Day 1 - The Art of Simple Food

Pan-Fried Boneless Pork Loin Chops with Gremolata (pgs 122 & 231)

Oven-Roasted Asparagus (pg 289)

We returned yesterday afternoon from a much needed week of R&R&Shopping in New Mexico. Our first dinner home was nothing more than a roasted chicken and container of broccoli slaw from the local supermarket deli. Pretty good stuff, actually.

But I also shopped for tonight's dinner. Pork loin chops, asparagus from Peru (forgive me, Alice; I don't want to wait until farmers' market Saturday to begin cooking), and broccoli.

This afternoon I made bread pudding. I have a standard recipe, subject to much variation, given to me by Susan, manager of a now-defunct coffee house in Morro Bay. I throw odds and ends of bread and pastry past prime into the freezer until I have enough for a batch. Right now I have enough for several batches, having moved all those frozen heels and stale cake bits with us from the old house. (Would someone please BUY the old house?!)

Dinner is Pan-Fried Pork Chops garnished with Gremolata and Oven-Roasted Asparagus drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with shaved Parmesan.

First an OOOPS! Pork chops (or beef or chicken) must be thin, 1/2" for pan-frying. My loin chops are 1" by actual measurement. Alice says that after browning, I can finish them by baking in the oven. But who knows for how long? Not me. I drag out the trusty cast iron skillet I begged hubby for nearly 2 years ago when I decided to learn to cook a la Alice. Get it HOT. Add oil (a mix of olive and some other stuff). Toss in a little salt to keep oil from splattering (a trick I learned from Chinese wok cooking). Dry the chops (learned from the movie; and from Julia). Salt and pepper. Into the pan to brown. Looks promising.

Mean while, my assistant, dear hubby Randy, has peeled the asparagus with a vegetable peeler (who knew?), laid them in an oven-proof pan, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

When the chops are browned, they go into the oven, right in their cast iron skillet. About 5-7 minutes later, in go the asparagus. The whole thing bakes away at 375 for about 10-12 minutes.

Oh yes! The gremolata! Mine is the parsley, lemon zest, garlic combination that Alice spells out. I'm not thrilled with mine since the proportions don't seem quite right, but then again I didn't measure all that accurately. I'll have to try it again.

Anyway, the whole meal was damned good if I do say so myself. The asparagus should probably have roasted at 400, but that could have killed the meat. The chops were excellent, which shocked me. I've always been nervous about cooking meat.

Later in the evening, the bread pudding with tea.

By my count, there are 305 recipes in Simple Food. (And endless variations, which can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on your goals in life.) I will say I accomplished 2 today, so there are 303 to go. Okay, to be honest, I need to try the pan-fried meat thing again. I have some appropriately thin beef in the frig now. But I'm still going to call it 2 down and 303 to go. I'm just beginning to think that I might be actually learning to cook from this project! Julia always said that to learn to cook one must simply cook. Sounds reasonable.

Carry on!