This post includes affiliate links. When you purchase through these links, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. For full details, please see our affiliate disclosure page.
Because this Teen Chef thing is apparently now a series, me and my mom made some pork chops for dinner, with a side of fried mushrooms and boiled potatoes. Let’s look at how we did this.
Perfect Potatoes
🏡 Where to Stay: Top Accommodations
🥾 Explore: Tours & Experiences
🚙 Hit the Road: Car Rental Deals
🛫 Get Away: Find Flight Deals
🎒 Shop: Travel Essentials
First and foremost, bear in mind that the potatoes will take significantly longer than the mushrooms and chops, so begin cooking them much sooner, about ten minutes in advance. We made the mistake of starting them much to early, and thus, the potatoes were a little under-cooked. Fortunately, under-cooked potatoes have no health risks, besides maybe being a bit too crunchy.
To start, rinse off the potatoes in a bowl of water, as the potatoes will likely still be a bit dirty.
Then, place the potatoes in a large saucepan and fill it with tap water about 3/4 of the way to the top.
In order to add flavour to the relatively bland potatoes, cut a single onion in half and place it in the pot.
Once you have the spuds and the onion in the pot, add a teaspoon of table salt. Not a LARGE teaspoon, mind you.
Then boil on medium-high heat, sans the cover.
Perfect Butter Fried Mushrooms
Now, while that’s happening, get a skillet ready by heating it up and adding a lot of butter. (by which I mean about double the amount you’d use to butter a pan on average)
Once the pan’s sufficiently hot, add the mushrooms and spread them out evenly so they fry in the butter properly.
While you’re letting those simmer, prepare a cast-iron pan (the really heavy ones) and make sure that the burner is medium-high. It’ll take a while to do so.
After a little bit, flip around the mushrooms a little so that they fry properly. We can’t let them burn, can we?
Perfect Pork Chops
Now, to see whether the cast-iron pan is hot enough, wet your hands and dribble a bit of water onto the pan. If it sizzles, it’s ready.
Add cooking spray to the pan in order to prevent the chops from sticking.
Get the pork chops and lay them out on the cast-iron pan evenly. A good idea is to place the thicker chops in the middle, as the center is typically hotter than the rest of the skillet. Conversely, place thinner cuts around the edges so they don’t burn as easily.
After about 5 or so minutes, flip the chops with a pair of tongs. Now, pork isn’t the best plain. Let’s change that.
Add salt to the chops for some flavour. As for seasoning, use cumin. And go nuts with the shaker. Bear in mind, though, that steam rising from the hot skillet will clog up the shaker. To solve this, just bang the bottom of the shaker against the counter.
Finally, add about a quarter cup of either beer, wine, apple or orange juice to the pan to give the chops even more flavour. Then, cover with some kind of lid on order to steam the pork chops.
Perfect Salad (in a bag)
Now, I couldn’t care less for salad, but we made one anyways. Yippee. Apparently, salad is important to eat. We keep it simple around here and we often get a ‘salad-in-a-bag’. This one is no different.
This salad includes: greens, salad dressing and extra bits.
Anyways, get a large bowl (they’re called salad bowls for a reason, people) and dump in the salad mix.
Add the dressing, and be sure to squeeze all of it out properly. Then, simply toss the salad with those hilariously oversized utensils.
Now, this part is important : DO NOT add the extra packet of whatever comes with the salad immediately. It’ll get soggy. Instead, add it right before you eat.
The Perfect Meal
Bada-bing-bada-boom, you have a delicious well-rounded dinner of scrumptiousness. Be sure to enjoy it as thoroughly as humanely possible or whatever. Adios.
(BONUS FACT)
Potatoes and onions have some inexplicable chemical quality where being next to each other makes the both of them spoil faster. So when you store them – keep them apart!
You could say…they have bad chemistry.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Editorial note from mom:
Though Hayden is not a fan of salads (or many vegetables for that matter), we do like to have salads. As much as I wanted to make this Greek Salad from Tales of Mommyhood, I’m happy to share it with my readers that do love salads. Full recipe can be found on her blog… Yum Yum Yum…
🥾 Explore: Tours & Experiences
🏡 Where to Stay: Top Accommodations
🚙 Hit the Road: Car Rental Deals
🛫 Get Away: Find Flight Deals
🎒 Shop: Travel Essentials