Pork Chops with Apple & Onion and Twice-Baked Potatoes

Recipe: Pork Chops with Apple & Onion and Twice-Baked Potatoes

Finally! After exploding potatoes, a badly managed weekend, and being incapacitated by a bad toothache last Wednesday, I finally made my twice-baked potatoes! Fourth times the charm, eh? I have to say, the recipe was worth the wait. Both of them were. When one day I am living in a new area and have all kinds of wonderful dinner parties for my friends, this meal will definitely be on the menu. And it only took me 2 hours to cook both dishes. Since the potatoes had to bake for one hour, I'd say I didn't do too bad at all with time management this time. Sometimes when I cook, I like to listen to Inspirational music, especially Hillsong, to get me in the mood. But not this time. I went all the way random on the music playlist. I had everything from Kanye West to AC/DC to Stevie Wonder to Santana to 2Pac bumping Saturday night. Music is my other "Happy Place". I love to escape into the beats of a track or find something I can connect to in the lyrics of a song. As strange as it sounds, I think music was my first best friend. As a kid, when I really couldn't verbalize what I was thinking or feeling, music did it for me. And for some reason, with the combination of my fully random music library going and finally being able to cook a meal I've been attempting to make for 2 weeks, I was in a zone.

While my potatoes were baking, I snipped the stems off my spinach leaves, minced my shallots, and shredded my cheese for the potatoes. Then since I still had time, and I was on my time management game, I sliced the yellow onion and the green apple for my pork chops. I even had time to make the rub for the pork chops. Now, I've always known that sage is the magic seasoning for turkey because it brings out a good flavor in the turkey. But I never knew it was the same for pork also. For my rub, I took sage, salt, and pepper and rubbed them over my 4 pork chops. I had to let them stand at room temperature in the rub, so I let the pork chops do that while I worked with the twice-baked potatoes. Actually, by the time I finished fixing the rub, my potatoes were done baking so I went right from prepping the pork chops to working on my potatoes. I'm telling you, I was time management queen. And yes, I actually pulled 4 whole, intact potatoes from the oven. Of course, if you could have seen the way I pierced those poor potatoes before I put them in. :) Let's just say, it's a good thing there's no such thing as protective services for vegetables. I think I would've been taken in for domestic abuse by way of stabbing. To make my filling, I sautéed the shallots in butter and garlic and then added the spinach. I was skeptical when adding the spinach at first. I used two bunches of spinach leaves, which is a lot of green leaves. At first I was somewhat concerned I had misinterpreted what 2 bunches really meant. But the leaves wilted to about 1/4 its original volume by the time it was all said and done, so I felt much better. Next, I scooped out the potato flesh from the shells, mashed more butter, sour cream and salt and pepper in, and mixed the mashed potatoes with the spinach mix. This entire mixture was loaded back into the empty shells, and back into the oven the potatoes went for 20 minutes. A very tasty and fancy dish, that is a piece of cake to make. Of course, that is if you can make sure your potatoes don't explode in the beginning. :) Now, while my potatoes were baking a second time, I switched back to my pork chops. The technique for this dish was also pretty simple. I just seared the pork chops on both sides until they were brown and not pink on the inside. Then I took the chops out of the pan, and added the onions and apples to the pan and sautéed them in the pan drippings. After about 5 minutes, I deglazed the pan with Chardonnay, and viola! The pork chops were complete. And I have to say, apples and pork chops together is definitely a keeper on the list of things I'll be eating again and again. They were sooooo good.

Sometimes things seem much more complicated than the really are. If I were to look at the picture of my dish, I would think it took a lot of effort to cook this meal. But this meal offers style, without the stress. And that gets a two thumbs up from me. Of course, when I serve it to my dinner guests, they don't have to know it's a no-stress dish. They can all think I worked for hours to prepare a stylistic and tasty dish for them all. Of course, that means I'll have to invite people that don't read my blog. But that's just a minor detail...