You know, I admire my efforts in the kitchen and so does my wife after she challenged me one night to make a dinner from what I could find in the fridge and cupboards. She was certain nothing was there but we happily had leftovers the next night. Now, I consider my true skill to be next to a smokin grill but last night, I knocked one outta the park. Secrets over the fold...
Big secret...BRINE all your dry meats, i.e. chicken, pork and shrimp. Brining adds moisture and allows you to get away with murder if you have a habit of over cooking your meats. A simple brine for all meats is 1/4 cup salt, 1/4 brown sugar and 5 cups water...add spices as you like. Meats should soak in the brine for at least 2 hrs. Pat dry and cook as normal. Wife just told me that the last shrimp I did felt almost like sushi and they exploded in her mouth...I got jealous!!!
You should search for a turkey brine that you might like but if you do and use it, you'll never have a dry turkey Thanksgiving again. I brine my turkeys overnight.
So for last night, I had some leftover mozarella and feta and an itch for some stuffed pork chops. Never done em in my life but foodnetwork.com is a great site. And being the kinda guy I izz...no recipe is perfect till I get done with it. Guy Fierri only thought he got it right.
And here's his recipe: double cut loin chops
Now while that's a good starting point, here's how I changed it up: I was specifically looking for a stuffed chop recipe when I came across this one. Didn't have sage so I substituted thyme and I replaced the fontina with the leftover feta and mozarella. Harkening back to my childhood when fried pork chops always required apple sauce, I added 1/4 cup raisins to the stuffing. The stuffing makes way too much but I used it as the base for the sauce. Bacon, mushrooms, raisins, chicken stock and wine sauce....OMG! Add green beans and mashed taters and it just doesn't get any better. My wife made me forget about the shrimp later!!
BTW, on the way home, I told her we were having a hot dog night and she wondered why the garage smelt so good.