Hello my fellow foodies, food lovers or whatever term you identify as. This is my first food posting on hive and I bring you a meal from my humble kitchen.
I've got some nice pork chops, a baking potato and salad to fill you all up and loosen a notch on your belt. Let's see how this goes, I've never taken so many photos during the preparation of a meal before. Lots of visual aids for me and everyone who happens to stumble across my posting.
Enough talk, let's get down to business.
First off this lets start with the pork chops.
3 quality chops and worth every penny. Your base ingredients needed to be at a good starting point.
We'll need a side or two with this meal. Salad and a baked potato will do nicely.
Firstly, the salad.
We'll need some nice Romaine lettuce.
Dice this one up into nice long strips or maybe smaller pieces depending on your preference.
A little cucumber will fit the bill, hack off that heel piece that has all withered up. Yuck, I throw that piece out.
Slice that cucumber up really nice and thin. Those big pieces don't work out for me.
You can have some fun with that cucumber. I call this one the wall of cucumber.
We throw what we have done already in a salad bowl but it's only beginning.
A little onion is need to added some tang to our lonely salad.
We're making progress, onion added to the salad bowl.
Hello, we need some croutons. No problem, croutons added and we're starting to look like a full salad.
You're forgetting something and we need a little color. Tomatoes of course. I slice these nice ones up with a serated knife. I find this knife has a nice edge and can often work better than the sharpest chef's nice. Choose your own preference.
The tomatoes are looking nice and sliced. Ready for the salad.
These nice tomatoes fall into the salad and they're looking good.
What's this? A little basil for the garden makes an appearance. Love this stuff and makes my hooves smell like basil when I pick them.
The trick with basil is to slap their behind on the palm of your hand. Release that nice flavor. I then roll them up like so.
Chop.
And then unroll them. Now we've got some nice chopped basil for our salad.
At this point I know certain folks are saying hey buddy don't you need something on that to complete this great salad? Of course, the dressing. A little caesar salad dressing dropped on top and be sure to get your hands in there to mix it up. You'll need to get a bit dirty to mix up all this great flavor.
Our salad is done but what about those pork chops and baked potato. No worries, I got you.
Preheat the oven to 450F, wash that nice baking potato and put it on a wired rack on a baking sheet.
Pierce that potato with a fork all around.
This one is hard to see but you may make out the starch pouring out of the potato. If so, you've got 20/20 vision.
Plop that potato in the oven for 25 minutes and we'll move on to the pork chops.
The pork chops are now on your counter ready to be prepared. They're wet and I'm not sure if you can tell by this picture.
We need to dry them off with some paper towel. Easy enough.
Here's the aftermath of the paper towel, yep it was wet.
First we need to start seasoning those pork chops.
Salt
Pepper
Last but not least, Italian seasoning.
25 minutes later and the baked potato is ready to be basted in oil. I use olive oil and top with a nice dose of sea salt. Back in the oven you go for another 25 minutes.
After 15 minutes it's time to start preheating the skillet for those delicious pork chops.
We start with a dry skillet on medium-high.
Drop in a teaspoon of olive oil.
Waiting until we get that nice sheen and we're ready to cook.
Throw in those nicely seasoned pork chops. Leave them untouched for 5 minutes. This is usually the hardest part for most people. Don't touch these guys.
Flip them over. Ohhhh nice crust formed and will not stick to the pan. Easy flipping.
Cook for another 4-5 minutes until it reaches 125F and let them rest for approximately 5 minutes. They're still cooking and the temperature will raise until you get a nice and juicy pork chop. Your chops are done, great job!
Around the same time your baked potato should be done. 210F is the sweet spot.
Pull it from the oven and make a nice slit down the potato. Squeeze from each side and make it erupt like a volcano of potato goodness.
Bon Appétit everyone you made it to the end. An enjoyable meal that didn't take forever to cook.
Phew, I think this posting took more time to format than it took to cook the meal. Well worth the effort either way. Have fun dreaming up new cooking ideas and making them a reality.