The other other white meat

That's right ... I had baby for dinner last night. What? It was just pork? Bah!

Last night, I made East-West Pork Chops with Roasted Asparagus. I'll give away the ending up front - all three components of the meal were good, but they didn't work together well, so I won't be making them all at the same time again. However, I highly recommend each component on its own.

For the pork chops (thanks again, Father to the Stars), I take them out the morning of, and place them in marinade - 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 tbsp jar garlic, 1tsp brown sugar, and 1/2 tsp ancho chili powder for a little kick. Whisk this well so the maple and soy combine and the dry goods dissolve. This was more than enough marinade for the five chops I worked with. Throw these in the fridge, and rotate the Gladware every couple of hours to get all of the chops evenly drenched. When you are ready to cook (at least six hours later), preheat your oven to 450, and warm a skillet over medium high heat, then hit it with a dash of cooking spray. Saute the chops for 3 minutes on each side, then place the whole skillet in the oven for 5 minutes to finish them off. They'll be juicy, sweet with a touch of both salt and spice.

For the asparagus, I cleaned them in cold water, then placed them into that same 450 oven for 8-10 minutes on a baking sheet to begin the roasting. While that was going, I combined the following in my handy-dandy 1 cup food processor - 3 tbsp of butter, 3 tsp of lime juice, and 2 tsp of chipotle pepper flakes. Mix these well so that they all combine - it will go easier if you soften the butter first, but you don't want to melt it yet. After the 8-10 minutes are up, pull the asparagus out and cover them with your chipotle butter, then back into the baker for another 5 minutes. When done, the asparagus should be a little crisp with a nice kick from the butter.

I also made some skin-on mashed redskins to finish the meal off - nothing fancy here, except that I finally learned that you need to start the cleaned potatoes in cold water, not dump them into a boiling bath. Whoops. Also, butter and half and half for the mashing, like Mother to the Stars taught 'ya.

Again, all three components were good, but didn't work well together. Ah well. Back to law.