Most of the year, I am exhausted after a long day of teaching, but I still need to make dinner because, lets face it, teaching doesn't exactly pull in the big bucks, and dining out every night is simply out of the question! I also genuinely enjoy cooking... it becomes a de-stresser of sorts. I tend to bake or cook when I am stressed out or upset about things. For example, when I was told I was going to be moved to the high school at the end of last school year, I did LOTS of baking. I liked teaching at the small one grade school where I was, and I am still upset about moving away from all of my school friends. I am in the process of getting settled at my new school and that stress is starting to rear its ugly head again. I found myself this afternoon forcing myself to stay out of the kitchen so I wouldn't make cookies for no reason.
Instead of eating the rest of my weight watcher points for the year, I decided to look for something to make for dinner. I am NOT a huge pork chop fan, so I don't tend to make pork chop or loins very often. This week, however, pork loin was on sale at Publix so I grabbed a package. My husband, Billy, said it best tonight at the dinner table, "At 2.97 for the whole package, that's way cheaper than tacos!!" I do love a taco, and use the inherent cheapness of tacos as an excuse to make them often! :)
Tonight, however, I make a new FEC meal- pan seared pork loin with garlic cheese biscuits and sauteed apple and onions. I think that the meal turned out GREAT and Billy said it was a keeper.
The pork was just seasoned on each side with grill seasoning and a little bit of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I heated a couple of tablespoons of EVOO in the bottom of a saute pan on medium high heat and then cooked the pork on each side for about 2 minutes.... Easy right!!
I got the biscuit recipe from the back of the bisquick box- it was also super easy-- Bisquick, cheese, milk, minced garlic, garlic powder and melted butter were all the ingredients. The only thing I do differently is add more garlic and cheese. The more of those, the better!! 10 minutes later at 450 and YUM!
The apples and onions were what I was most worried about since I hadn't attempted this recipe before.
I sliced about 2 small onions into thin slices. I didn't have any green apples, or whole apples for that matter, but I have pre-sliced apples that I eat for snacks, so I just used them. I used about 15 slices of the pre-sliced apples and cut them into thinner slices as well. I heated another skillet to medium high heat and put in 2 tablespoons of butter. Once that had mostly melted, I put in my onions and apples and cooked them until they were just tender. It took about 7 minutes. Once tender, I added a tablespoon and a half of brown sugar and stirred it in. I cooked that for about 5 more minutes so that the sugar had coated and melted onto the onions and apples. SO good!! I don't know why I was worried!!
Try the apple and onion recipe and I promise, you will love it with the pork! The sweet apples and onions with the slightly smokey and savory pork is amazing!!
Eat something good for me!
Emily G
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