Clean out the fridge pork chops with mushroom quinoa
I had a craving for that comfort food meal of pork chops on rice, baked with Campbell’s Cream of mushroom soup, but we’re trying to be healthy(ish) so I came up with this meal to try to satisfy the craving. We also had a bunch of stuff in the fridge that needed eatin’ pronto, so contrary to what I said before about not inventing recipes myself, I did create this meal without a recipe. Here’s what I can remember:
Purchased for this meal:
- Two or three centre cut boneless pork loin chops (less fatty than the bone-in (delicious-er) ones)
- Fresh mushrooms
Found in the fridge:
- Nearly ready for the compost red onion
- About to grow sprouts garlic
- Staring to get a little wet looking spinach
- Wrinkled and beginning to shrivel mushrooms
- Light sour cream approaching its expiry date
Always in the cupboard:
- Quinoa
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Chop old wizzely mushrooms into teeny, tiny pieces (so you can no longer tell how wrinkly and unappealing they look). Sauté them in olive oil along with onion, garlic and spinach. Add a tablespoon or two of this mixture to about a cup of light sour cream. Chop fresh mushrooms into larger pieces and very briefly sauté them and add to the sauce. This way it appears that the entire mushroom flavor is coming from fresh, lovely mushrooms and not wizzled up old mushrooms no one wanted to eat. Sauce: done.
Cook quinoa as previously described. When it has finished fluffing (heh), stir in the rest of the onion, garlic and spinach mixture and steam for another minute or so.
I rubbed a tiny bit of olive oil, garlic and S&P onto the pork chops before baking them (I would normally have thrown them on the BBQ but since it PPPHUUUUUH’d out of propane a few days before that wasn’t an option).
Spoon the quinoa onto plates, place a chop on the quinoa and top with the sour cream sauce.
We loved this dinner – it’s amazing what you can do with a craving and a fridge clean-out.
In: ramsay's recipes · Tagged with: pork, quinoa