Old Fashioned Pork Chops

Sometimes it just sounds good... good and old fashioned. Now this is even if you don't have much time for dinner. Straightforward pork chops, steamed broccoli, and stuffing from store bought mix. Here's how it went down:

First the pork chops: About a half hour before I was going to start cooking dinner, I noticed that my package of pork chops was only half thawed. I had an idea... benefit was two-fold. I remember back to my and Nut's Alaska days and salt was used to thaw ice from roads... we used it on our driveway and porch. It worked really well. I looked down at my half frozen chops and decided I was going to employ the same idea. I took them out of the package and put them on the cookie sheet on which they were going to be baked. Then just sprinkled with salt. In my head, this would thaw the meat, and season it as well.

It worked!

In 20 minutes they were ready for the rest of their seasonings:

• garlic powder
• onion powder
• pepper

In a preheated 450 degree oven they baked for 15 minutes per side.

While they baked, I had some sliced mushrooms in the fridge. I sauteed a couple handfuls in 1T butter and once they were just starting to caramelize I seasoned with salt and pepper, sauteed one more minute, then deglazed with a bit of stock (I used beef stock, but you can use any that you have). This served as the topping to the finished pork chops.

The broccoli and stuffing didn't need a lot of attention. I steamed the broccoli for about 8 minutes or until tender crisp. I used fresh, but if you have one of those steam pouches from the freezer, even easier! The stuffing was just prepared according to package directions.

Affirmative in my Taste Tester's likeability scale... although I think he liked the leftovers the next day even better!