Cranberry Pork Chops… And Pie!

Last night for supper I made a slight variant of this recipe, which looked like this when it came out of the oven:

One of the pork chops, plated along with sides:

It was astonishingly good.  The leftover chop made a yummy sandwich for supper tonight.  Definitely a keeper, but I’ll want to make some changes.  Note that in the top picture I had already cut two of the pork chops in half, knocking some of the fruit off the top, but it was still purty.

This was I believe the first time I have used the cast iron for baking (strike that; I made really awful cornbread in it once).  I needed a covered baking pan, which I lack otherwise.  Though foil probably would have worked.  It was cool, going straight from browning on the stove to baking in the oven with no change of pan.

Anyway, I think the chops may have been slightly smaller than the recipe writer envisioned.  The pan was perhaps smaller than they envisioned.

I browned them in the pan with olive oil, not shortening such as Crisco.

The onion was from the freezer, chopped fairly large I “thawed” it and was going to chop it finer, but it cooked and then chopping was more of a smooshing action.  Oh well.  I didn’t measure, but it was at most the 1/4 cup called for.

The poultry seasoning was homemade, and in reading a recipe for it I mixed up marjoram and thyme, so it was heavy on marjoram.  Then I added a dash of ginger and some extra sage and a little savory.  Savory is my most frequently heavy chicken spice, but the recipe for poultry seasoning only called for sage, pepper, thyme, marjoram, and optionally cloves, which I lack.  Except as a component of the pumpkin pie spice, and the pickling spice that came in my big rack.  I ended up using about twice what it called for.  The smell while it cooked was heavenly, so I guess I got it right.

Lacking chicken broth, I improvised with boullion cubes, dissolving two chicken and one beef in a cup of water heated in the microwave.  The beef to add deep flavor (it did wonders when I used it on a turkey) was a good idea, but overall it was too strong, and too much liquid for the size of the pan.  I’d consider the boullion again, but take it easier and use less water.

The apples were tiny, so I used two.  That probably made it slightly heavier than intended, but not by a huge amount.

By the time I was done tossing bad berries and cutting bad spots, I probably was a bit light on cranberries, which was my goal.

Obviously the recipe has room for variation, using some of the basic ideas.  I’ve been picturing what I might do with chicken breasts, for instance.  Perhaps cranberry and orange.  Perhaps vary the spices.

Highly recommended.  We had such good luck with the last big batch of thick boneless pork chops I got cheap, I decided to get some at BJ’s in Taunton while I was buying a giant pack of 90% hamburger and a 10 lb bag of frozen chicken breasts.  Sort of a “meat for the month” trip.  Except I got some nice looking steak tonight for $1.89 at Hannaford, too.  The beef prices there made it look like steer hunting season or something.  That’ll probably be burritos tomorrow night.

Speaking of cranberries, which I bought by the pound at the farm stand a few days ago, today Deb made this:

Cranberry pie recipe, the original post, and then the picture above is from this followup post.

Yum!  Not to mention a good excuse to use the oven, contributing to our “let’s not turn on the heat until November” project.

Posted by on 10/27 at 08:10 PM

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