Sometimes Pinspiration strikes at the most random times; for example, while walking through the grocery store at 5:15 pm while you have no idea what you’re going to make for supper. There were these beautiful thick boneless pork chops on sale. When I say thick, I mean about 2 inches thick – perfect for splitting and stuffing.
After a quick search on my cell phone, I found this pin for Spinach, Feta and Sundried Tomato Stuffed Pork Chops by Mary Kay of Homemade Cravings. Our family loves Mediterranean flavors, we had most of the ingredients, and it appeared simple and healthy, so this seemed like a great choice.
UPDATE: I’m sorry to say that the Homemade Cravings blog is no longer available. However, I have Mary Kay’s permission to link to the archived page and to print her original recipe which is at the bottom of the page.
The Pintesting:
There are only 6 ingredients. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup chopped spinach but doesn’t specify fresh or frozen. I had frozen chopped spinach on hand, so that’s what I used. It also calls for 4 pork chops, but since it’s just the HH and me we used two and saved the extra stuffing to use in omelets. Also, the recipe called for pork chops with the bone in. I think these work well with or without the bone.
You really want to use thick chops for this recipe. You can see that they’re thicker than my 1/2 cup measuring cup.
Mix the spinach, feta, and sundried tomatoes in a bowl.
Season with salt and pepper
Cut a slit in the pork chops, season with salt and pepper, and stuff them.
The recipe says to soak toothpicks to secure the chops, then grill them. Our grill happened to be out of gas, so we chose to bake them standing up like they’re pictured.
As you can see, this worked very well. The meat was moist and flavorful, and the stuffing was delicious. I served these with couscous and broccoli. I’d like to try them grilled the next time we make them just to see if it adds another level of flavor.
The Recipe:
The Pintesting Results:
Overall results: 4.7 Pins
Accuracy: As I hoped, this was a simple yet delicious entree. The pork chops were juicy, and the flavors of the stuffing really made a delicious combination. It executed just as the recipe said. 5 Pins
Difficulty: You get a lot of taste for as simple as this recipe is. Mix a few ingredients, season, slice, stuff, and grill (or bake). You want to use caution when cutting the chop so that you don’t go all the way through, but i didn’t feel that was increasing the difficulty level. 5 Pins
Time: This would be perfect for a 30-minute-meal if you’re grilling. Since I baked them, it took a bit longer – about 45 minutes. Still, that isn’t very long for supper. The rest of the meal came together while they were in the oven. As a bonus, the extra stuffing ingredients make a fantastic omelet filling, so that cuts down on breakfast time the next day. 4 Pins
Cost: I was fortunate to get the thick boneless pork chops on sale – BECAUSE they were on sale. I also lucked out because I had bought sundried tomatoes on a buy one get one free sale, too. I don’t know that every kitchen normally stocks feta and sundried tomatoes, so I’m giving this 4 Pins.
Practicality: The simplicity, fast preparation, and delicious flavors of this were wonderful. The HH really enjoyed it and said he’d like to have it again. I also love that, in our case, we could use the filling as a way to get extra veggies and pump up the flavor of breakfast, too. 5 Pins