So I decided that I'm going to combine two of the finer things in life and create a heckuva delicious dish outta them. I'm talking about pork chops and pesto. Pesto is consists of garlic, basil, and nuts, blended with olive oil and cheese. Now, I'm not a big fan of cheese, so I don't add it to my pesto. As well, I think the taste of nuts clashes with everything else in the pesto, so I also don't use nuts in my pesto. Everything else is fair game....so without further ado, today's dish:
Pork Chops...Covered with Pesto
Ingredients:
*you can either make your own pesto or use store bought pesto. In the spirit of efficiency, I usually use Whole Foods' pre-made pesto.
The Pork Chops need to be marinated for 3 hours in the Light Italian Dressing before it can be cooked.
1) Defrost the Pork Chops
2) Grab a jumbo 2.5 gallon ziplock bag and place the pork chops in the bag.
3) Measure 1 cup of the Light Italian Dressing into the measuring cup. Then, pour this gooey, viscous, liquid into the bag. Make sure that the pork chops are lined up next to each other instead of stacked on top of each other.
4) Place the pork chops in the fridge and let them sit for 3 hours. After 1.5 hours have passed, flip the pork chops over.
5) Once the 3 hours have elapsed, remove the pork chops from the bag and place them in the heat resistant container they were resting in. Pat them down with a paper towel to wick away any excess dressing.
6) Add about a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper to each side of the pork chops and vigorously massage them into the meat. Again, if you haven't taken some sort of massage class, this dish is too complicated for you to cook, and you should just quit right now.
* this is how the porkchops should look after steps 5 and 6. So sexy...
7) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
8) Grab an iron skillet (something that'll allow you to achieve the sexy grill mark effect), drizzle some olive oil into the skillet, and set the stove to its "high" setting. If you want to impress people, I also utilize an aluminum mini sun shade. It protects from splashing; if you're a lazy bum like me, it's another way of reducing the amount of things that need to be cleaned.
* epic pork-chop grilling apparatus
9) Once the stove is heated, lower the temperature until it reaches a medium setting. Then, place all the pork chops in the skillet and wait for one side to brown. When that has been achieved, quickly use your legendary pork-chop flipping maneuver to flip the pork chop over and brown the other side.
10) When both sides have been browned, remove the skillet (with the pork chops!) from the stove, turn off the stove, and place the skillet on a table.
11) Using a handy dandy brush, coat only ONE SIDE of the pork chop with the pesto. Again, for all the careless readers out there...coat only ONE SIDE!!!! It should like like this sexiness:
* the pesto glistens in the light! this is how you seduce me....with glisten-y meat...
12) The oven should be at 350 degrees F. Also, the oven rack should be place in the middle of the oven.
13) Once 350 degrees F is reached, place the skillet (with the pork chops) into the oven for 15 minutes!
14) After 15 minutes, remove the pork chops from the oven. Guess what? YOU'RE DONE!!!!
15) Crack open an ice cold beer and celebrate your victory!!!
...So I know that was all you were expecting for today. But I just got my second wave of energy, so I'm going to attempt my second dish:
Garlic....with broccolini (or is it Broccolini with garlic)
Ok, so it's just my method of cooking broccolini...except I use tons of garlic.
Ingredients:
From left to right: broccolini in colander, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.
*the salt is located in one of those fancy schmancy brown containers, and the pepper is in the other one
1) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. The rack should be located at the center of the oven...again.
2) Wash the broccolini with vigorous authority. Do not gently massage them the way an old person would. You're young, so brutally scrape away all the dirt.
3) Dump the broccolini into a colander. Again, I like to place the colander on top of a bowl to collect the excess water/waste.
4) Place the broccolini on a baking sheet. Drizzle the broccolini with olive oil Then, add a FEW PINCHES of salt and pepper to the broccolini. Now, add a modest amount of garlic to the broccolini. For me, however, I'm not shy. I just scoop a heaping spoonful of garlic and thrust the garlic downwards onto the broccolini with authority.
5) Now, toss the broccolini around like you would toss a salad. The idea here is to infuse the broccolini with all the yumminess that you just tossed onto it. And to bath it in garlic, of course.
* the broccolini should have this unkempt look to it...the same appearance one would have after some afternoon delight :)
6) Now, deftly and delicately place the broccolini in a manner that allows them to face the same way. We don't want any overcrowding, and we want the broccolini to cook evenly. No broccolini left behind unevenly cooked!
7) Place the baking sheet into the oven for 10 minutes.
8) After 10 minutes, remove the baking sheet from the oven. Using some sort of flipping apparatus, like tongs, flip the broccolini over so its unexposed side will be exposed to the heat of the oven.
9) Place the baking sheet back into the oven for another 10 minutes.
10) When those 10 precious minutes are up, remove the baking sheet from the oven!
11) Wipe those sweat and tears away from your brow, because you've just finish cooking the broccolini.
12) Do a little happy dance and post a new status on facebook: "I just cooked broccolini....and it felt soo good...."
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