Pork Souvlaki Saute with Tzatziki

Cuisine: Greek

Inspiration: I’ve been going through a phase of having zero motivation to cook. With me, that’s something that never happens, so it’s been strange. I took some pork chops out of the freezer for Monday night’s dinner, and I couldn’t think of a single thing that sounded good to make with them. For that matter, I couldn’t think of a single thing that I wanted to make using any of the ingredients in my house, and I wanted nothing to do with spending time in the kitchen. So, we ended up sitting down to the Cavs game (sweep!) with gyros and tabbouleh from a local Greek restaurant, and it was a nice evening. However, last night I still found myself in my cooking funk, and I gladly would have ordered in again if I didn’t have that constant voice in the back of my head telling me that it’s not allowed. So instead, I used the pork to make this very easy variation on pork souvlaki to eat with our leftover tabbouleh, and it was delicious. I think I’m back on track.

What we Loved: Souvlaki is traditionally marinated meat that is skewered and grilled, but this recipe offers a version of the dish that can be cooked inside in a saute pan. It’s not traditional, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not good. The pork and onions are sauteed with a great marinade that consists of olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, and garlic, and my favorite part is the nice brown, almost caramelized flavor after cooking. Tzatziki is a yogurt-based sauce, and it’s amazingly fresh, tart, garlicy, and healthy (even though it tastes like it’s not). It’s something that I could almost eat with a spoon, and it offers a cool, intensely flavorful contrast to the pork. Served with whole wheat pitas, this meal is healthy and delicious.

Helpful Hints: I’d highly recommend letting the pork and onions cook until they get nicely browned and even caramelized. The flavor that comes from letting the ingredients brown was my favorite part of the recipe, and next time I would cook everything even longer to get a browner crust. I used boneless pork chops because it was what I had on hand, but to be more authentic and to get a meat that falls apart, you should use pork shoulder.

Other Recipes: Falafel pitas

Pork Souvlaki Saute with Tzatziki
Source: Food and Wine Magazine

I made a few modifications to the recipe to adjust to what I had on-hand and to my preferences. Here’s the recipe as I made it.

2 boneless pork chops, cuts into thin strips
1 red onion, cut through the root end into 1/2 inch wedges
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, mashed to a paste
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 6-8 oz container Greek yogurt (I used 0%)
1/3 cucumber, seeded and finely diced
Whole wheat pitas

1. Place the pork, onion, olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, and 1 clove of mashed garlic into a bowl, and mix together. Season with salt and pepper, and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. Mix the yogurt, cucumber, and the remaining 1 clove of garlic. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Heat a saute pan, and add the pork, onions, and marinade. Cook until very browned, stirring when necessary, approximately 10-15 minutes.

4. Serve the pork and onions with the tzatziki and whole wheat pitas.

Pork Stew with Smoky Tomato Sauce, Potatoes, and Avocado

Cuisine: Mexican

Inspiration: With Cinco de Mayo coming up, I wanted to make a nice, authentic Mexican meal over the weekend when I had some time to put into it. One of my favorite cookbooks is Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless, a book that my parents bought me for Christmas one year. Everything that I’ve tried from that cookbook has been fantastic, so I knew that I wanted to use it to find a new recipe for my Cinco de Mayo meal. The recipes in the book all tend to be very involved, though, which I why I chose to make my meal over the weekend. I’ll be making something simpler on Tuesday.

What we Loved: Everything about this meal was fantastic. It was absolutely wonderful, and one of the best meals that I’ve made all year. The stew (called tinga poblana) consists of pork, chorizo, tomatoes, potatoes, and a lot of spices, and the layers of flavor are just amazing. At the end of cooking, the recipe calls for chipotle peppers in adobo sauce to be added to the stew, and they provide a fabulously rich, smoky, and spicy flavor to the sauce. I love the salty, greasy flavor of chorizo, so I loved its inclusion in this dish, and I also really appreciated the flavor of the avocado and the pepperjack cheese. The avocado added a nice, cooling contrast to the spicy dish, and the pepperjack cheese melted nicely down into the stew. This dish made my house smell wonderfully smoky and delicious, and it exceeded my expectations completely, even though I went into the recipe thinking it would be great.

Helpful Hints: This dish is time consuming, so make sure that you have plenty of time to prepare everything. Bayless suggests serving the stew with crusty bread, but I used some flour tortillas. We dipped them into the sauce and also broke them into pieces, filling them with some of the stew and wrapping them up like mini soft tacos. I loved eating the stew this way, but I’m serving the leftovers tonight with bread as Bayless suggested. The recipe also doesn’t call for cilantro, but I used a little as garnish and loved the flavor that it added, so I think it would taste great to use it liberally when serving, too.

Other Bayless Recipes: Chile Rellenos

Pork Stew with Smoky Tomato Sauce, Potatoes, and Avocado (Tinga Poblana)

Source: Rick Bayless, Authentic Mexican

1 lb lean, boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon mixed dried herbs (marjoram and thyme)
3 bay leaves
2 medium red-skinned boiling potatoes, quartered
3 large tomatoes
4 oz chorizo sausage, removed from casing
Extra virgin olive oil
1 Vidalia onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped
4 teaspoons of adobo sauce from the can
Salt and pepper
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced
8 slices jalapeno jack cheese (or Queso Fresco, as the original recipe calls for)
Cilantro, to garnish (or onion slices to garnish, as the original recipe calls for)

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and add the pork. Add the herbs and the bay leaves, and stir. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour. Remove the meat from the pot, and cut it into 3/4 inch pieces. Reserve one cup of the cooking water.

2. While the meat is cooking, boil the potatoes in salted water until just tender, approimately 12 minutes. Remove the potatoes, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces when they are cool enough to handle.

3. Place the tomatoes under the broiler for 15 minutes, turning once halfway through, until the skins are charred and peeling away from the tomato. When the tomatoes have cooled, remove the skins, and chop the tomatoes into 1/2 inch pieces.

4. Heat a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in a dutch oven. Crumble the chorizo into the pot, and saute until browned, approximately 10 minutes. Remove the chorizo from the pot with a slotted spoon, and set aside.

5. Add the onions and the pork to the pot, and cook until very well-browned, approximately 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, and cook for an additional minute.

6. Add the chopped tomatoes, oregano, and chorizo to the pot. Mix well, and simmer for five minutes. Stir in the potatoes, the reserved cup of broth, the chopotle peppers, and the adobo sauce. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer gently for approximately 10 minutes.

7. Scoop the stew into a bowl, and decorate with alternating slices of avocado and cheese. Top with a bit of cilantro and serve.

Parmesan Pork Chops

B and I both love these Parmesan-crusted pork chops. I’ve made this recipe many times, and each time the pork chops turn out fabulously. They’re super moist on the inside, crispy on the outside, and they have a nice and salty, herby flavor from the Parmesan cheese and the bread crumbs. I really like to serve this with Parmesan basil orzo and sauteed broccoli, but this time I switched it up and made polenta and brussels sprouts.  Really, I think that these would go perfectly with just about anything that you serve them with. Other than that, I don’t have much to say! They really make for a great and easy meat and potatoes meal!

Parmesan Pork Chops
Source: Giada De Laurentiis

I cut this recipe in half to serve two and made a few minor changes. Here’s the recipe as I always make it.

1 egg
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan, freshly ground in the food processor
2 thin cut, boneless pork chops
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

1. Place the cheese into a wide, shallow bowl. Whisk the egg in a second bowl, and place the bread crumbs in a third bowl.

2. Sprinkle the pork chops with salt and pepper. Coat the pork chops in the cheese, then dip them into the egg, and then coat them in the bread crumbs.

3. Heat a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in a saute pan, and add the pork chops. Cook until golden brown and cooked through, approximately 10-15 minutes.

Mapo Tofu over White Rice

I’ve never had mapo tofu before, and I’ve never even heard of it until I stumbled upon this recipe that I wanted to try. From what I’ve seen in the recipe that I used for this meal and in others, I think that mapo tofu is usually served by itself in a heavier sauce. I wanted to serve my meal over white rice, though, so I definitely think that what I ended up with here is somewhat different than your traditional mapo tofu. Regardless, B and I both really loved this recipe. I really enjoyed having both ground pork and tofu in the same meal, and the sauce had the perfect amount of spice. The chopped green onions also added a lot of flavor and a bit of crunch. This meal came together very quickly, which was just perfect for a night when I didn’t feel too much like spending a ton of time on dinner. I’ll definitely be making this again. And as an aside, if you cook white rice frequently but don’t have a rice cooker, I’d definitely think about getting one. It’s a huge time saver, and it guarantees a perfectly cooked batch of rice every time. Just pour in your rice and water, set it to cook, and don’t worry about it again until you’re ready to eat. Awesome product.

Mapo Tofu over White Rice
Source: Adapted from Closet Cooking

1/2 lb ground pork
1 lb extra firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup white rice
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
1 tablespoon black bean sauce
1 tablespoon chili sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons chicken stock
1 bunch green onions, chopped

1. Cook the white rice according to package instructions.

2. Meanwhile, brown the ground pork in a saute pan, and drain any excess fat.

3. Add the garlic and the ginger, and continue cooking for one minute.

4. Add the black bean paste, chili sauce, soy sauce, and chicken stock, and stir to combine.

5. Add the tofu, and cook until the tofu is warmed through. Stir gently in order to avoid breaking the tofu.

6. Serve over white rice, garnished with green onion.

Smothered Pork Chops

I’ve been meaning to try this recipe for ages, but I never had buttermilk in the house. I finally made it a point to buy some buttermilk this week, and I’m glad that I did. This recipe is really hearty, flavorful, and spicy. More of a fall/winter type comfort dish, but delicious just the same. Now what to do with the rest of the buttermilk…..?

Smothered Pork Chops
Source: Food Network: Tyler Florence’s Smothered Pork Chops

I made a change or two to the recipe, and I reduced the portions to serve two using much thinner pork chops. Here’s the recipe as I used it. Next time, I’ll decrease the cayenne just a bit. The flavor was awesome, but the heat was a touch overpowering.

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tablespoon onion powder 
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder 
1/4 teaspoon cayenne 
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
2 thin cut, boneless pork chops, fat removed
Extra virgin olive oil 
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup buttermilk
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

1. Pour the flour, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper in a bowl and mix. Dredge the pork chops in the mixture and reserve the extra.

2. Heat a saute pan over medium heat and coat with oil. When the oil is hot, saute the pork chops on each side until golden brown and cooked through. Remove the pork chops from the pan.

3. Add a good portion of the seasoned flour to the pan drippings. Mix the flour into the oil, and then pour in the chicken broth. Whisk the liquid and let it cook down for 5 minutes to reduce. Stir in the buttermilk and simmer to thicken and make a creamy gravy. Return the pork chops to the pan, coating them in the gravy.

4. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with chopped parsley before serving.