Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Roasted Broccoli

Sure isn't winning any beauty contests...

But it tastes delicious! One of these days I will learn how to take halfway decent pictures of food. Until then, we'll all have to suffer. 

We eat rosted broccoli with just about everything in our house. When done right, it is the perfect combination of crispy almost burnt parts and salty goodness. 

This whole meal was almost a disaster due to little miss smarty pants (aka me) forgetting that the banana bread made a gigantic mess of the oven. After a couple minutes of preheating, I smelt something weird. I opened the oven door and smoke started billowing out. Nice. Luckily it stopped after awhile and the weather had been so nice that all the windows were open anyway. The smoke detector didn't even go off. Small victory, I know. But I'll take it. The poor cats went running. (At least I know they will try to get out of the house if it catches on fire? Or they will go hide someplace I won't be able to drag them out of. Most likely the latter will happen.)

Anyway, this recipe is great and comes together pretty quickly. 

Roasted Broccoli

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 small heads of broccoli, cut into florets

3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 clove of garlic, minced

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. (This broccoli is pretty adaptable. The pork needed a 400 degree oven, so that's what the broccoli got as well and they still turned out fine.) 

2. Combine broccoli with 1-2 tablespoons olive oil in a bowl. Add salt and pepper (I generously salt the broccoli, but do to your liking.) Mix so all florets are coated.

3. Transfer broccoli to 8 or 9 inch square baking pan and roast for 15 minutes. 

4. Meanwhile, added minced garlic to small bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil. 

5. After 15 minutes, stir broccoli and add garlic olive oil.

6. Roast for another 7-8 minutes or until broccoli is nicely browned/slightly blackened.

Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce

Adapted from Real Simple

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 boneless pork chops

Salt and pepper

1 shallot, finely chopped

1/3 to 1/2 cup dry white wine (I halved the RS recipe, which accounts for the weird measurement)

1 tablespoon heavy cream

1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in an ovenproof 10 inch skillet over medium-high heat. Season the pork with salt and pepper and brown, 2-3 minutes per side. Put the skillet in the oven to finish cooking, 5-7 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in another skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring often, until soft, 3-4 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half. Add the cream and simmer until the sauce just thickens. Stir in the mustard.
3. Top the pork with the sauce.