People are tired of the drudgery of cooking three meals a day, seven days a week. Between all-day Zoom calls, juggling schedules, and what I lovingly refer to as “Covid quicksand,” supper has to be ultra-manageable.
Enter the skillet supper.
Skillet suppers are popular not only for their simplicity but also the easy cleanup. Just toss some ingredients in the skillet, pop it in the oven, and dinner cooks itself.
We all are yearning for comfort and assurance these days. Comfort food means safety and satisfaction. It means simplicity. And it most certainly is a reminder of home.
One of my go-to comfort foods are pork chops. They are a very tender, quick-cooking cut of meat – so quick-cooking, in fact, that they’re quite easy to overcook. This is why I start them on the stovetop to get a good sear then transfer them to the oven to finish cooking. The surrounding heat of the oven controls the rate of cooking and prevents the outside of the chops from getting tough and dry before the interior has finished cooking. Despite what you may have read, pork chops are entirely safe to eat when cooked to 145 degrees; keep a close eye on their temperature with an instant-read thermometer.
I’ve paired them with cabbage, apples and caraway. Cabbage is a cheap and cheerful winter vegetable, often overlooked for the supermodel of superfoods, kale, or its country cousin, collard greens. Apples and pork are a classic combination. This simple skillet supper is pure down-home comfort, just what we need to close out a challenging year and start anew.
Virginia Willis is an Atlanta-based Food Network Kitchen chef, James Beard Award-winning food writer and author of seven cookbooks. Follow her at virginiawillis.com.
Credit: Virginia Willis
Credit: Virginia Willis
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