Tasty Pork Chops

We had a pretty tasty dinner tonight. It's not the prettiest to look at, but it's yummy, and pretty easy to make on a weeknight. Here's the recipe from our copy of "The Cook's Encyclopedia of French Cooking," which is one of those cheap Barnes and Noble cookbooks, and some pictures:


Pork Chops with Tomato Sauce (Cotes de Porc Sauce Nenette)

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 large center loin pork chops, about 1 inch thick
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp white wine or chicken stock
1 tsp dried thyme
1 cup whipping cream (we sometimes go half cream, half milk)
1 tsp tomato puree (we occasionally skip this)
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped (we use diced canned tomatoes)
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon (we use dried), chervil or parsley


1. Melt the butter with the oil in a pan over high heat until sizzling. Season the pork chops with salt and pepper, then add to the pan and reduce the heat to medium-high. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side until browned. (Adjust cooking time for thinner pork chops.) Transfer the pork chops to a plate and pour off all the fat.

2. Add the wine or stock and the thyme to the pan and bring to a boil. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the wine has almost evaporated.

3. Add the cream and the tomato puree and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, then return the pork chops to the sauce and cook for 4-5 minutes over a medium-low heat until just firm to the touch. Take care not to overcook.

4. Add the mustard, chopped tomato and herbs, stirring and shaking the pan to distribute them, and cook for 1 minute to heat through. Serve the chops with the sauce.

We added some leftover brown rice from takeout Chinese to soak up the sauce and had some veg on the side (Jeff had broccoli, because he HATES peas and I LOVE them, LOL!). It made for a nice, quick and easy dinner.

He's a nipple freak, nipple freak

Here's the item we found in my mom's house that made going through everything she had by ourselves so worthwhile. No, it's not a precious keepsake, a reminder of a very special time in our lives, or anything sentimental. It's hilarious! We found it in a box of old baby clothes that was stashed away in a back corner of the basement. I don't know which one of us was blessed with having to wear this as a baby, but now it has been passed down to one of my mother's grandpuppies, which is, I'm sure, what she was saving it for.


Errol, who has a "screw you guys" attitude most of the time, pulls it off rather well, don't you think? He was wearing it at my mom's house shortly after we found it. He managed to escape the house unnoticed and was wandering around the neighborhood for a few minutes in this shirt. We laughed about what would have happened if the Humane Society or Animal Control had found him first. We would have gone to claim him, identified him by this outfit, and they would have said, "um, no, you can't have your dog back, because making him wear this this qualifies as animal abuse." LOL!