Orange Glazed Stuffed Pork Chops

This is another great fall dish - Stuffed Pork Chops with potatoes and green beans. Sounds like basic fare but it can be made into a "wow" meal by building interesting layers of flavor with just a few easy cooking techniques and a couple readily available herbs for seasoning. The stuffing has bread crumbs, cranberries, orange juice, onion and fennel seeds. Serve the chops with rosemary roasted potatoes and garlicky green beans as sides. 

For the stuffing - 
Tear up several pieces of good crusty country bread and pulse briefly in a food processor so that they are in approx 1/2 inch pieces not fine crumbs. Saute chopped onion and dried cranberries in a little olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds and 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice. Remove half of the liquid and set aside for later use in the glaze. Add the breadcrumbs to the remaining juice mixture and stir together. 

For the pork chops - 
Pick good looking loin chops minimum of 3/4 inch thick, thicker is better. 
Cut a pocket for the stuffing and spoon the stuffing in. Close with a toothpick or two.
Brown well on both sides in an oven proof skillet - cast iron works great!
Add 1/4 cup of water to the skillet and put in the oven pre-heated to 375 to finish cooking - about 20 minutes. 

For the potatoes - 
Cut roasting potatoes into wedges, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt, pepper and finely chopped fresh rosemary. Roast at 375 for 30 minutes, alongside the pork chops, stiring/flipping over once. 

For the green beans - 

Clean and trim the fresh green beans, steam in a steamer for just 5 minutes then take out and saute in a frying pan with olive oil and minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper.

For the orange glaze
Add the reserved orange juice mixture set aside from making the stuffing to the pan juice from the pork chops. Add a little water or orange juice if it is too dry or if you need to make more. Stir together to blend and spoon over the chops on the plate.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

It's the first day of Fall and locally grown summer vegetables are played out, but seasonal fall/winter produce has started arriving in grocery stores.This includes a variety of hard squash like acorn, kabocha, sweet dumpling, delicata, carnival and pie pumpkins. 

Here is a link to a guide to fall/winter hard squash from Epicurious:

Visual Guide to Winter Squash

We like to make roasted acorn squash brushed inside with brown sugar butter and filled with chickpeas, couscous, onion, carrot, celery and dried fruit. It is perfect served alongside chicken or pork, or all by itself. The filling without the squash is a good side dish on it's own.

Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main
Ingredients

2 large acorn squash, halved and seeded

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon butter, melted

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, sliced on the bias

2 carrots, chopped

1/2 large sweet onion chopped

1 cup garbanzo beans, drained

1/2 cup golden raisins, chopped dried apricots or other dried fruit bits

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 (14 ounce) can chicken broth

1 cup uncooked couscous

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the squash in half lenthwise and remove the seeds.

Arrange squash halves cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake 30 minutes, or until tender. 

Dissolve the brown sugar in the melted butter. Brush the inside of the squash with the butter mixture, and keep warm while preparing the stuffing.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, celery, and carrots, and cook 5 minutes. Mix in the garbanzo beans and raisins. Season with cumin, salt, and pepper, and continue to cook and stir until vegetables are tender.

Pour the chicken broth into the skillet, and mix in the couscous. Cover skillet, and turn off heat. 

Allow couscous to absorb liquid for 5 minutes. Stuff squash halves with the skillet mixture. 

Pork Chops & Apples with Roasted Root Vegetables

Pork and apples is a food match made in heaven, just like fish and lemon, beef and mushrooms or well, peanut butter and jelly. They were all meant to be together! Pork's mild but savory flavor works well with anything that can give it a little jolt and one of the best pairing is with apples. Apples have both a sweet and a tart element, especially Granny Smiths, that really enhances a pork dish. 

Here we've pan seared a couple nice thick pork chops seasoned with ground fennel seeds - another good match with pork. Then added sliced Granny Smith apples, put the lid on, and finished cooking them together.

Roasted root vegetables for a side - carrots, parsnips and red onions.

Here it is plated up with pan drippings as a simple gravey