Homemaker Emily is here! Kind of.
I’ve decided to try to do better at cooking new dishes for us to try and add to our weekly rotation. It’s getting hard when all we cook is pasta or rice bowls. I’d like to order out less but that won’t happen unless I get better at meal prepping and planning. It’s not going to be easy at all, especially since Caleb doesn’t like beef or seafood.
This time, I figured I’d try to make Chris Morocco’s sweet and saucy pork chops. It’s a simple recipe with a few ingredients that I mostly had already and didn’t take much prep time in advance. Easy to make after a full day at work. This is adulting.
Chris also has a youtube video on Bon Appetit’s channel which is always helpful and encouraging to have just as a reference while cooking. I’ve had pork chops often growing up but they’re tricky for me to cook without drying out. They aren’t terribly fatty which is also good because Caleb doesn’t like the texture of fat and gets weirded out by bone-in meat sometimes so a boneless chop worked for this recipe and felt doable. I did deviate and left out the capers and rosemary just due to sheer laziness and I didn’t want to buy either and have so much leftover that wouldn’t get used again. Less waste but I’m sure this led to less flavor as well. A sacrifice I deemed acceptable. There’s still shallots, garlic, and red wine vinegar for a flavorful enough sauce that I felt confident about making my adjustments.
Overall, the recipe was easy to follow, it went well with some (pre-made) mashed potatoes, baked zucchini, and the timing of it all was quick. Everything came together well and the flavors worked. I really enjoyed the flavors of the red wine vinegar with the shallots and garlic, the pork was simple enough to cook following Chris’ directs, and I felt I was careful to not overcook it.
Unfortunately, Caleb wasn’t a huge fan and pork chops overall throw him off with their texture. So, while the flavor was good and would eat again, it’s a no-go on pork chops moving forward. I tried. It’s been a few attempts and none of them have been successful so while I like this recipe, I’ll have to keep testing other options. However, I would recommend this to other people to try. It’s pretty tasty and easy to make for sure.