Smothered Pork Chops

I have been wanting to branch out and try cooking with different types of meat instead of just the boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I know there are a million ways to prepare chicken, and I'm not even close to trying them all out. But the other day I noticed some trimmed pork loin chops on sale. I decided to buy them and find the recipe later. And boy did I find a good one. Not knowing what kind of recipe I wanted to try, I just searched foodnetwork.com until I found a recipe that looked good, and used ingredients I had already, I did not want to go to the store. I came across a recipe from Tyler Florence called Smothered Pork Chops. This recipe appealed to me because, like I said, I didn't have to go to the store, it used buttermilk, which I had left over from the chocolate cake I had just made, and it made gravy, and how I do love my sauces!

This recipe was very simple to follow. I was so excited I didn't have to go to the store that I didn't realize I only have vegetable stock, not chicken stock. I decided to just use it, and it may have altered the flavor a bit, and I know the color was a brighter orange, but it was still a very tasty dish so it must not matter too much.

I followed the recipe exactly. Dredge the pork chops in a flour mixture, brown them, remove from pan, add liquid to make gravy, put chops back in and cook until done! That's it. A few things, I made four pork chops, like it calls for, but I had way more flour mixture than needed. So next time I might cut that down by half. I'm not the best at cooking pork chops just yet. I had to cut mine open to see if they were done. And I know that's a no no because all the juice can run out, but I didn't want under cooked meat. I also would have liked more gravy, so I'll probably adjust the recipe next time to include more liquid. But this was a great weeknight dinner. It was quick, the husband raved about it, and, like I said, you'll most likely have all the ingredients in your cupboard. (I know most of us don't usually have buttermilk just lying around, so I looked up buttermilk substitutes and it's super easy to make if you have milk and vinegar. Here is a good article with a few different recipes for buttermilk.) I served the pork chops up with rice and asparagus (my husbands go to vegetable).

Smothered Pork Chops