Seared Pork Chops with Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

To go with the Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp, we went with pork chops (they were on sale at Publix!).  I found this recipe on myrecipes.com which seemed like a winner to me because it not only had the chipotle peppers, but it was also paired with green beans.  You know what that meant!  Oh yeah, we made our favorite green beans, too!  The pork chops turned out really good, but we weren't that impressed with the sauce.  The pork chops had our favorite, favorite steak seasoning on them, so how could we go wrong??? (Other than overcooking them of course!)  I felt like sauce needed something else.  If we make it again, I think I'd try adding a couple of cloves of garlic.  Here's what we did...

Seared Pork Chops with Spicy Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 pork chops (about 1/2 inch thick)
• 2  teaspoons  25%-less-sodium Montreal steak seasoning (such as McCormick Grill Mates)
• 1  cup  bottled roasted red bell peppers, drained
• 1  chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce
• 2  tablespoons water
• 1/2  teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Sprinkle pork evenly with steak seasoning. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. . Add pork to pan; cook 4 minutes. Turn pork over; cook 3 minutes.

While pork cooks, place bell peppers and next 3 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth.

When pork has finished cooking, place around 2 tablespoons of sauce on a plate and then top with the pork chops.  Serve with the green beans!

Enjoy!

Rick's B Day dinner

Yesterday was Rick's birthday, and for dinner, I decided to do pork chops.  Rick is a bigger pork chop fan than I am which may explain why we don't have them that often.  Publix had them on sale which also helped with the decision.  I got the ones that had the bone were about an inch thick.  Even though it's a week night, we decided to grill them.  Thanks to my handy-dandy grilling app on my iPhone, they turned out perfectly.  I swear that is the best $1.99 I've spent in my life!!  Everything turns out so much better than if I'm guesstimating how long to grill things.  

Anyway, for their preparation, I marinaded them in low sodium Teriyaki sauce for about an hour.  I also marinaded a chopped green pepper, zucchini, and half of a sweet onion in the sauce (in another container of course).  Normally, I would make the marinade myself, but it was a week night which means less time.  It was starting to get dark (dern you shorter days!) when we made it out to the grill, but they turned out great!  In order to keep them from drying out (my huge fear when it comes to cooking pork), I basted the pork with the sauce that was in the bottom of the veggie bowl.

I was a bad girlfriend, though because I opted for one of those store bought cookies that I wrote "Happy Birthday, Rick" on instead of baking anything, but we all know that I'm not a baker and again, it was a week night!!!  We're gonna be heading to Awendaw to See Wee for dinner this weekend, too.  Yum!!!!