Boneless Cran-Apple Pork Chops

Every Friday night is pizza night here at the Canister. This past Friday night, we changed that tradition. Instead of throwing away $15 on a pizza that we would eat Friday night for dinner, Saturday and Sunday for lunch, we decided we would actually cook. GASP! This is a big step toward our goal of saving a little more money each week. Now that we have a house, little expenses keep creeping up and surprising us. Last week it was a blown light bulb, the week before, the garage door stopped opening, and so on and so on. Thankfully, that last one happened after we already freed our cars from the garage. As a result of this, I've found that I spend more time in line at Home Depot than I do in the kitchen! Anyway, since we had some free time Friday night, I thought it would be a perfect night to cook. Enter: the best pork chops I've had in a really long time.

Boneless Cran-Apple Pork Chops
Kitchen Canister original

Ingredients
4 boneless pork chops, fat trimmed
1/2 cup cranberry juice
1/2 cup apple cider
1/4 cup apple sauce, unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried sage
1/2 cup water
1/4 of a sweet spanish onion, cut into slices

Directions
Combine all ingredients except water and onions into a large bowl. Pour water over top and stir so each pork chop is coated with marinade. Let chops soak for 15 minutes Coat a pan with olive oil and heat until smoking. Add onions and let carmelize. When pork chops are done marinading, add to pan with onions. Cook each pork chop 3 minutes per side, or until desired doneness. Serve with jasmine rice and broccoli. Top with onions.

Servings: 4




Chef's Notes
These pork chops were so delicious. The spiciness of the chili powder balanced the sweetness of the apple and cranberry juices perfectly. By adding the pork chops to the same pan as the onions, the onions absorbed some of the pork marinade and came out super sweet. Overall, this was a very tasy meal.

Butternut Squash and Corn Soup

That crisp fall weather has finally hit us here in NJ and you know what that means: it's time for all those lovely comforting fall foods like squash, apples, roast turkey and of course, soups! Nothing warms a person through and through like a good bowl of soup. Today I was in the mood for just that, so I turned to my trusty friend Tyler Florence for a good soup featuring a favorite fall vegetable, butternut squash.

I just discovered how tasty butternut squash is last year, thanks to this blog. I was looking for a new "fall-ish" recipe and stumbled on a great and simple recipe for pan fried butternut squash. It was heavenly. Butternut squash - where have you been all my life??!!

A few weeks ago, we rekindled our relationship while out at dinner. A local restaurant was serving their version of butternut squash soup and I tried it. It was really good. So good that it's kind of been on my mind ever since. So today is the day I tried out a squash soup on my own - with the help of my favorite food network chef of course!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Tyler Florence of Food Network

Ingredients
2 (2 pound) butternut squash, halved lengthwise, seeded
Vegetable oil
1/4 pound amaretti cookies I couldn't find these in my supermarket so I nixed them. I served it with those crostini breads that you buy for bruschetta
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 bunch fresh sage
1 onion, sliced thin
1 11oz can of white shoe-peg corn
1 clove garlic
splash of heavy cream
4 cups chicken stock, either homemade or store-bought -use vegetable stock to make this vegetarian
Pinch of grated nutmeg - I couldn't find nutmeg at the store either so I used cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch glass baking dish with vegetable oil. Place squash cut side up in prepared dish. Pierce each squash half several times with toothpick or skewer. Bake until squash is tender, about 45 minutes.

While the squash is cooking, use a handheld mixer with the chopping attachment to pulse the cookies until roughly chopped. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring the olive oil up to almost smoking. Quickly cook the sage leaves until crisp. Remove and reserve the sage, and saute the sliced onion and garlic. When the squash is done cooking, using a large spoon, scrape squash into the pot; discard peel. Add 3 1/2 cups chicken stock and nutmeg and puree until smooth, add additional stock to reach desired consistency. The video for the recipe shows Tyler adding a splash of cream to his soup at the end, so I did the same, even though the printed recipe doesn't call for it. After pureeing the squash and onions, I added the corn. Stir soup over medium heat until heated through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Top with crushed amaretti; garnish with sage leaves.




Recipe Notes
As noted above, I added corn to this recipe to give it a little extra "something". I also added garlic when I sauteed the onions. Some of the reviews on food network's website said the soup was lacking a little, but I thought it tasted great! It probably would have tasted even better if I wasn't in such a rush to finish it up and remembered to add the cinnamon at the end!

The only thing I wished I had for this recipe was an emulsion blender. After combining the squash, onions, garlic and broth, I had to scoop it out into my regular blender to puree. That was a real pain, since the blender could not hold the entire contents of the stock pot. I ended up blending two batches and then combining them to reheat. Well, Christmas is coming soon, right? Maybe Santa will put an emulsion blender under the tree!!

Sage Butter

I don't have much to say about this recipe, except I'm using this mix to butter up my free turkey that we got last week from the supermarket. It was a little tough to make the way myrecipes.com suggested. I added all my ingredients to the food processor and nothing really happened. The butter and spices all just sort of sat there and didn't mix together. I ended up putting it in a bowl and mixing all the ingredients together by hand.

Sage Butter
adapted from myrecipes.com

Ingredients
1/2 cup fresh 1/4 cup dried sage leaves, loosely packed
1 large shallot garlic clove
1/2 cup butter smart balance, softened
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon chili powder

Directions

Process sage and shallot garlic in a food processor until chopped.



Add butter and remaining ingredients; process until mixture is thoroughly blended, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides.



Yield: 1/2 cup