This week is a bit of a funny one. I’m back up to Brisbane again, writing my blog post on the plane right now, and I’m also getting into a routine at my temporary home. A girl from work was absolutely lovely enough to offer up a spare room in her home, and I couldn’t be happier to join her, her husband and their gorgeous dog! But when I started thinking about what I was going to blog about this week, I was at a bit of a loss. I’ve been lucky enough that she’s also wanted to cook for me, and I don’t want to get them out of their own routine too much, so I haven’t been cooking. As much as this has been great because they cook delicious food and it gives me more time to look for a place of my own, it also has meant that I didn’t have a recipe up my sleeve to blog about this week!
Luckily when I was home last week packing up my things, I stumbled upon a recipe that I had made a couple of months ago, but never put up on the blog. I had taken a recipe from taste.com.au and completely remodeled it, mainly because I didn’t have the exact ingredients they wanted me to use, but it’s also really fun to improvise and try new things! When I’m cooking I find it very hard to stick to an exact recipe, which is why I enjoy writing this blog so much! So when I realized that there was a recipe that I hadn’t yet written about, I decided it was about time to pull it out of the archives!
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I tend to mainly cook chicken. I find it very easy to work with and I know a lot of recipes I can whip up, so it seems to be the main meat I use when cooking. However, sometimes I’ll step out of my comfort zone, which is fun every once in a while! This time I had some pork chops on hand, and no idea what to do with them. So I went to the internet and sought out some recipes, finally settling on one that sounded delicious.
I ended up putting my own tweak on the recipe, and it was absolutely delicious! It ended up having a delicious fresh flavour, and was actually quite healthy! The dish was really easy to make, so is a perfect recipe for a weeknight dinner. When you only really need one pan to cook in, and you can have a dish on the table in about 30 minutes, it’s a sure winner!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
- 1 teaspoon of thyme
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
- 4 lean pork loin steaks
- 4-5 medium sized tomatoes, roughly chopped into pieces
- ½ cup of chopped brown mushrooms
- 1 red onion, roughly chopped
- 1 handful of basil leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
- In a medium bowl, combine the balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic, oregano, thyme and a bit of olive oil. Add the pork and coat evenly. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes at least to allow to marinade.
- Once the pork has marinated, heat oil in a frypan over a medium heat, and cook the pork steaks for 1-2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Transfer to a baking dish lined with baking paper.
- Add the tomatoes, mushroom and onion to the pan by evenly distributing across the pork. Season with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the pork is tender. Remove from the oven and drizzle over a splash of balsamic vinegar and the fresh basil leaves.
- Serve warm with a vegetable of your choice, ensuring that you spoon the baked vegetables over the pork loin.
And that’s all you need to do, it’s really that simple! This dish really was ready in 30 minutes (minus the marinating time, sometimes I won’t even worry about it. That’s bad to admit I know) and was super simple. I love a dish that you can literally pop into the oven and forget about until it’s cooked! It was a perfect recipe for one of those nights where you need to get other things done while you are cooking. You can just leave it to bake and then after 15 minutes you have a delicious dish! If you wanted to cut the time down further, you could marinate the pork in the morning and then the flavours would be even better! I don’t normally do that, I must admit, because I get lazy and often I will only decide when I get home what I’m going to cook!
This dish packed a lot of flavour despite using really simple ingredients. The balsamic wasn’t overpowering, and the mix of basil with vegetables was absolutely delicious. The tomatoes ensured that the pork stayed moist, and overall it was a beautiful, fresh, simple dish! It was also really healthy, which I think is important for a midweek meal. You wouldn’t know it from the flavour though, it truly was delicious!
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
Strona
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