This post was originally published September 24, 2014. I’ve updated it with new pictures and wanted to share it again since it’s apple season!

When Fall (and football season) hit I pretty much crave two specific (adult) beverages – pumpkin beer and hard apple cider. It’s a happy day when the pumpkin beer display appears at the grocery store. Hard apple cider, I’ve noticed, seems to be available all year round which is a treat because sometimes a cold, refreshing, slightly sweet apple bevvy really hits the spot on a warm evening on the patio.

I don’t cook pork chops very often at home. No reason why really, it just doesn’t seem to be something I remember to include when I am planning our meals. I really should start adding them into regular rotation because I’ve noticed when I do make them, everyone devours them – including the kids (the whole family loves these Parmesan Baked Pork Chops!).

I’ve always loved the flavor of pork chops with apples – adding the hard cider the mix just makes it better! If you are cooking for your family, don’t worry – the alcohol cooks off in the skillet making them kid friendly. (You can always use regular apple juice or apple cider instead.)

How to make Skillet Pork Chops with Apples and Onions

1. In a small bowl mix together salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic powder. Season both sides of pork chops liberally.
2. In a large heavy skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Place the pork chops into pan. (If not enough room, cook pork chops in batches). Cook on one side for 4 minutes until chops are golden brown and releases from pan easily. Cook other side for additional 3-4 minutes.
3. Take pork chops out and place on to a plate. Repeat with remaining pork chops, if needed.
4. Add sliced onions and apples into skillet. Season with pinch salt and pepper. Pour in part of hard apple cider (about 1/4 cup) to deglaze pan while tossing apples and onions. Add rest of hard apple cider and let simmer for 5 minutes uncovered or until liquid reduces a bit. Add pork chops back into skillet and cover.
5. Turn off heat and let sit for 1-2 minutes. Using tongs, take out pork chops and place in dish. Pour apple and onion mixture over pork chops and serve.

Since the pork chops are boneless and thin, this Hard Cider Skillet Pork Chops with Apples and Onions recipe cooks up fairly quickly making it a good option for a weeknight dinner. I don’t know about you, but I love skillet meals like this.

We ate these skillet pork chops with apples alongside these Cheddar Dill Roasted Red Potatoes but mashed potatoes or wild rice would be another great side as well.

PS…I’m curious, what’s your favorite hard cider or pumpkin beer?

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Click here to pin this Chinese Five Spice Pork Chops with Broccoli recipe!

One of my goals for the upcoming new year is to start cooking from my cookbooks again. I have a pretty massive collection of cookbooks that I cherish and love, but sadly don’t cook from as much as I used to. Over the years, I’ve become accustomed to creating recipes from scratch to share here on the blog and my cookbooks have been neglected in the process. One of my recent cookbook purchases is a fantastic and practical cookbook called Sheet Pan Suppers and today’s Chinese Spice Pork Chops with Broccoli was inspired from it.

Today’s post is also for this month’s Recipe Redux – the Recipe Redux is a monthly recipe challenge where we focus on a theme and recreate a recipe with a healthier twist. This month’s theme was Grab a Book and Cook, so I was excited to do just that! Since the Recipe Redux is celebrating it’s 54th month we were to find a recipe on page 54 or 154 of a nearby cookbook and reinvent a healthy version of it. I picked up Sheet Pan Suppers and found a recipe using an ingredient that I was defrosting for dinner – pork chops. It happens to be on page 123 (oops!!) because I missed the little page detail until later (I blame my holiday brain!).

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What’s everyone making for dinner these days? I have to ask my friends what they are having for dinner all the time because let’s face it, it can be a chore to constantly come up with new dinner ideas every week. I am always looking for ideas!

Food blogger or not, the struggle is real to figure out what I am going to be able to get on the table within our schedule and that everyone will happily eat each night. I definitely try to stick with a rotation of a few regular meals, but it’s nice to change things up too. Since I already know my whole family loves the chicken cutlets my grandfather always makes for us, I had a good feeling they would love these Parmesan Baked Pork Chops too.

I was right. They gobbled them up.

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My kids went back to school this week. Although I truly enjoy the laid back, non-structured days of summer, by August I find myself feeling a little bit of a mess and craving some routine. Every start of the school year always makes me feel a bit more refreshed and energized and ready to take on a new season. Can anyone else relate??

(Welcome to 3rd and 5th grade! The little guy started preschool a couple mornings a week too. 🙂 )

One thing that I slack on big time over the summer is meal planning. I find myself winging it most days and nights and our dinners are a bit spontaneous and pieced together. Once school starts though, things change and I am a little more on the ball (ha!) with having a dinner plan, especially when after school and evening activities start up. I’ve learned I really have to be or we would be eating sandwiches or scrambled eggs every night for dinner (which isn’t a such terrible thing really, just a bit boring). Needless to say, I do look forward to the more structured idea of “dinner time” during the school year. These Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Pork Tostadas made it to the first week of dinner menu!

This is my first month posting along with The Recipe Redux group and our theme for August was “Back to the Dinner Table”. A perfectly appropriate challenge for all of us, especially this time of year, don’t you think? Getting us back into the groove of eating dinner together is always a good thing. If you are unfamiliar with The Recipe Redux, they are the first recipe challenge group created by Registered Dietitians with a focus on taking delicious recipes and making them better for you. When I first started blogging (over 7 years ago) I was a part of a couple of recipe challenge groups (a Barefoot Contessa group and Ellie Krieger group) and I had a lot of fun with them. It always kept me inspired to try something new so joining up with these awesome bloggers in The Recipe Redux group was a no brainer for me.  

One of my family’s favorite and most requested dinners is these Turkey and Spinach Tostadas. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made them in the last year. I wanted to change them up and do something a little different this week, so I got some help from my crock pot and made these super simple Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Pork Tostadas. You can use any green salsa you like, I took a shortcut and used this store bought salsa but if you are up for it make your own salsa from scratch (like my Roasted Tomatillo Salsa). The technique of baking up the tostadas is the same as the turkey and spinach ones, but this time I used the shredded salsa verde pork and added black beans (corn would be a great substitute for any family members that don’t care for beans).

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This recipe was created in partnership with Bush’s Beans.

If you like pork chops and barbecue then I am pretty certain you are going to love these Smothered Grilled Pork Chops today. I don’t cook pork chops often, but recently I picked up a couple of packages on sale since I know that my mother in law loves them and I want to treat her to dinner.

This meal made enough for them and my husband and I (I decided I wasn’t going to make the kids eat all those dreaded peppers 😉 ) and it was absolutely delicious.

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Click here to pin this slow cooker pork tenderloin recipe!

I’m back with another pork tenderloin recipe. The Roasted Chili Maple Pork Tenderloin I shared back in November was my introduction to cooking with pork tenderloin and it turns out many of you love this cut of meat too. I’m amazed how much my entire family loves it and I can’t believe I have avoided cooking it for so long.

This time, I decided to try something different and cook it using my slow cooker. Yep, that tenderloin was cooked in the slow cooker and finished off under the broiler. I tried this new-to-me-method after seeing a recipe for Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin in The Healthy Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen (if you missed it, I’m giving away a copy of this cookbook plus 3 others this week here). I wanted so bad to make the Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin recipe but I was missing some pretty key ingredients so I had to improvise and try something a little different.

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been finding myself in a bit of a cooking rut lately, cooking a lot of the same things – mostly chicken and turkey. Nothing wrong with chicken and turkey, but I have been getting bored with it and I’m sure my family is too. I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone and try something new – and cooked up this Roasted Chili Maple Pork Tenderloin. My family is so happy I did. I’ve made it twice in the last two weeks (experimenting with different marinades) and they devoured it. I’m so excited to have something new to throw into the dinner rotation that everyone loves (and it frequently goes on sale at the grocery store so that’s a win!).

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Click here to Pin this Recipe!

Many of you know that pizza and I go way back. Waaaaaay back. (if you didn’t know, my parents have owned a pizza shop since I was an itty bitty girl, I grew up watching my dad making a million pizzas a week). It’s hands down my favorite food in the world.

Mexican food? I don’t think I had a taste of Mexican food until I was close to becoming an adult. Mexican food didn’t really make appearances in my Italian rooted house during my childhood. I think I had my first bean dip when I was waitressing at a sports bar in college. Nachos and I became best friends around that time too. I think it’s now safe to say that I love Mexican food. And I cook it at home at least once a week.

This little recipe for Mexican Black Bean Pizza is the perfect combination of my two favorite foods. It uses just a few ingredients that you will most likely already have on hand. The one ingredient you may have to make a little effort for is the pulled pork. I happen to have some leftover in my freezer from the last batch I made, but if you don’t, any leftover protein would really work here – leftover grilled or pulled chicken, chorizo or taco meat. Play around with it.

Of course, this little pizza included another favorite food of mine – beans. Grab a can, heat them up with some onion and throw them on there, easy peasy. Canned beans are so great to have on hand to add to any recipe.

Each pizza “crust” is made with 2 tortillas, glued together by cheese, to make it sturdier. I thought this was pretty genius. If you are watching your calories, just cut back a little on the cheese – and remember to shred it yourself straight from the block, I always find that when you do it that way the cheese melts so much better and you can use a lot less.

Grab a slice and enjoy!

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So, our nephew Ryan has been staying with us while his new apartment is getting ready for him.  You may have heard me mention Ryan before, he was the mastermind behind this delicious Tropical Fruit Salsa we served over grilled salmon last summer.  What’s fun about Ryan staying with us is that he likes to cook so it definitely adds to the creativity going on in the kitchen.

This meal was a collaborative effort between us.  I told him what I had on hand and wanted to use up…he sparked the idea of using a bruschetta topping and broiling the patties with cheese and serving open faced on an English muffin.  The result was amazing and enjoyed by the adults in the home.  And although I’ve cut down on eating meat considerably over the last few months, I couldn’t resist taking a bite of this one.  What struck out the most was the juiciness of the burger, adding sauteed vegetables to the meat will do that.  And the freshness of the basil in the patties definitely made your taste buds jump up and down as well.  This one is a keeper.  Thanks Ryan for the inspiration! 🙂

Bruschetta Patty Melts

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1/2 green pepper, minced
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 mushrooms, minced
• small handful of basil, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• couple of splashes of wine
• salt and pepper

Topping:

• Bruschetta
• Cheese (we used shredded mozzarella and Parmesan shavings)
• English Muffins, toasted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Saute pepper, mushrooms, onions and garlic and let cool. Combine basil, egg, Parmesan cheese and wine in a bowl. Add cooked vegetables and ground pork to bowl and gently combine. Form into patties. Place on broiler pan and cook for about 15 minutes.
3. Take cooked patties out of oven and top each one with a spoonful of bruschetta, Parmesan and cheese. Turn broiler on and place burgers back into oven. Cook until cheese is completely melted and slightly browned. Serve open-faced style on toasted English Muffin.

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#4 Bbq Pulled Pork and Chipotle Onion Sandwiches

Bbq Pulled Pork and Chipotle Onion Sandwiches
Recipe from Aggie’s Kitchen

(Printable Recipe)

1 Boston butt or pork shoulder roast (4-6lbs, depending on the size of your slow cooker)
1 large onion, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 whole, crushed garlic cloves
1 cup water
your favorite Barbeque sauce

1 large red onion, thinly sliced
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1-2 tablespoons of oil
2 teaspoons of chipotle chili powder
couple – few dashes of Tabasco Chipotle hot sauce

Place pork roast in the slow cooker; add water, sliced onion, salt and pepper and garlic cloves. Cover and cook on low for about 9 to 11 hours, or until very tender. Drain all juices off, discard any fat and bone. Shred or chop pork. Continue cooking on high for about 1 hour.

Prepare onion topping by adding 1-2 tablespoons of oil in non stick skillet over medium high heat. Add onions to pan, salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook for approximately 10-15 minutes, or until soft. Add 2 teaspoons of chipotle chili powder and a couple of dashes of Tabasco Chipotle sauce to onions. Combine and continue to cook for another 10 minutes. If onions are sticking to bottom of pan, deglaze by adding a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to pan.

Serve shredded pork on potato rolls with your favorite barbeque sauce, top with caramelized chipotle onions.

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