Pork Chops with Country Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

Don't you love when you come across or remember a cookbook or cooking magazine that you used to turn to all the time but it got lost in the shuffle of all your cookbooks and you haven't seen it in months, if not years? Holy run on sentence there Claire! Anyway, I have this Cooking Light "Simple Suppers" magazine that I used to use all the time and had kind of forgotten about it. It was my first foray (sp?) into Cooking Light. The date on it says "Display until December 31, 2003." Yup, 2003. I think I probably got it in October or November of that year. I flipped through it looking for a pork recipe to make tonight. I forgot how many awesome sounding recipes were in it--some of which I've made and totally forgotten about. I'm so excited to have come across this again!!

But, the dinner I'm making tonight isn't from said magazine. Sorry. It's my blog, I can tangent when I want. I don't know how it popped in my head this afternoon, but I wasn't overly excited about what I had planned for dinner and thought I'd look through that to find something. I didn't find anything that I already had everything for, so I'm sticking with my plan. But, I think next week there will be a few dinners from this magazine gracing our table!!

I went back through my blog entries to find the below recipe, and I haven't made it since January. JANUARY!!! I was shocked it had been that long. It's possible I've made it since then but not likely since I'm usually good about updating my blog, even when I miss a day or two or five. It's a super yummy and easy way to make pork chops. And I heart gravy so anything with some kind of "country gravy" is okay in my book. I accidentally typed grave instead of gravy...I hope that doesn't mean anything.

Man, I'm rambling a lot today. I even had a lot of adult interaction this morning! You'd think I'd be this verbose (Ha! Take that pregnancy brain...a big word!) on a day I'd been cooped up alone with my two year old son, even though he is an excellent conversationalist. Okay, on to the recipe. I'm feeling loopy.

Pork Chops with Country Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
4 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops (about 1 inch thick)
1 teaspoon butter
1 1/3 cups 1% low-fat milk
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 (20-ounce) package refrigerated mashed potatoes (such as Simply Potatoes)

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon salt evenly over both sides of pork. Add 1 teaspoon butter to pan, stirring until butter is melted. Add the pork to pan, and cook pork for 3 minutes on each side. Remove pork from pan, and keep warm.

Combine low-fat milk and flour, stirring with a whisk. Add the milk mixture to pan, stirring with a whisk. Stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, poultry seasoning, and black pepper. Return pork to pan. Cover; reduce heat, and simmer for 7 minutes or until gravy is thick and pork is done.

While pork cooks, prepare potatoes according to package directions. Serve with pork.

*****

So I make real mashed potatoes instead of the refrigerated ones. I'm cheap, what can I say. A bag of potatoes is cheaper--or maybe the same price but it's five pounds of potatoes vs. slightly more than one pound. I don't know, I've never compared the prices, I just assume it's cheaper to make my own. Plus I like mashing potatoes. I heart them more than gravy, so this way I can make as many as I want.

Oh, and I'm usually bad when I make these. I trim all the fat off the pork chops, but then I throw the pieces of fat into the skillet to get all the yummy goodness from it for the gravy. But we don't eat it, so that makes it healthy, right? I think so.

Okay...I've got to wrap this up before I start typing out my life story or ramble on about some other nonsensical point.