Pork Chop Casserole

My favorite dish that mom makes is a Pork Chop Casserole. Whenever I go home this is the dish I want mom to make - ok, I'll teach you how to make it - simple- easy- and here ya go.
The ingredients you will need are few- and this is simple:

Pork Chops- of course- thin cut (breakfast type)
One green bell pepper
One tomato
One onion
Beef consume - one can
Five Tablespoons of Long Grain rice
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup of flour

Now - look through the series of photographs about all the steps you will need first- then go back and make it yourself.  I hope the photographs help you

Love a big pan that you can not only fry the pork chop in - but later allow it to simmer

A bit of olive oil (no fancy virgin or extra virgin) then Let the pan get hot

Medium heat is all you need. With these great pans- anything more is a waste

Once the oil is hot - add some butter - I know - trust me on this 

You will want to cut up some onions, heirloom tomatoes, and green onions

Add pepper to the pork chop along with salt

The Pork Chop is placed in flour

Well seasoned with salt and pepper - then flip it with the tongs and salt and pepper the other side

The pork chops go into the frying pan: they are frying over a medium heat

You can see they become golden brown on one side after about 2-3 minutes

Medium heat is all you need. These pork chops are now fried- time to add the rest of the stuff

My mom likes using canned consume - this beef broth is pretty easy too

Just add enough of the broth to almost cover the chops

Should look like this

The sliced onion goes on first

Then add the tomato on top of it

The bell pepper is placed to make it look "pretty" - as mom says

About 5 Tablespoons of rice  - I prefer long-grain

Just add it to the broth on either side of the chops

If you have left over tomatoes and green peppers and onions place them around the dish

All you need is to simmer this- so down from the medium heat

Remember low and slow

After about 15 minutes it starts to look like this

Now it is done- the rice has absorbed the flavors of the pork and vegetables

You have a perfect dish- with vegetables and meat and starch.

Here is the written recipe:

Place about two tablespoons of olive oil in a deep dish fry or sautee pan and have it on a medium heat.  Once it has heated up add two tablespoons of butter.

Take the pork chops and dredge them through flour-- put the flour on a plate, place the chop on it. Season the top of the pork chop with salt and pepper.  Flip the pork chop- and season the other side. Note- This pork is raw- so wash your hands after handling the chop and wash down the counter surfaces

Place the pork chop in the pan once it is HOT - and on a medium heat.  It should fry about 3 minutes per side. Once one side is finished- flip the chop and do the other side. Still raw pork- whatever utensil you used to flip it-- needs to be washed

While frying the pork chop- cut the onions and tomato and bell Pepper length wise

Once the pork chops are finished - add just enough beef broth - or canned beef consume to bring it to the top of the chop.

Add the onion first, then the tomato- then the pepper on the chop.

Turn the heat down to SIMMER. 

In the broth add your rice and any left over chopped vegetables.

Cover- and in about thirty minutes you will have a great dish.

Park City and Sun Dance

As the Sun Dance Film festival begins Park City, Utah,  will have plenty of celebrities not wearing fur-  but enjoying great film, and ski runs.  The thing they won't be enjoying is good food.

It is surprising for a town rebuilt for the Olympics that no one considered that this is an ideal place for a great new restaurant- think French Laundry, Bobo, Michael Mina, or Tarbell's.

When "the" steak restaurant consistently leaves steaks under hot lights and believes that al dente means raw you have to wonder (perhaps the  raw types would like it-- nope they wouldn't).

How hard is it to make good sushi? Ok- they did a great job with lamb lollipops (probably the best food here- but is it really Asian?)

A Seafood buffet - yes,really a buffet.  Park City must stopped at Vegas in 1965 to learn cuisine - but have not gone back since (oh, and seafood without lobster?).

So I wonder why don't the resorts get that? Why do these resorts consistently have mediocre restaurants serving dishes that are uninspiring renditions from the 1970's - and allow their guests to go downtown where there is worse parking, cold and old shops (quaint), and no hope of cuisine worth the trip?  If one of these resorts would import a great chef for a restaurant they would discover what Vegas did-- that food is more than a buffet, that food can be a destination.  Great food can be income!

On the plus side- the people here are probably the most helpful, kind you could encounter. They will go out of their way to do anything for you and make you feel great (just don't ask them to cook).    The scenery here is spectacular (and I don't mean watching for yet another celebrity - I mean the mountains). The skiing here is world-class - the wife was going down the black diamonds while yours truly was trying to overcome the blue fear.

My advice when you come to Park City - get a room with a kitchen - and plan on cooking meals at the hotel.

Until then - Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Marc Forgione, Mark Tarbell, Cat Cora, Michael Mina -- please come ski here- and open a restaurant.  Unlike New York- here you can make money.

While I love to photograph food- it is nice to have good food to photograph- this week, you have to put up with my son who enjoys the scenery and is probably thankful he has Similac and dad's home made peas for food