Perfect Pork Chops with Quick Skillet Applesauce

Start with the highest-quality, bone-in, rib chop you can find. Organic, pasture-raised pork is best. You want thick chops, about an inch and a half. This is not a quick recipe, but it isn't difficult, so plan ahead. It's a nice thing to make on a chilly fall day when you want to spend time in the kitchen. My pork chops are a three step process: Brine, bake, sear, eat.

Okay, four steps.

These pork chops are worth all the trouble, though. This method tenderizes the meat, cooks it gently, then the last sear in a hot pan gives it a fragrant, crispy, bacony crust. This method works well for thick steaks, too. Check out The Science of Good Cooking (affiliate link) for details on why it works. 

Plan to allow the chops to brine for at least 1 hour, but not more than four hours or they will get soggy. I mix up the brine in a large liquid measuring cup. 

 For the brine:

1 cup hot water
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1/4 cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon peppercorns, crushed
1 teaspoon mustard seeds, crushed
a  few whole allspice berries, crushed
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
a handful of fresh herbs from the garden: rosemary, thyme and sage are good

Add the hot water, salt, sugar, and vinegar to a large measuring cup and stir well until the solids are dissolved. Lightly crush the spices in a mortar and pestle or with a rolling pin. Add the remaining ingredients to the brine. Make two 1 inch slits in the fatty edge of each pork chop with a sharp knife: this will help them lie flat as they cook. Nestle in the pork chops (add a bit more water or broth if needed to mostly cover the meat) and place in the refrigerator to brine for 1-4 hours. 

To bake the pork chops:

Remove the pork chops from the brine. Pat them dry and allow to warm on the counter for about 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 275F. Place a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet. Put the pork chops on the wire rack, and bake until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 120-125F, 30-40 minutes. Pay close attention toward the end of cooking time; overcooked pork is tough and tasteless.


While the pork is baking, start the applesauce:

 2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 red onion, chopped fine
2 small apples, chopped
1 pear, chopped
pinch chili powder
pinch ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons jam (homemade nectarine habanero is great here)
1 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

In a saute pan over medium heat, warm the coconut oil. Add the onion, apple, and pear and allow to soften, stirring frequently, 10-15 minutes. Add salt, pepper, chili powder, and cinnamon and toast until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the jam and chicken stock and stir to combine. Simmer over low heat until the fruit is broken down and thickened, and the pork chops are nearly ready. Puree with a food processor or immersion blender.

Pan-Fry the Pork Chops 

Remove the pork chops from the oven. Heat a heavy-bottom pan over high heat until screaming hot. Add 1 tablespoon coconut oil. When smoking, place in the pork chops. Let sizzle until golden brown and crusty, about 2 minutes per side. Brown the fatty edge by holding the pork chops upright with tongs. Allow the pork chops to reach an internal temperature of 145F, then remove to a plate and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Top with the skillet applesauce. Serve with mashed potatoes, something green, and a glass of wine.

With inspiration from:
Cook's Illustrated
Nopa, my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, and my favorite pork chop
and Married with Dinner

Wild Fermentation

"Your body is an ecosystem that can function most effectively when populated by diverse species of microorganisms. Sure, you can buy 'probiotic' nutritional supplements containing specific selected bacteria that promote healthy digestion. But by fermenting foods and drinks with wild microorganisms present in your home environment, you become interconnected with the life forces of the world around you... Wild fermentation is a way of incorporating the wild into your body, becoming one with the natural world. Wild foods, microbial cultures included, possess a great, unmediated life force, which can help us adapt to shifting conditions and lower our susceptibility to disease. These microorganisms are everywhere, and the techniques for fermenting them are simple and flexible."

Sandor Ellix Katz, Wild Fermentation (affiliate link)

On being the mother of a late walker

My babe is 17 months old and still not walking. We have some anxiety about this. Okay, a lot of anxiety. Sure, he's still in "the window," but what happens next month if he hasn't decided to walk? How much do we encourage him to stand and walk? Should we push him more? Some birds need a little shove out of the nest. He can walk, we think, he just doesn't know it yet. He is strong and active. He walks around the furniture, and he pushes his train or my birth ball around the yard. He's a quick crawler. Give him 2 seconds and he's across the room, opening the baby gate and climbing the stairs, or crawling down the driveway toward the street.

We love our big baby. We love that we've had this extended period of not-walking, not-chasing. Of babyhood. He'll do it when he's ready. He had a rough start as a young baby: months and months in the PICU with breathing problems. Maybe he needs to be a baby longer because he missed out on so much during those months in the hospital. That's fine. 

And yet. We wish he'd walk, on time, like the other children. Is he wounded from his hospitalization? Did the drugs stunt his development? Is this a harbinger of difficult times to come? It's hard to not wonder.

Every day, for months now, we wonder if today's the day that he'll take off running. Each day is not the day.

When you're a parent, struggling through the day-to-day mucky-muck of parenting, every little thing seems like a big hairy deal. Probably, in another few months, we won't even remember this anxiety, as the three of us transition into toddlerhood.

Sometimes, in those faint fleeting floating dreams as you're falling asleep, I dream he's choking and I wake with a gasp. Anxiety is a puma that lives in our house. Does every mother experience this?

We strive for a peaceful life. So, instead of worrying, we are working harder at play. I want him to use his whole body, I want him to find the pleasure in movement. We dance. We do yoga (affiliate link) (he thinks Mama's downward dog is hilarious). We pretend we're elephants or monkeys. We climb on top of and into the laundry basket. We make forts. We chase the cats. We chase each other. We are having so much fun!

Really, mostly, we're okay with our big boy who prefers crawling. There are important lessons in parenting here.

Be patient. Everything changes.
Be kind. Kindness toward himself and others might be the most important lesson I want him to learn.
Relax and find the humor. It is present in everything and so much easier to find if you cultivate a light heart.
He'll do it when he's ready. Relax and yield to the power that's larger than you.
He is the teacher. Look for the lesson.
Childhood is fleeting. It's not a race. We're on a long lazy float down the river, and we're here to enjoy it.
Just because he's not walking now doesn't mean he won't get into college.
Show him what is possible. He may not know what he can do. 
He is perfect in every way. Treasure his tiny, strong body.
Do not compare your treasure to your neighbor's.
Play more. 

Heavenly Labneh

After reading about labneh, the Middle Eastern yogurt cheese, in so many different places lately, it was past time to make it myself. It's so easy: stir some salt into a quart of Greek yogurt, pour into cheesecloth to drain, and wait a few hours or overnight until it's the consistency you like. David Lebovitz and Heidi at 101 Cookbooks both have nice photos of this process.

I love goat cheese, and cream cheese, but now I prefer labneh. It's milder, but still tangy. The texture is smooth. It's my favorite thing to eat for breakfast these days, or a quick lunch. We love it on toasted walnut bread with slow roasted tomatoes or with radishes and an egg. 

It's especially good on toast with homemade jam. I canned some late-season apricot and peach butters this weekend because I know how good they will taste, in the dark cold winter, on toast with labneh, and a hot cup of coffee or tea.

Honey Vanilla Roasted Apricot Butter

Apricots again. You know I love apricots. Rosy little blenheims, pixie-cot, and autumn royal. I love them fresh, but they really shine when cooked, soft and slumped, lightly sweetened and spiced. I love how roasting brings out the flavor of fruits and vegetables. The slow heat of the oven coaxes out the true flavor, even at the end of the season, even when the fruit is a little too firm, yielding a self-actualized fruit, the Platonic Ideal, of, in this case, apricots.

When I saw the technique for this oven roasted apricot butter, I had to try it. I knew it would make delicious apricot preserves, even with less-than-perfect, last-of-the-season fruit. The apricots linger with the honey overnight, then you slip them in the oven where the real love happens. Halfway through cooking time, I found the honey aroma a bit off-putting, and I nearly scrapped the whole batch. Don't be alarmed if you find that this is the case for you. It is worth it in the end and now I am rewarded with 5 more cups of delicious, tart, sweet, honey and vanilla infused apricot butter.

Honey Vanilla Roasted Apricot Butter
makes 5 cups
 
3.5 lbs apricots
1 1/4 cups honey
3 vanilla beans
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Halve and pit the apricots. Mix with the honey and one vanilla bean (split lengthwise) in an oven-proof pot or baking dish and allow to macerate in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, prepare the water bath. Sterilize the jars and lids. Heat the oven to 350F and slip the apricot mixture into the oven. Roast for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the apricots are reduced to a flavorsome, golden, buttery mush.

Remove from the oven. Add the lemon juice, remove the vanilla bean, and puree the apricots in a food processor or with an immersion blender.

Halve the vanilla beans and split them lengthwise. Into each jar, put half a vanilla bean, then add the hot apricot puree. Remove air bubbles and seal. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Pickled Peppers

I picked the last of the hot peppers from the garden and put them in a jar with vinegar, water, salt, and garlic cloves and ran them through the water bath. Easy peasy. Now I can pull the pepper plants to make room for fall crops.

Pickled Peppers
1 pint

2 cups mixed hot peppers (these are habanero and fresno)
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
a few garlic cloves, peeled

Mix up the water, vinegar and salt in a large measuring cup and stir until the salt dissolves. In a sterilized jar, pack the garlic cloves and peppers. Cover with the brine mixture and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

There's a jar of jam on your table

"It could seem grandiose to talk about "what makes a good life" in a book that is simply a collection of recipes. But for me, one of the constituents of a good life is the ability to find pleasure in the small things. A good jam for your toast in the morning. A chutney that is made from apples you gathered last fall. Cutting corned beef that you've made and can feed to friends. These are seemingly unimportant things, and they won't change the world, but the sum of happiness in one's life is often made up of such details. There's a jar of jam on your table. If it is jam that has been made with care, that comes from fruit you picked, that is delicious and starts your day off well, it is much more than just a jam."  

Diana Henry, Salt Sugar Smoke: How to preserve fruit, vegetables, meat and fish (affiliate link)