Recipe: Cracked Pepper Crusted Pork Chops, Applesauce, and Portabella Pan Gravy

This recipe mutated and grew as I went along with it. I knew I wanted pork chops and applesauce after our apple picking trip. Then I decided to pepper crust the pork chops, and then I decided on the pan gravy at the last second because, well why waste delicious pork drippings? And then I decided to make bleu cheese mashed potatoes as a side dish. But that’s another blog entry entirely. Whew!

Let’s start small, shall we?

Kim’s Applesauce: No fancy sugars or additives here, just an apple (peeled, cored, and rough chopped), 2 tsp. of cinnamon, and about 1/3 cup of water. Bring water to a boil, dump in your apples, when you can tell the apples are getting mushy, add in your cinnamon, stir, cook down for another 1-3 minutes and you’re done!

Cracked Black Pepper Pork Chops
4 thin porn chops
A generous amount of EVOO
Roughly 2 tsbp. of freshly cracked black pepper

Liberally coat pork chops with EVOO. Slather with the black pepper on one side.

In a screaming hot cast iron skillet, put each chop, pepper side down. Cook on each side for about 5-7 minutes or until golden brown and no longer pink in the middle.

Portbella Pan Gravy
Pan drippings from your pork chops
1 tbsp. AP flour
1/2 to 1 cup of lowfat milk (depends on how thick you want your sauce and how much you want)
1/2 cup baby portabella mushrooms

Turn your cast iron skillet down to low heat. Add the flour directly to the pork drippings. Wisk in your milk slowly, adding more as you see fit.

Add in your mushrooms and then cook for 5-10 minutes depending on how soft you want them.

Next thing you know: delicious and gourmet-like dinner! Pork chops with two toppings felt so restauranty and tasted so delicious I couldn’t believe I made them myself.