Good morning and happy Sunday!

Holy fucking shit am I tired of this fucking rain. I’m sure most have you have seen the mudslides, cliffs collapsing, roads getting undercut, pothole insanity that we’ve been getting in California this year. This fucking place has no idea how to rain properly. We’ll go 11 months without rain and then “Here you fucking go! Here’s your years worth of rain in 2 goddamn days!” 

Only this has happened 3 times already. Stop that shit! There’s no place for the runoff to go

When did a series of rainstorms become an “Atmospheric River” by the way? Was that about the time when we started naming winter storms? Like Winter Storm Brunhilda or some shit?

The fuck is that all about? When I was a kid, if you looked outside and it was raining, it was fucking raining. Period. That shit with the winter storm naming? When it snowed we knew it was going to snow until it stopped fucking snowing outside. We didn’t have to name that bullshit.

Oh yeah! They started naming the full moons too. Like The Blue Caterpillar Ring Around Your Anus Full Moon.

It only happens once in a decade!

Fuck me anyway. Is this a clear sign that there are way too many people majoring in Meteorology or just another warning sign of our beyond idiotic current existence?

You tell me because I don’t understand a goddamn thing anymore.

Enough with the ranting, we’ve got some cooking to do.

The former missus right, who passed away almost 2 years ago was the inspiration for our menu today.

Not to be an asshole or anything but she wasn’t exactly “skilled” in the culinary arts, let’s say. 

Hey another way you could say it is, she couldn’t cook for shit. 

Don’t get me wrong, she tried and had a few things she could replicate fairly consistently- this dish being one of them – but she wasn’t exactly Julia fucking Child neither. Which is actually too bad because she lived in New Orleans for several years and was a big fan of Creole cooking. 

She just couldn’t do it herself. 

Another thing she didn’t do much of was refreshing her spice supply. If you grabbed a jar of gumbo file off of her spice shelf there was more than a good chance it was bought during the fucking Reagan administration. 

Obviously I was able to amend some of these issues and did, I also just grabbed the goddamn wheel and said “No, no. That’s OK. I’ll cook this one.”

This will be yet another one pot meal with only a handful of ingredients. Nice and easy and tasty. Cheap too if you go for the cheaper cuts of pork chops.

Again, basic inspiration was from the emptying of my freezer to make room for this current season of Sunday gravy storage and leftovers. I came across this one day and “Boom” inspiration.

THAT right there is some leftover chicken stock from Thanksgiving. As always son-in-law smokes the Thanksgiving Turkey which yields exactly ZERO stock to make gravy with. I make up for this by making my own deep, rich and slow simmered chicken stock because motherfucker? We need some gravy on motherfucking Thanksgiving and I’ll make that shit if I have to.

This stock works great with our dish today.

We will also be requiring the prime time protein that is…

Look at them glorious bastards. Thick-cut BONE-IN pork chops. I was shocked as shit to find these at the grocery store since most bone-in chops are them skinny fuckers and the thick cut chops are the boneless less flavorful – read less fatty- sirloin chops.

Now I’m happy!

Baked Pork Chops and Rice ala Former Missus Right!

Inspiration definitely from my ex-wife but details provided by The Country Cook.com

3 Tablespoons salted butter

1 ½ cups long grain rice

½ cup chopped yellow onion

½ cup chopped celery

3 cups stock – Beef stock works here too but homemade anything works best

2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (optional)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

4 bone-in pork chops

Salt and pepper to taste.

Garlic powder 

The rice is prepped a bit differently today with the inclusion of some minced veggies.

And our dearest friend garlic.

Measure out the stock, yes we want to be fairly precise so the rice isn’t soupy or dried up.

Using a Dutch oven, melt the butter then start sauteing up them veggies until just tender. Five to six minutes give or take.

Get the rice and garlic in there.

Saute until the rice starts to brown up nicely. A few minutes should do it.

Yeah, that’s nice and toasty looking.

Then we add in the chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce and some salt and pepper to taste.

Let’s get to work browning the pork chops. Once again, let the protein come up to room temperature before browning to ensure proper doneness at the end of the cooking process.

Lube up a skillet with the oil and get busy.

Those are some sexy looking pork chops right there.

Season them chops with some salt, pepper and garlic powder. Couple of minutes per side is all.

Don’t over cook the pork chops. Them shits is expensive these days and we don’t want dry-ass pork with this dish.

Go ahead and finish browning all of the pork.

Now we’ll add the browned chops to the rice/stock mixture in our Dutch Oven.

Don’t waste that fond in the skillet. The tasty browned bits, rendered fat and juices, you know. Keep that shit by deglazing the skillet with a small bit of the stock like this.

Using a wooden spoon scrape up all the tasty bits then pour that shit over the top of the pork chops, slap a lid up on that bitch and get into a 425 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.

After cooking – this shit is important right here so pay close attention – remove the lid and let everything rest for 10 minutes or so!

We let it rest because (A this is some seriously fucking HOT shit but mostly because (B we want the liquids to absorb into the rice. We ain’t going for soupy, we’re going for soft fluffy, richly flavored rice.

Like this shit right here.

And a closer look.

Yeah, I guess it’s a bit on the beige side but we’re going for taste today. That rice alone? I could eat that shit every day.

Serve with your favorite canned or frozen vegetable to make for maximum Mid-America Caucasian Cuisine perfection.

Both of my daughters had this dish WAY more many times than I did so my palate may be a bit more rose-colored. Remember they lived with her for several additional years after I cut and ran.

I sent the above photo to my daughters and explained what I was making and why. Eldest right responded with “Yea, definitely looks like mom dinner.”

Then I asked “Was your mom a good cook?” To which she responded…

“She made some things well. We didn’t starve. All the memes that have ‘White people food’ comments reminds me of her food. Hamburger Helper, Rice-A-Roni etc were very common.”

Youngest right responded with “That’s literally a plate of food I ate SO many times. To be honest it’s still a little triggering hahaha. I’m sure it’s better when you make it but I can just taste the poverty version. Mom’s version usually involved slightly expired ingredients.”

For me this is a bittersweet memory but I still think it’s a tasty dish. I’m mean it’s a fucking baked pork chop for fucks sake! What’s not to like? That rice is the shit though. Think a similar profile to a Rice-A-Roni but so much more depth of flavor. The melting pork fat just permeates the rice and y’all know me.

I’m all about that pork fat, Boss.

I thoroughly enjoyed this trip down a slightly darkened and honestly a bit weird memory lane.

Give this one a try if you have a mind. It’s a solid weeknight dinner with quick and easy prep.

Just don’t make your kids live off of it, if you know what I’m saying.

That’s all we got for today folks. Keep enjoying the rest of your weekend.

I’ve finally got a little sunshine out there and I’m gonna take advantage of that shit.

See you all next week then?

Sounds good.

Be well everyone.

PEACE!