Pork Chops and Special--- Er, Applesauce

My birthday dinner rocked my socks clean off. Eric made Greek-style porkchops and fresh, homemade applesauce. Here are the recipes and some photos! Enjoy.

For the applesauce, you'll need:

3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples. (Make sure you use a combination of good cooking apples like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh, or Gravenstein.)
 4 strips of lemon peel - use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths
Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
3 inches of cinnamon stick
1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
up to 1/4 cup of white sugar
1 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt

First, put all of your ingredients into a large pot and cover it. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Take in the beautiful view of your significant other while you wait, like so:

After it's simmered, turn off the heat and remove the cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Here comes the fun part: Mash it up! You can use a potato masher or a pastry cutter or the flat end of a meat mallet or whatever you want! The ingredients will be soft enough that this shouldn't be a tough job.

You'll notice that our applesauce is pink. This batch was made with the peels on, which we have discovered is NOT an ideal method. On the upside, it was pretty to look at and you can pick the peels out while you eat. Once it's all mashed, it's ready to serve, either hot or cold. Any leftovers can be frozen!

We had this delicious, flavorful applesauce alongside the Greek-style porkchops. It was incredible.

For the porkchops you'll need:
2 thicker-cut pork loin or 2 boneless pork chops
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon oregano flakes, crushed
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Combine all the ingredients and marinate your pork chops. You'll want to do this for at least a couple of hours, but ideally, get them soaking and leave them overnight.

After your porkchops have marinated, grill them over medium heat for about 8 minutes on both sides, until they're cooked through. Serve with all the juices you can muster for ultimate flavor. We enjoyed our porkchops with applesauce and macaroni and cheese, along with a side salad and champagne!

(You'll notice the pretty "Melting Pot" logo on the champagne flute-- those are from our first Valentine's Day date! It was a really special birthday dinner.)