Apple Cornbread Stuffed-and-Grilled Pork Chops

This one is a keeper... the crumbled cornbread is mixed with diced apple sautéed in butter and - while the pork chops are grilling - the juices combine with the cornbread stuffing and make such a great sweet, grilled flavor. Yum - we'd like to serve this for guests sometime soon... anyone free this weekend???

We start off by making our Cast Iron Skillet Corn Bread. Although we had to use lowfat milk instead of buttermilk and didn't go with the bacon this time, still came out sweet and corny (ha). The great thing about this recipe is that we'll only use maybe 1/4 of that skillet of cornbread - the rest is for us to enjoy!



This recipe was cribbed from notes of an Alton Brown preparation of some Stuffed, Grilled Pork Chops, and you'd never believe it - but he brined them first! (He brines everything.) So, so did we - in cold water, kosher salt, about a cup of cider vinegar, maybe a 1/4-cup of brown sugar, and some Tellicherry peppercorns. Combined well, we added our bone-in pork chops - about 1" thick - and they took a swim for a couple of hours.

After the brine the pork chops will have taken on a little gray color on the very outside, just as you would see on a brisket or other cut of meat that you are brining with vinegar (unless you add nitrates to keep it pink). Don't even worry about that gray color - that just means you did it right.

So, 1" bone-in pork chops brined and cornbread cooling... the final piece of this puzzle is one diced Braeburn apple, sautéed in about a 1/3 stick of butter along with a little sprinkle of brown sugar and a pinch of salt. When cooked soft, add that apple-butter mixture to 1/4 of your cornbread that has been crumbled into a bowl - and mix together to make your stuffing.

Assembly: cut an incision into the "top" meaty part of your pork chops with a sharp-tipped knife and cut through the middle of that meat to make a pocket for your stuffing. Then, stuff. As much apple cornbread mixture you can fit, and flatten it down in the chop to distribute evenly. Repeat.

A simple salt and pepper and sweet paprika sprinkle on the outside of your pork chops and onto a hot medium-high grill for 3 minutes, then "twist" (or rotate) 90-degrees to create the grill cross marks (thanks, Alton) and go 2 more minutes. Then flip, 3 minutes, rotate 90-degrees, 2 minutes, done. After a few minutes cooling time, you're ready to eat.



We had ours with some sautéed swiss chard with raisins. Remove the red ribs from the chard, dice them up and add to a large pan that already is warmed with some olive oil. Sautée for just a couple of minutes and then add a handful of raisins and 1 cup of chicken stock. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the cover and add the greens which you have roughly chopped. Let those wilt for about 5 minutes, and some salt and pepper to taste and you have a great healthy sidedish. The sweetness of the raisins balances out the slight bitterness of the chard.



The pork chops with their cornbread and apples and paprika crust came out so wonderfully charred and sweet, so moist, and so flavorful... we were in love. Along with the swiss chard with it's sweet, plumped raisins and a little slice of cornbread, this meal is definitely a keeper. Come on over!

Swiss Chard with Raisins

When my Mom told me that her vegetable garden started sprouting, it reminded me of my childhood when that garden seemed like a vast forest to me. I could get lost in the corn and tomato plants, dig for worms, and eat peas right out of the pod. While recently visiting my parents, I remarked to my father that the garden used to seem so much bigger to me when I was 5 than it does now, as do most things (snowbanks, adults, bumblebees). And then he said, “Don’t tell your mother, but I have been making it smaller and smaller over the years by letting the grass grow in a bit closer each season. It’s easier to take care of, and we always have too much as it is.” So it really was smaller now, but my memories haven’t faded one bit. Especially when it comes to greens. Swiss chard was one of my favorites even when it was boiled beyond belief as many Acadians of that time prepared the chard. I prefer wilting it as I do with spinach, and I think even my Mom would like my version!

Separate the stems from the leaves and slice the stems up. I prefer using my big paella pan so I have lots of room to work in…I added about 2 tbs olive oil to the pan and then the sliced stems. After sautéing for a couple minutes, I added about ¼ cup of raisins and half a cup of chicken broth and a few red pepper flakes with the cover on. After 5 more minutes, I removed the cover, added about 6 quartered mushrooms, a dash of nutmeg, some salt and some Penzey’s garlic powder. After a few more minutes, I added the chopped chard leaves along with 6 chopped basil leaves and then covered the pan and let wilt for 5 more minutes.

I just love how the raisins plump up and cancel out any bitterness in the greens! For next time, I may add some olives for some briny flavor as well!

Roasted Chicken with Sautéed Swiss Chard and Roasted Sweet Potatoes

The waiting game...

Thousands of words have been written about how Roasted Chicken is the most wonderfully delicious and easy dinner to make in the history of mankind. Who are we to argue?

We go simple: 5lb "oven stuffer roaster" Chicken, rinsed inside and out and then paper towel dried (be sure to remove the innards and either keep for cooking later or throw away!), generous salt and pepper inside the chicken, then whole, peeled garlic cloves and quartered lemons are stuffed in and we tie up the legs to keep the garlic/lemon inside. Then, generous salt and pepper all over the outside, layer of melted butter brushed on all over the outside, another layer of salt and pepper, another layer of butter and then try and coerce any leftover butter into the small hole left in the cavity if you can. Why the layers on the outside? OCD might be one reason... but it is really just to ensure thorough seasoning.

375 oven for 1.75 hours until internal thigh temp of 180. Then out and cover with aluminum until ready to eat!

We threw some cubed, seasoned sweet potatoes into the oven as the chicken was coming out - they were in for about 20 minutes, basically as long as we needed to wait for the chicken to settle and be carved.


We also bought some big, beautiful, leafy red swiss chard and sautéed that for five minutes or so with garlic and chopped olives in olive oil on the stove top as our final side dish. Woulda thrown some raisins in, but we were out!


Peek-a-boo...


Served all together, made a terrific dinner and some great leftovers!


Score:
* Chicken - 9 out of 10. Great crispy skin, wonderful roasted flavor, subtle garlic and lemon throughout... wonderful!
* Sweet Potatoes - 8 out of 10... very tasty, as usual.
* Swiss Chard - 8 out of 10... a great alternative side dish.

Up next - the Eggplant Parm disaster... :(