Kicked Up Pork Chops

Tonight was SP's night to make dinner. We had some leftover pork chops in the freezer, so he scoured the Internet, eventually settling on Emeril's Kicked Up Pork Chops with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Green beans were on sale this week, so they rounded out the meal.

The chops are soaked in milk and spices before being baked in the oven, which we think was what made them so incredibly moist. The spice factor was a little lacking for my taste, but SP was very happy with the way they turned out. He said you could really taste the flavor of the meat. The spice snuck up at the end of each bite; I just wish it had been a more powerful kick.

For the potatoes, SP roasted a whole head of garlic and added it to regular mashed potatoes. The garlic flavor was very mellow and smooth and the potatoes were rich and creamy from (sshhhhh) a whole stick of butter. For the beans he just steamed them until they were still slightly crisp and then gave them a nice coat of butter, salt and pepper.

In a related note: I really need to get my hands on some plain white dishes. Those ugly blue stalks of wheat are really making me crazy. SP inherited this set from a friend and we've been putting off buying new ones because we could never agree on a pattern we both liked. Once I started this blog, though, I decided plain white was the only way to go since it really makes the colors of the food pop. SP had been a fan of plain white all along, so now we just have to find time to get to the store.