Cinnamon Apple Crumble with Sweetened Cream

Apples are just as synonymous with Fall as pumpkins, leaves, and Halloween. Caramel apples, bobbing for apples, apple cider.... awesome apple stuff! This time of year you can usually find good deals on apples in the reduced section of the produce department, and when it happened to me a few days ago, I couldn't pass up the bargain of $1 for a bag of 4 jazz apples. I scooped them up and then spent 10 minutes wandering around the grocery store trying to decide what to do with them. Apple crumble finally came to me and I headed home to start my meatloaf dinner that would be deliciously finished up with a warm yummy apple dish! 

Ingredients: 

6 jazz apples (or any tart, sweet apple) peeled and sliced thin
3/4 tsp cinnamon
5 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 orange, juiced
1 tbsp flour
pinch of kosher salt

Crumble:
1 stick softened butter
1/2 cup oats
2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Optional topping:
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

In a large bowl, combine all apple filling ingredients and allow to sit for roughly 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to allow sugar to dissolve and juices to come together. 

In another bowl with a mixer, mix all the crumble ingredients until it is coarse and crumbly. 

Pour apples and all liquid into a baking dish and spread out evenly. By hand, crumble the oat mixture over the top until evenly distributed and mostly covering the apples. 

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crumble has crisped up and is golden brown like the first picture shown. Rest for approximately 15 minutes before serving. 

For the sweetened cream, stir the powdered sugar and cream together and once the crumble is served, pour a bit of cold cream over the top. This dessert would also be delicious with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy! 

Seared Pork Chops and Dijon Pan Sauce

Frying, stuffing, and baking pork chops are all ways you see chops hitting dinner tables at home. I ate a lot of pork chops as a kid (yeah Mom, you know we ate way too many haha) and I spent several years not eating them at all for what I considered as their lack of versatility and boring nature. Now I'm an adult and more advanced as a cook and in my preferred tastes. Pork chops are a lean, tasty way to have a protein on your plate for little money and dietary fat. In an attempt to make some thick cut, boneless chops more worthy of dinner party status, I created this recipe that is both perfect for a weeknight dinner and to feed to company.

The special feature of this dish is definitely the pan sauce. It takes no special skill, ingredients, or time to whip this sauce up in the same pan that the chops cooked in, but it MAKES the plate and sets these pork chops apart from the rest. 

Ingredients: 

6 thick cut chops (boneless is my preference)

ground mustard

onion powder

garlic powder

salt and pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

2 cups chicken or beef stock

1 tbsp apple cider or white wine vinegar

1 tbsp dijon mustard

2 tbsp heavy cream 

Season both sides of each chop with the spices and salt and pepper according to your taste, minimally so with mustard because it's quite strong.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Lay the chops into the pan and do not disturb them. You will cook them for about 3 minutes per side, making sure not to push them around in the pan as they will release from the bottom when they are sufficiently browned. Like this: 

Once the chops have reached an internal temperature of 155-160 degrees (they will rest and cook a bit more and even this puts them more to the well done territory if you worry about that sort of thing) put them on a plate and cover with foil to allow them to rest. Your pan will look like this: 

Combine stock and vinegar, and without reducing the heat, pour in your stock and whisk until you've deglazed and removed all the yummy bits from the pan. Simmer and reduce nearly by half, then reduce heat to medium low. Whisk in dijon mustard until it's perfectly incorporated. Simmer an additional minute. 

Whisk in cream and simmer an additional 2 minutes, remove from heat. Sauce will be thin but is the perfect consistency for drizzling over your pork chops. Enjoy!