Recipe Fridays: Reinventing the TV Dinner pt 2.

A trip to Ikea found me holding this in my hand for a few minutes before I decided why the heck not.  It was $4-5 for the jar of orange and elderflower marmalade.  If you’ve read my blog at all in the past few months, you know how I adore elderflower and am obsessed with it in all forms (and may recall me mentioning the availability of elderflower syrup at Ikea for a very low price, too! which I picked up another bottle during this trip as well).  I didn’t really know what to do with it, since I don’t eat much toast or the like, until I stumbled across a pork chop recipe calling for apricot jam. 

So I bought a pack of pork chops and threw the dish together for BF (along with some frozen fries cuz I totally spaced on a side dish) and I for lunch one day. 

The marmalade helped keep the pork moist (I do cook my pork less than well-done in any case), and added a lot of sweetness to the dish.  But I countered the sweetness by adding a lot of salt to the breadcrumb topping, so it was well balanced (phew!), moist, and the breadcrumbs turned super crunchy, which really made the whole dish come together.  Love.  It got the BF stamp of approval, and he said he would totally like me to make this again – “put it in the rotation” as he says.  Yum!

What’s that?

Homemade chocolate cups!  Well, these above are filled with almond butter, and I used semisweet chocolate so I got to pick exactly the sweetness level and all.   

Also, I love almond butter.  The half without the almonds on top were filled with fig preserves, which I loved even more… yum.   

But here is my complete TV dinner! 

The third and last pork chop, leftover from lunch… heated in the toaster oven quickly to preserve its juiciness, but honestly, that topping… mmm… made it perfect anyway. 

Oh, and a note: I wasn’t sure about this marmalade since it was from Ikea.  It also looked really watery/liquidy in the jar, which led me to add extra breadcrumbs, but that wound up being an excellent move.  Plus… it had strips of orange peel in the marmalade, which enhanced the flavor nicely.  Yum.  I would totally buy this marmalade again! 

Elderflower & orange marmalade crunchy topped pork chop

Breadcrumbs (I made my own by running some stale bread through my food processor, but feel free to use panko [which may overbrown on the very top] or any sort of bread crumbs you have on hand)
Pork chops
Kosher salt/freshly ground black pepper
Fruit jam/marmalade – use what you have or whatever you like; some sort of jelly/jam, fruit based would be good (ie, don’t use mint), about a teaspoon per pork chop

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with tin foil for easy clean up.  If desired, brush lightly with a bit of oil.

Season both sides of each pork chop generously with salt and pepper.  Maybe even a little more salt than you prefer, especially if you don’t like sweet things too much, as this will help balance the sweetness quite a bit.  Spread one side with about a teaspoon of the jam, then sprinkle with bread crumbs liberally, patting them down a bit so they’ll stick to the jam. 

Bake the pork chops (jam/breadcrumb side up!) until the crust is golden and the pork is just cooked through, about 14-15 minutes.  Enjoy immediately. 

Trying to come up with a suitable side dish for my pork chop at home, I quickly threw this together and was extremely pleased with the result.  I had some leftover ditalini (uncooked), and I just dug around in the fridge for items I always have on hand.  Yum!

Quick Ditalini Side

1/2 lb. ditalini
2-4 oz. cream cheese
cooked broccoli, chopped up
1-2 tablespoons of Harry & David Onion & Pepper Relish (I used the hot, though there’s also the sweet!)

Cook ditalini according to directions, reserving a cup of cooking water.  Drain, returning ditalini to pot, and add cream cheese, stirring to coat the pasta with the melting cream cheese.  Add reserved cooking water as needed to thin a little (though you don’t need or want a sauce in the bottom, unless you prefer that), then mix in the broccoli and onion&pepper relish.  Stir to incorporate… and try not to stand over the pot, stuffing your face with the mixture until it’s almost all gone and you realize you still need to put some on your TV dinner tray to photograph… cuz it’s good!!!  The creaminess of the cheese, the crunch from the pepper bits in the relish and the broccoli, the al dente pasta… and the slight heat from the relish… it’s so good.  I could go for some of that right now…

Dessert was painfully easy to make too – ignore my dirty mini-muffin pan from Bed Bath & Beyond – I popped some mini muffin liners in there for support, then painted the cups with some Guittard chocolate disks I melted in a metal bowl over a simmering pot of water and popped the whole thing in the fridge. 

After it set, I dropped some fig preserves in 6 of them and almond butter in the other six and 

covered them up with more chocolate, then

topped the six almond butter cups with a smoked almond each, so I would know which was which after I took them out!  I put the whole thing back in the fridge, and waited.  Awesome!  Super easy and you can really fill these with anything that floats your fancy!  I might try adding some heavy cream next time, as I did find the texture of the chocolate on the hard side (a bit TOO MUCH snap), but otherwise… too easy not to make over and over again whenever it strikes my fancy.  Yum!

The other components of the TV dinner were just some sauteed kale (garlic, olive oil, salt, and lemon juice) and a peeled clementine with some dark cherries alongside.  Healthy, yummy, and perfect for my Thursday night ritual!

Is there anything in particular you’d like to see me put in the TV dinners?  Share in comments!  I might actually take some suggestions 😉

Happy eating!