I've been sorting through boxes and boxes of recipes that I got from my mom. She had recipe boxes full of recipes in her handwriting, her mother's handwriting, and from my grandmother on my dad's side (who typed all of her recipes). There are recipes that mean nothing to me - clearly never made, only written on cards in my mother's neat handwriting. Recipes that she intended to make someday, but never did. There are recipes I remember well - family favorites that I already know how to make and others I never did. There are recipes that she notated the name of the person who gave her the recipe in the corner of the card, which makes that one mean more because clearly she did taste that one and liked it enough to get the recipe. Then there are those that are dark from food stains and age, bent and smeared from sitting on a kitchen counter while ingredients were measured, beaten, poured, and mixed.
Once I sorted out the ones that my mother never had, I decided that I was going to start trying to make some of the recipes that I was unfamiliar with, so that I could learn more about my family through the foods they ate. My mom is still with us, but she can't cook anymore, my grandmothers are long gone. Doing this makes me feel somehow connected to all of the strong women in my family.
So here is my first attempt! Pork Chops with Celery Cream Gravy. I chose this one because it was the one that my husband sounded interested in when I read the choices off - this could be due to the fact that we discovered a package of pork chops in our freezer when we did a quarantine food inventory.Anyway, we thawed out the pork chops and found the rest of the ingredients in the pantry. The instructions were easy, the ingredients were things that we normally have in our pantry, and the family verdict: they loved it! Nathan said his favorite part was the "sopping" sauce - the celery cream gravy that the pork chops have been baked in. We used bone-in pork chops but they were cut thick like boneless normally are, so it was important to have the sauce to add moisture into the meat.
We served it with a side of broccoli, a salad mix of cucumbers and zucchini, and some yeast rolls we also found in the freezer. We will definitely add this to our collection of "tried and true"!
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
6 pork chops
salt and pepper
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 tsp. sage
3/4 c. milk
1 can cream of celery soup
1. Trim most of fat from chops and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
2. Rub skillet with fat (instead, I drizzled olive oil in the pan) and brown chops on both sides. Remove from pan and place in baking dish (I sprayed the baking dish with olive oil).
3. In the skillet, cook the onions in drippings (the fancy word is fond) until tender.
4. Stir in sage, soup, and milk, mixing to loosen all browned particles (a/k/a fond!) from skillet.
5. Pour mixture over chops and bake in 350 degree oven about 1 hour until chops are tender.
