sweet success

Ok, I'm not proud to admit this, but pork chops give me fits. It seems like every single time I make them, I'm playing some guessing game while walking on a tightrope over a desert (the desert, of course, being disappointingly dry pork chops). But not willing to summarily write off a whole branch of protein, I finally asked my little sister for some tips...about three years after I first should have. Her advice? Marinate the cuss out of them. So yesterday I actually planned ahead and marinated our pork chops for about five hours in some soy sauce, lemon juice, EVOO, garlic, red pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Then I roughly followed the recipe here.

Camera charger still playing hide and seek, so this picture is from Pioneer Woman's recipe. I feel less like I'm cheating since ours did, in fact, look like this.

For the sauce part, I substituted white wine for a lighter taste (it is summer!) and cut way back on the garlic. We get enough of that in this household, and I want at least the option of kissing later that night.

These pork chops were out of this world. Seriously. I can only say that because I can barely take any credit for them. For any pork-challenged comrades out there, this just might be your answer.

We wanted something light for a side, and I was wanting to smash and grind things in my food processor for no particular reason (except that it takes up valuable above-the-fridge space and needed to be validated), so I made this recipe here, adding cherry tomatoes for some color and texture, since chickpeas can also be sort of dry:

Photo from recipe blog linked above. Camera charger is winning.

This was delicious...I tweaked the recipe a bit (more lime because I'm the citrus queen...and I can't remember what else) and it's easy to adapt. Definite keeper.