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.

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

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.  

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.  

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