Friday, November 22, 2013

Tonight's Dinner: November 19, 2013

I had actually prepared most of this meal on my baking day because I had the time.  I bought a thick piece of pork chop from Sprouts for Nick and I to share.  One of my favorite wines of all time, Ol' Red from Cosentino, has started giving me headaches right after the first few sips.  It's tragic.  Really.  I don't know how many bottles of this stuff I have consumed in the past.  That's probably why it's giving me headaches.  Over consumption. I had a couple of bottles left hanging around that I couldn't drink. The wine itself is really good so I decided to cook with it instead.

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I first browned the meat with onions, garlic, and cilantro.

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I braised the meat for about an hour and a half with a whole bottle of Ol' Red.
Once the wine had reduced, I added a little bit of water to keep the meat covered.
After the meat had braised, I stuck it in the fridge with the cooking liquid until
we were ready to eat it.  

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I reheated the meat in the cooking liquid and the took it out of the pot to rest.
Meanwhile, I reduced the liquid and added some corn starch to thicken it up.
I also added some half and half to give the sauce some depth and thickness.
In a separate pot, I made bow tie pasta and then threw it into the sauce.  The pork
was a little dry so we cut it in to chunks and tossed it with the pasta.  

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There was so much left over, but because the pork marinated in the sauce it
made for awesome left overs. 

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