Pork

Apple Picking & Apple Pork Chops

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I love apple picking season, the act of apple picking and the goodies that follow, namely candy apples, apple butter, cider, and pie. This time of year I do whatever I can to add apples to our daily meals, usually because we have so many of them, but also because they are delicious. This is one of my favorite recipes that I think I have made a couple hundred times. I don’t know why I haven’t shared it with you before, it’s a shame that I haven’t.

Apple Picking & Apple Pork Chops

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 lb boneless pork chops
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 large apple, cored and sliced thin
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ cup white wine

Instructions

Heat oil over medium high heat while seasoning the porkchops with salt, pepper, and paprika.
Place the pork chops in the hot pan andsear for 4-5 minutes per side, or until it begins to turn golden.
Remove the chops and set aside.
Add butter, onion and apple to the pan and sauté for 3-4 minutes, or until the onions begin to brown and caramelize.
Stir in the brown sugar, before adding the wine. Cook for another 3-4 minutes and allow the wine to reduce slightly.
Adjust seasoning and serve immediately.

Boiled Dinner

By Jessica

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For those of you not familiar with coddle or boiled dinner.
Let me tell you about it.

In Ireland Coddle is a popular dinner, the Catholic culture
made it super popular because you can basically through all your leftover meat
into a pot on Thursday during lent and have a meat free house for Friday.

In my household growing up it was one of my father’s
favorite things, and his good old fall back, because I’m telling you any one
can cook this.

Honestly I had no idea it was actually a traditional meal
until I started looking up typical Irish food for our trip last year. I think
it has a lot to do with the fact that in the old day’s people didn’t have the
best teeth and boiling things up made them soft and easy to bite, plus it was
easy, and the broth could help add flavor to things for those who couldn’t
afford meat all the time.

I came across a recipe for Dublin Coddle in the Irish PubCook Book that I bought recently, and decided to give it a shot. This recipe
is very similar to the one in the book.

I always remember it being very bland growing up, but I
think that my dad just prefers simply made food, which I can appreciate. I
decided to add a few more herbs in mine, because well as you all know I am
obsessed with herbs. I also used a leftover ham that has been sitting in the
freezer for a while, but it’s been known to be made with sausages, rasher
bacon, stew meat, chicken pieces (dad’s favorite), or just about any other cut
of meat you can think of. The same goes for the vegetables; it’s a veritable
left over, toss in everything but the Kitchen sink wonder.

You can make it on the stove, just put it on a simmer for
30-45 minutes, or until the vegetables start to soften. This particular time I
opted to use the crock pot. It uses less energy, and I don’t have to watch it.

Irish Coddle with Ham

1 lb ham meat, cut into large chunks

4 medium potatoes, chopped

1 cup baby carrots, or 2 large carrots chopped

1/2 medium cabbage, chopped

2 bay leaves

2 tsp pepper

2 stalks celery, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

½ tsp caraway seed

2 tbs chopped parsley

3-4 cups water

Add all ingredients to the crock pot and set to cook on low
for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. Serve warm. (Serves 4)

Bangers & Mash: The Recipe

By Jessica

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A while ago I posted about making pork & leek sausages from scratch; an experience that I loved! However I have come to realize that I never posted a recipe for actually making Bangers & Mash. This English/Irish classic is something that has been cooked in my home for as long as I can remember. It is so simple and delicious how can anyone not love it?

The recipe that I chose to use is closest the Bangers & Mash that I remember from our trip to Ireland several months ago. Don’t think you need to have pork & leek sausages either, pretty much any sausage will do, though it may change the flavor a bit.

Bangers & Mash

6 Pork & Leek sausages

Traditional Mashed Potatoes

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

1 onion, sliced

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

2 tbs flour

1 ½ cups beef broth

Salt & pepper to taste

Heat up the oil in a large skillet and cook roughly 6 sausages until nearly done. Remove from heat and set aside. In the same pan melt butter and add onion. Sauté onions until caramelized then deglaze the pan with balsamic vinegar. Whisk in flour until well blended. Add broth, and bring to a boil, then reduce heat, and allow simmering, until the liquid reduces and sauce thickens. Adjust seasonings and return sausage to pan. Toss with sauce and onions before serving over mashed potatoes.

The Help

By Jessica

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Last week I finished reading The Help. I honestly never even heard of it until the movie came out, and with my reading list so large I’m just now getting to it. Any-who, I thought it was a fabulous book. While I was reading I couldn’t help but to think that it was strange how this was placed in the 1960’s that was only a little over 50 years ago. It seems so foreign to me that African Americans were viewed that way so recently. I mean I know when Martin Luther King was assassinated, and JFK, but that always seemed like the distant past to me. This when my grandparents were my age!

It makes me wonder what my grandparents were like then. What did they think? How did they treat those of different races? How did they treat women for that matter? Looking at my grandparents now I can’t imagine any of this, but I also can’t imagine the things I did and thought when I was 16, so 50 years later who knows how they feel about their former selves.

The book touches on several different messages or themes; a young woman coming of age during a time when women were just beginning to emerge as equals; the struggles of African Americans during a time of great change; and the idea that everyone has secrets. It is a dynamic, thought provoking and eloquently written novel, which I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

Food, as it should, seems to play a large part in the book so I decided to make Grilled Brown Sugar Pork Chops with Peach Barbeque sauce. While cooking this dish I can almost see the Phelan farm house, plopped in the middle of never-ending cotton fields. You can almost taste the love and care that is cooked into this recipe. One I will definately be making again before the summer is out.

Pork

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