Oven-Roasted Pork And Potatoes

This dish is inspired by a dinner my mom makes that I absolutely love: pork chops roasted with potatoes, onions, and sweet potatoes. There's no way I could get Jeff to touch a sweet potato, let alone eat it, so I modified my mom's version a little to make something we would both enjoy.

Oven-Roasted Pork And Potatoes

Ingredients

2 boneless, center cut pork chops
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound small potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
2 shallots, ends trimmed, halved, and then halves quartered
1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Season pork on both sides with salt and pepper, and set aside at room temperature.

Coat an oven-safe baking dish or pan with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Toss potatoes, shallots, salt and pepper, rosemary, garlic, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil together in dish.

Bake potatoes for 20 minutes, making sure to stir them halfway through.

Remove dish from oven, and push potatoes to the edges of the pan.

Nestle pork chops in the middle of the dish.

Return dish to oven, and bake for 10 minutes.

Flip pork chops over, raise oven temp to 450 degrees, and cook for another 5 minutes, or until meat thermometer inserted in center of chops registers 140 degrees.

Remove dish from oven, and let stand 5 minutes.

I served the pork and potatoes with steamed broccoli, but you could also throw some broccoli in the pan about 5 minutes before you add the pork and roast it with the pork and potatoes. (Someone in this house prefers his broccoli crisp and barely cooked though... no names.)

While the pork was only seasoned with salt and pepper, it picked up subtle garlic and rosemary flavors from the potatoes.

We wrapped all the leftovers right in the pan, and the next day, I transferred the pork and broccoli to a cutting board. I sliced the leftover pork while I reheated the potatoes on the stove (I used a pan rather than a baking dish, so the pan was safe to use on the stovetop). Once the potatoes were warm, I stirred in the pork and broccoli, and rewarmed everything together for a couple minutes. The leftovers were just as good as the original meal.

Are there any dishes you remember your parents making that you like to recreate?