Adventures in Cooking

This one time, I had a revelation. I'd known for years that I like to eat. I've long since gotten over that childhood thing where I worried about what I was eating and would be terribly picky about it. Mostly I think of this as a good thing, though it has led to some... interesting situations. Like when I ate some casserole thing that had yet to be baked. And then went back to have another serving. Little embarrassing, that one. Still haven't quite lived it down. Anywho, what occurred to me is the relationship that eating has with cooking: if I learn to cook, that will increase the number of tasty things I get to eat! Don't know why it took me so long to think of that one. There are a couple things I cook fairly often, my specialty being a stir-fry so mean that it will beat you up and call you names. Last night I found myself in the mood to try something new. I think that was helped by recently having had some raspberries forced on me. I dig fruit, but I don't believe I've ever had them before. I only agreed because I promised myself I'd come up with something cool to do with them. Standing in my kitchen I decided that pork chops would be the way to go for this little experiment, so I proceed to look around for some interesting recipes. Now, here's the thing about me - while I feel that I am perfectly capable as an adult at following instructions, I find that I oftentimes don't. I notice I'll do this thing where I'll find two recipes that look promising, and then I will follow neither of them. Instead I'll do a mashup, flipping back and forth between them as I go, and also will just make up some parts based on how I feel. In the past it's turned out surprisingly well considering my lack of cooking experience, which weirds me out a lil bit to be perfectly honest. Don't entirely understand how my luck can continue to be so good. Clearly I don't know what I'm doing, and sometimes I don't even bother to measure the ingredients. Yet it all came together last night turning out to be a success of delicious proportions. Enough yapping, guess I'd better make a note of what I did before I forget.

Ingredients:
about 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
about 1/2 teaspoon dried sage, crushed
about 1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/4 teaspoon pepper
(I was surprised to actually find all these things in my house, as I don't buy herbs.)
2 boneless pork rib chops
a little bit of butter
about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
about 1/4 cup apple cherry juice
some unsweetened raspberries
somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
about 1 tablespoon flour (the recipe called for cornstarch, I think to get the sauce to thicken, but it's not something I keep on hand)

Directions:
In a small bowl, combine crushed thyme, sage, salt, and pepper. Rub evenly over pork chops. Melt butter and olive oil in a nonstick skillet. Cook pork chops for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, turning once.

Mash raspberries with the back of a spoon. In a second skillet, combine raspberries, juice and butter. Bring to a boil over low heat, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until sauce is reduced to desired consistency. Spoon sauce over pork chops.

I served it with brown rice and steamed broccoli. And then having way more raspberry sauce than I needed, I saved the rest to put on top of the coconut walnut brownies I made for dessert. Nom om om om. Now to figure out what I can do for next time with the raspberries I didn't use. Maybe a marinated chicken stir-fry...