Dinner: Pork Chops & Potatoes in Tomato-Basil Sauce

We’re back again with another recipe.  I don’t do a whole lot of improvisation but you know, buying groceries are expensive and I’m trying to use what I have at home to work something out.  One thing my house has a lot of is potatoes.  My friend gave me a ton so now we’re working hard on finishing it all up.  We tried to mix things up a little last weekend and ended up with this little pork chops and potatoes dish.

Super uncreative name but here we go…

Pork Chops and Potatoes in Tomato-Basil Sauce

Ingredients

6-8 pork chops
(you  might want to use a bigger oven dish than this one)

5-6 medium potatoes

1-1/5 cups tomato sauce
(we used Classico Tomato-Basil and Sundried Tomato mix)

minced garlic
Italian seasoning

bay leaves, to garnish

How to make it:

1. Preheat oven at 400F.
2. Layer pork chops at the bottom.
3. Pour the sauce over the pork chops.
4. Layer sliced potatoes on the top.  Try to keep it basted in the tomato sauce.
5. Season on top with minced garlic and Italian seasoning. Put the bay leaves on top, if you choose to.
6. Place it in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes. Be sure to check whether the pork chops and potatoes are cooked through if you need to add a little more time.

I like quick dinner solutions.  Usually anything with baking is quick because preparation is about 15 minutes or something. Cutting the potatoes take the longest.  Unless you want to peel it, then it’ll take even more time.  Mine was in there for a little extra time so it ended adding a little bit of crispiness to the top of the potatoes.  It worked out pretty well. Honestly, I had my doubts especially because it didn’t look that appealing but the results worked good.  The pork chops flavored well with the tomato sauce.

For something thrown together with leftover sauces in the fridge and adding some meat and veggies, it was a really good mix. I was pleased with the results.

If I were to change it up, I suggest to use less pork chops and layer with more thinly sliced potatoes and only one single layer. Just little tips to think about when putting this together if you give it a go. Any sauce works as long as you like it.  If you change the sauce, you should go with some matching seasoning.

How do you like to make pork chops? What do you suggest to use up those potatoes?

Pan-Fried Brussel Sprouts & Spaghetti Squash with Sauteed Tomato Sauce!

The first week of recommendations month is always a bit of wrapping up bits and pieces.  So no one recommended these recipes but I just happened to have made them on Sunday.

Sunday night I was on cooking duty which pretty much took me just right up till the Oscars began.

My challenge was with two ingredients in two dishes: brussel sprouts and spaghetti squash. After rummaging through Pinterest, I finally decided on doing the Pan-fried brussel sprouts as the spaghetti squash needed the oven to cook.

Pan fried brussel sprouts

The recipe for that is right here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pan-fried-brussels-sprouts/

I’m just learning about the world of brussel sprouts.  I did another recipe before HERE! That was pretty good too. This was is quite simple to do and honestly, I added all the ingredients as I felt it was necessary and its pretty good.  If you want, it always seems to suggest to add some meat to it to add to the flavor. Since this was done early, my mom decided to reheat it in the pan a bit with some chicken broth.  The result was very good 🙂

Moving on to the second dish, by the time the brussel sprouts were done, the spaghetti squash was almost done and I need to prepare the sauteed tomato sauce.

Spaghetti Squash with Sauteed Tomato Sauce

Originally, the recipe I have here is for a “gremolata”, which they say is this herb condiment with parsley, lemon zest and garlic.  I can’t called this a gremolata because I didn’t have fresh lemons hence, no peel. I ended up making the sauce only.

Here is the recipe: http://www.afamilyfeast.com/spaghetti-squash-gremolata/

I made only one modification in this (other than not doing the gremolata).  If you look at the recipe it says yellow tomato, but I used yellow peppers.  I’m not exactly sure what a yellow tomato is…

Still, this was really good.  I liked the tomato sauce with it and it gave a really good flavor.  I used the leftovers for the next two days with a bit of rigatoni pasta and brought it for lunch 🙂 When I have lemons next time, I’d definitely try to make the gremolata and see how that tastes!

Strawberries

I ended the dinner with some delicious strawberries as dessert! Healthy and awesome! 🙂

How do you make brussel sprouts? Have you had gremolata before? How do you like your spaghetti squash (if you like it at all)?