What's for dinner: Baked pork chops
It's easy to get caught up in complicated recipes and innovative new procedures. But you know what works great for pork chops? Just put them in a 9x13 pan, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and bake them at 350 until they are done.
I cook my chops to a full 165 degrees, even though the USDA recently dropped its recommendation to 145 degrees.
I freely admit that I am a lazy cook. (That's why I have titled my blog "Practical Cooking" and not "Gourmet Cooking" or "Complicated Cooking" or "Cooking That Involves More Than Like Two Steps," all of which mean the same thing if you ask me.) I'm also really cheap. So when I saw Extreme Value Packs of pork chops on sale at the grocery store, I bought them and decided to bake them all up at once.
I should mention that I live alone, so eight pork chops is kind of a lot for me. And I don't really have a freezer, so that option is out. However, I have found that it works well for me to cook up a bunch of meat pieces, keep them in the fridge, and reheat them throughout the week as dinner. So when I saw this multipack of pork chops on sale, my thought was, "Great! That's dinner solved for the week!"
There are a lot of ways to cook pork chops. The thing about chops is that they require a light touch. It is easy to turn a pork chop to leather, which is something I frequently did in the past. I cannot recommend a meat thermometer with a remote probe and temp alert highly enough. Just stick the probe in the meat, set the temperature, and it beeps when your food is ready.
If you want to get fancy with your chops, you can try brining them. This is another great basic recipe which results in nice tender chops. And of course, you can always grill them!
Image courtesy Flickr/foodpr0n.com