Pork Chops and Apricots With Caramelized Veggies

Five-Spice Pork Chops

1 1/2 lb. bone-in center cut pork chops

1 Tbs. five-spice powder

1/2 tsp. ground pepper

1 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. sea salt

peanut or walnut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the spices together in pie plate and roll chops to cover both sides. Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat, then brown chops on each side (about 2 minutes per side).

Put in roasting pan and pour apricots (recipe below) over the top. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until done. (The apricots kept them from drying out, so I erred on the longer side for safety.)

Here's a close-up of the apricot sauce I made.

Apricot Sauce
10 apricots, chopped
2-3 Tbs. brandy
1 Tbs. molasses
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. salt

I mixed everything together in a bowl and poured it on top of each pork chop. You can see from the first picture that the sauce runs everywhere, but most of it stayed on top of the chops. The measurements are approximate. I really had no idea what I was doing with the apricot sauce, so I just threw in stuff that looked good.

The overall flavor was very apricoty but not sweet at all. The spices from the pork chops paired nicely with the fruity flavor. Very tasty, but a much different flavor from the original recipe of Five-Spice Pork Tenderloin With Hoisin Sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago. The apricot sauce was all mine, so if you try it and have suggestions for improvements please let me know.

For a side dish, I made my new favorite veggie dish Caramelized Root Vegetables. I usually make it exactly as the recipe calls for, except I have yet to actually use the suggested vegetables. This time I used asparagus, Yukon gold potatoes, and what I thought were snow peas and found out at the cash register were actually English peas.

I hate English peas, but it was a little too late at that point. They were grown locally in Espanola, and I'm trying to be adventurous and try fresh vegetables that I've always thought I hated, so I decided to just go with it. I was in complete disbelief once I tried it. These were not English peas! This was some delicious vegetable that looked like peas, but it couldn't be!

The original recipe comes from the Whole Foods website, but here's the version I cooked tonight.

Caramelized Veggies
2 medium potatoes
asparagus with ends chopped off
English peas in shells
1 Tbs. olive oil
dried thyme
juice from 1 lemon
pepper and salt to taste

Steam veggies for about 6 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix oil and lemon juice together, then toss veggies into mixture. Sprinkly thyme, salt, and pepper over top of veggies, and toss again. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread veggies out. Bake approximately 35 minutes.

This recipe also worked well when I tried it with carrots, asparagus, yellow squash, and zucchini. The vegetables come out tender but still firm. The lemon juice is not really noticeable to me, but somehow the veggies end up tasting almost sweet. Very high marks for this recipe.

I also cooked a little couscous, just because I like my starches.

Here's the finished product.