spices on a bed of onions and apples.

Autumn Spiced Pork Loin

• 4 pound whole pork loin
• 2 large or 3 medium onions, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 large or 3 medium apples, peeled, cored and diced into 1/2 inch pieces.
• Small amount of safe for you oil to grease a 9 inch by 13 inch roasting pan with.

Rub for pork loin:

• 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Use your safe oil to grease a roasting pan.  Place ingredients for the rub (brown sugar, sea salt, black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice) in a small bowl and mix thoroughly with a fork.

Place diced onions and apples in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Place pork loin on top of diced onions and apples.

Cover top of pork loin with spice rub.  It’s okay if you get a bit on the apples and onions.

Place the roasting pan in oven and cook until the internal temperature is at least 161°F.  In order to get the correct internal temperature in my oven with a four pound pork loin, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes. If you have a much smaller pork loin, like the one to two pound pork loins you generally find at the grocery store, I’d start with 45 minutes and check the temperature at that time.

Once you’ve reached the correct internal temperature, remove the pork loin from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes.

Slice the pork loin and serve with some of the roasted apples and onions.

Enjoy!

It’s set-it-and-forget-it season! Actually, the crock pot is good all year, but because it makes pots of lovely hot food, I think people associate it more with winter than summer. I know I do. The first thing I thought when I saw pork roasts on sale was “slow cooker.” But I didn’t really want barbeque. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s a flavor I’m bored of before the leftovers are gone. Molasses is a fall obsession of mine — while the world goes crazy for “pumpkin spice” everything, I want to drown in molasses (not literally. That stuff kills. Science!). So I started with molasses and went from there. Balsamic vinegar and some spices add up to earthy and hearty.

This pork roast will make a lot of leftovers, if it’s just one or two of you, or it’ll feed a crowd. And it is quick enough to be made first thing in the morning. I served this with some roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes — I hope to share the sweet potatoes as soon as I work out some kinks with that recipe. Pork and sweet potatoes are great together, and broccoli goes with everything.

Slow Cooker Pork Roast

• oil to grease the crock
• 1 sweet onion, halved and sliced thin
• 1/2 teaspoon of oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2-2.5 lb center cut boneless pork roast, fat side up
• 1 Tablespoon molasses
• 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon mustard
• 1/2 cup broth or stock, whatever you have on hand
• 1/4 cup hot water
• fresh ground pepper, to your taste (I used about 1/2 a teaspoon, not that I measured)

Grease the crock of your slow cooker. Add the sliced onion to the bottom, and drizzle on the 1/2 teaspoon of oil and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Place the pork roast on top of the onions, with the fat side up (I do not trim this for the slow cooker — it’s good flavor).

In a small dish or right in a measuring cup, whisk or stir with a fork the next 7 ingredients (molasses through the broth/stock). Pour this over the roast. Use the last 1/4 cup of water to rinse all the seasoning out of the measuring cup, and pour this along the side (don’t rinse off the seasoning that landed atop the pork roast!). Grind the pepper right on top.

Cover and cook all day. Or, you know, 4-6 hours on high, 6-8 hours on low.

When this is done, take just the meat out. Attempt to slice it, and find out that it will shred instead. After breaking it up, put it back in the liquid you cooked it in, and stir well. This lets the meat soak up a little more of the cooking liquid to serve.

Alternately, you could also make a starch slurry (starch of your choice mixed with water, 1:2 ratio) and add that to the liquid for the last 30 minutes or so of cooking — this will give you more of a gravy consistency.

Serve with side dishes of your choice — roasted veg would be great, but go wild. You’re coming home to dinner almost done.

A few years ago my friend Liz was up in the Boston area and we went out to dinner somewhere north of Boston. I think it was an Argentinian restaurant, but I’m not 100% sure. This was pre food allergy apocalypse, but I was in a phase of not eating much beef. For whatever reason I ordered pork chops, which, I think, is an odd choice for me — I can’t recall ordering them out before or since. But these were amazing. They were marinated in chimichurri sauce and then grilled. This recipe is my attempt to recreate that meal, but also just to make chimichurri.

Chimichurri sauce, as the internet has well-educated me, is a traditional Argentinian condiment that the non-South American internet has fallen in love with, and, as the internet is wont to do, bastardized. Yes, you can add all sorts of ingredients to all sorts of recipes, but then they are no longer that thing, right? So far as I can tell, this is a reasonably traditional chimichurri. From what I can tell, it doesn’t really need anything else — it’s really good as it is.

The other thing that internet writers rail against is the claim that, in Argentina, chimichurri is used “like ketchup” or “on everything.” Now, I do have one friend who does use ketchup on everything, but overall, ketchup is not all that universal in my opinion. But I do think that the reason writers may say these things about chimichurri is that it really is amazing and, if you make it, YOU might want to use it on everything. And because I’m me, I’m frying my breakfast potatoes in it now. I may need chimichurri in my life forever. See, internet, that’s just projection.

I pulled the parsley apart, measured it, and scaled the recipe to the amount of parsley I had. I’d suggest you consider doing the same unless you are way better at using up leftover parsley than I am. I’m pretty sure that traditionally, fresh oregano would be used. I couldn’t find any. I used dried. I also used a food processor. Tradition only goes so far. This recipe does make way more than you need for a recipe of pork chops, unless you’re cooking for a mob, so make plans for the leftovers. (Breakfast potatoes.)

Chimichurri Sauce Grilled Pork Chops

• 4 cups flat leaf parsley, leaves removed from stems (one bunch of parsley)
• 2 Tablespoons dried oregano
• 6 cloves of garlic, or about 1/4 of the head
• 2 pinches red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or you know, “enough.” Do people measure freshly ground pepper, really? I never do.)
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1.5 cups olive oil

With your S-blade in your food processor, pulse the parsley down a bit.

Add the oregano, garlic, salt, and red and black peppers. Pulse until ground.

Scrape the ground herbs and spices into a bowl. Stir in the vinegar, and then the oil — use a fork to get the best mixing.

Let this sit at room temperature for 2 hours to let the flavors meld, and then bottle up and store in the fridge. I’m assuming this will last a few weeks. To use, spoon herbs up from the bottom and use as a marinade, condiment, or anything else you can think up.

For the pork chops:

• thick, bone-in pork chops, however many you need.

In a glass dish, spoon a layer of chimichurri into the bottom of a glass dish. Place pork chops on top of this layer, and top with thick spoonsful of chimichurri. Cover and refrigerate overnight or up to 12 hours or so.

Grill by the “piled” method — put all your charcoal to one side (or turn on half the burners). Place the meat over the hot side of the grill to sear the outside, both sides, and then move to the cool side of the grill (which really isn’t cool) and cook until done. For pork, that’s 145°F, remembering to rest the meat for at least three minutes after cooking before cutting into.

Add some extra chimichurri before serving. Then proceed to prove the internet right and use chimichurri on all the things.

(P.S. to my friend Cathy, yes, this is just like when I discovered lefse and put “inappropriate” things on it.)