How half-assed is
really half-assed, you ask?
Well, it would be a minor inconvenience for me to think of how to answer that. So... that is about how half-assed 'really half-assed' is. Seriously, though, you'll see just how half-assed at the end of this.
Ok, here's what we're looking at: We are just going to blow through these real quick like, cuz the camera has had its fill of pre-through-post holiday dining. Some of the pics in its' SD underbelly have been digesting since...well there is one picture of the dog from October 7, but the oldest food related pic is December 9. So we will start with that meal.
Recipe one: Some sort of pork chop concoction
Get some pork chops, good thick ones, from the local meat market. Don't get them from sprawl mart or megalow mart cuz they just aren't as good.
Add some olive oil to a cast iron skillet, enough to coat the bottom completely. Crank the heat up. As one of my co-cookers in high school foreign foods class once said "you ain't cookin' if you ain't cookin' on high." I do not follow this philosophy always, but here it is apt.
See the olive oil smoking?
So, you want to wait till the olive oil JUST STARTS to smoke, NOT A SECOND LONGER THOUGH! You don't want to start a fire. Unless you do, in which case you aren't following my recipe. You are a pyromaniac doing something else.
Anyway, watch it close, once you see the oil just start to smoke add the pork chops, I can't remember if I seasoned them or not, probably though. So add some seasoning.
Sear for two minutes on the first side, then flip them, a tad longer on the second side as some of the heat will have been sunk into the chops so the pan will be less hot. two and a half to three minutes tops.
Searing meat to brown changes the chemical compounds to tastier configurations!
Now a week before, or at least a few hours before you should have made some apple sauce. In this case I believe I used some old Honeycrisp apples. They say never use Honeycrisp for cooking. Who is they and why do they say don't use Honeycrisps for cooking, you ask?
I don't know, but I suspect it probably is sac religious (In the words of Homer Simpson: Mmmm sacrelicious) to not eat them raw.
If I may digress for a moment: Honeycrisp are the most delicious apples ever, so they should be just eaten raw. If you have not tried them, it's TS (Time Spending) for you till next fall. As a further digression these wonderful apples almost never made it to the world at large. They were grown on an experiment station for the University of Minnesota and the test tree was slated to be cut down, as it had a bad winter, but one of the apple tasters got a crunchy bite of one of the apples a few days before the Cherry tree's equivalent to George Washington's axe made it to the apple bearing wonder tree, and the rest is history. Now they have only been commercial for like five or ten years or something. I don't know, don't check my facts, cuz this is just a half-assed story I am trying to remember, and I am still on my first cup of coffee this morning. The apples taste best when grown in the Midwest, I guess there are some Honeycrisp orchards in Washington state and such but that is not the ideal climate for Honeycrisps, so for the full experience, go to a Midwest orchard next fall and get a Honeycrisp. I am so seriously, you guys.
The only reason I used the Honeycrisps is cuz we bought a truck load and I cut up the bruised, gashed, and otherwise hurt apples and made them into an applesauce. I cut the apples into small cubes. Added a bunch of cinnamon, some brown sugar and the Cockburn's port, then cooked it a long time. There may have been some water too, I don't remember.
So, when I say make apple sauce, I emphasize the sauce part. Be sure to use the Cockburn's Port in it.
Why Cockburn's you ask?
If you asked that you obviously don't yet realize that my heroes include Beavis and Butthead, Wayne and Garth, etc, etc.
Once the chops have been seared pour the applesauce all over them. Oh, I may have added some lemon juice to the apple sauce too, but I think it would be better to put the lemon on the pork before cooking, let it soak in for a half hour, maybe equal parts apple juice and lemon juice, as a marinade, that sounds good. I will try that next time. You should too.
Anywho, put the sauce on the chops which are still in the skillet then stick the skillet in the oven. I don't know how long, because I go by temperature. We use a digital thermometer, stick the probe in the thickest part, mid meat, and close the oven. The display stays outside the oven obviously, so the wire just runs out the side. It is oven proof but NOT waterproof, trust us on that. It is not our first meat probe.
Once the it reaches whatever temp you like it is ready to go. Oh, you should have made sure there was applesauce under the pork chops too, The bottoms get really done if not, plus more apple flavor gets in the chop if it is surrounded bottom, sides and top. Back to the temp, good chops can be medium to well, you won't get sick. I like to stop at 145-150F with chops, then rest them 5 minutes, they continue to cook a bit longer.
That's it. Serve it with what ever the stuff in the picture is, or make your own sides. It looks like mashed potatoes and stuffing. We are trying to eat more veggies and less starch now, so we would replace one of the above sides with peas or broccoli or something.
So, this food turned out good for us. This post turned out good for me and you, the reader. I say that cuz I planned on putting several more meals, all of them including the above with little detail and lots of pics. For some reason blogger locked up and would only let me do 5 pictures, or how ever many are up above there (I am not going to take the time to go back and count). So you got more detail, and I had fun making lame puns. I will have to make this a series I guess. I might even get to another one today.
This is the left over kraut after we ate all the bobikies. We put the leftovers on brats from the meat market. They, too were delicious.
