What You Should Have Eaten #17

Ham and Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops

These cooking posts are going to be a little less stream of consciousness because I’ve moved my laptop out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. That means these aren’t usually written until I’m about to post them.

 

 

No cocktail tonight for two reasons. One, I’m cooking with wine, so usually that means I’m drinking it, too. Two, I’ve been feeling like crap for the better part of a week, and I don’t usually like to drink then. That’s not saying that I haven’t been, though. Upon the advice of my boss, I’ve found a tasty recipe for a Hot Toddy, and I’ve been having one of those before bed. Now, I’m not saying that they’ve been making me feel better, but I’m also not saying that they’re not helping at all.

 

 

 

 

I pour a shot of Jack into a coffee mug and punch it up with a little lemon juice. Since I don’t have a tea pot or kettle, I have to setting for nuking some water in the microwave. Before pouring the hot water into the mug, I drop some whole cloves and a cinnamon stick in there. Then I stir and add some honey. Like I said, I don’t know if it’s helping me any, but it tastes fantastic.

 

 

The dessert for this meal is some homemade chocolate chip cookies. After the success with the pumpkin pie, I’ve decided that I do indeed like baking, and my oldest son loves to help. We whipped up some cookies while the rest of the house napped. They’re great, and we’re pretty proud of ourselves.

The biggest problem I had with the cookies was cook time. I ended up making them bigger than recommended. It took longer than 10 minutes to cook them through, and I only got 42 instead of 60 cookies out of the batch.

On to the dinner.

I forgot to buy a bottle of wine while doing the grocery shopping on Saturday. Two things I dislike about living in Tennessee involve alcohol: 1) The only alcohol you can buy in a grocery or convenience store is beer (conversely, you can’t buy beer in a liquor store) and 2) liquor stores aren’t open on Sunday. So I had my sister pick up a bottle on Saturday night, and she got a Gato Negro Sauvignon Blanc. Since I wasn’t drinking anything harder than orange juice, I only had a swig of it, but it was passable enough, especially for the price.

 

I used two of my favorite foods in this recipe: smoked Gruyere and maple-glazed honey-coat ham, both by Boar’s Head. The Gruyere is seriously the best cheese I’ve ever eaten, and the ham is what I’d buy every week if I could afford to buy fresh, deli-sliced lunchmeat all the time.

Slicing the pork chops was one of the nastiest things I’ve ever done. I actually had to hold the raw chops in my hand while slicing down the side. I’ve made this meal before, but I must have bought boneless, butterflied chops then. I would have remembered doing this.

Next time I make this meal (because it WILL happen again), I’m going to use smaller pieces of Gruyere, and I might go back to the pre-cut chops. I had a difficult time getting these things fully cooked through. Turns out that what I was seeing as uncooked meat was actually pink from the ham, I don’t know, transferring to the pork chop. I may have actually over-cooked the stuffed part of the chops while undercooking the tiny part that I didn’t slice open.