Apricot-Glazed Pork Chops

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A close up of a plate of food, with Pork chop
Guest post by Scott Brotherton
Award-worthy parent, cook, and life-partner.

This morning my oldest son did not want to get out of bed to go to school. Was it his baseball practice that ran late, the late-night ice cream treat, or the pounding 3 a.m. thunderstorm that went through?   My suspicion was that his 13 year-old self just wanted to spend a few more minutes in restful slumber with his year-old English bulldog, Ellie, at his side.   Regardless of the root cause, I did not get him to the bus stop on time and therefore had to drive him to school.   This probably would not have been a big issue on any other day, but now I am late for work and that meeting that I set up.  What else can happen?  Five o’clock comes and I run out the door and head home.  As soon as I walk through the door, I hear what every other parent hears, “I’m hungry!”  I then realize because of the events of the morning I forgot to plan out tonight’s meal.  What do I do?  I need something flavorful and fast…

A plate of food on a table

I take a quick inventory of what we have on hand.  Pork chops, the usual assortment of cooking vegetables including onions, ginger and a few other common elements.  Upon further inspection, tucked into the far corner of our fridge’s top shelf, I spy a bottle of Riesling leftover from our Sunday afternoon card party from a couple of days ago.

Moving down a shelf or two there are more jars, small plastic containers, and tubs containing varying amounts of sour cream, pickles, mustard, yogurt, fish sauce left behind from Dan’s sister Kathy, and an assortment of of jams and jellies.  The fish sauce is an easy condiment to eliminate in the possible ingredients of my unknown dinner-on-the-fly.  The jar of apricot preserves did catch my eye, however.  Just the thought of apricots intrigued me, and the light orange label added additional allure.

In an almost unconscious maneuver, both the Riesling and the apricot preserves found their way on the counter top, snuggled-up closely to the pork chops as if saying, “Feel like getting together and seeing what we can do?”  The chops’ reply was unheard but implicit – I threw a few more “this-and-thats” together and the family had a hot, mouth-watering meal, all in about 15 or 20 minutes.  The best part of the whole dinner was when one of my 7 year-old boys asked at the meal’s conclusion, “Dad, when can we have this again?”

 

A close up of a plate of food, with Pork chops
 Recipe
Ingredients

1/3 cup apricot preserves
1/3 cup sweet wine (Reisling)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 lb boneless pork chops (approximately 5 at 1/2 inch thickness)
Olive oil
salt
pepper

Instructions
In a skillet pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, approximately 3 to 4 tablespoons.  Heat skillet on stove top set to medium-high heat.  Salt and pepper each pork chop and place in the heated skillet.  Cook the pork chops for about 4 minutes on each side, making certain that the meat is no longer pink in the middle.  Remove the pork chops, cover with tented foil, and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine the apricot preserves, wine and ginger.  Add the mixture to the heated skillet and cook until the mixture has thickened.  This will take only a few minutes.  Once the glaze has thickened add the pork chops back into the skillet, coating each side of the pork chops and making certain that the pork are hot, about 1 minute on each side.   Plate the pork chops and pour the glaze over the top.

Variation:
1/3 cup Rasberry preserves
1/3 cup balsamic vinager
small white onion or shallet diced
1 lb boneless pork chops/or boneless chicken
olive oil
salt
pepper

In a skillet pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, approximately 3 to 4 tablespoons.  Heat  skillet on stove top set to medium-high heat.  Salt and pepper the pork chops, or chicken, and place in the heated skillet.  Cook until the meat is fully cooked, about 4 minutes on each side.  Remove the meat and set aside.

In the hot skillet add the diced onions and cook until tender.  Add the rasberry preserves and balsamic vinager to to the onions and cook until it has thickened.  Add the meat back to the sauce and cook about a minute or two on each side.  Plate the meat and pour the sauce over the top and enjoy.


Meet the Platter Talk Guys

Dan & Scott split their time between Wisconsin and Southwest Florida and are dads to six boys. Good food runs through their veins, and they love showing others how to cook easy recipes.

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7 Comments

  1. This very same recipe may be used with four chciekn breasts as well. The only difference is that you pour your sauce and onion mixture over the chciekn breasts in a pyrex dish and just throw it in a preheated (450 degree) oven and cook for forty to forty-five minutes, or until the meat thermometer registers 160 to 165 degrees.

  2. What a perfect meal for family OR guests. I’m eager to give it a go. Great guest post!

    1. Georgia, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. This recipe is another example of just how good simple can be!