Have Fun With Your Food: Balsamic Lingonberry Mustard Pork

Well, part one of my "culinary experiments" for the week was definitely a win :).  The recipe came out flavorful with just the right combination of spice and sweet going on with just a touch of heat from the mustard. 

Just a note:  Sorry for the lack of a good photo of the pork.  I took the above picture and stuck the pork in the fridge to eat later on, thinking that I'd have a great opportunity to stage the pork when I served it with salad and stuff....that was before my husband came home and immediately consumed one entire pork chop and half of another before I could stop him *laugh*.  So, this is as good as the picture gets.  And no, the pork isn't burned or anything.  The dark on it comes from the balsamic vinegar used in the sauce.   It browns and caramelizes into a yummy coating for the pork :).

So, here's how that recipe dance went.  The measurements are somewhat approximated as I'm terrible at doing "by the seat of my pants" cooking, but I'm pretty sure this will come out tasting about right and the best part about a recipe like this is that you can just adjust it to your tastes once you have the list of base ingredients.


Balsamic Lingonberry Mustard Pork

• 1 TBS Ligonberry Mustard (you could also use some spicy brown mustard, say about a 2 tsp and mix it in with about 1 teaspoon of raspberry preserves or other berry preserves to get NEAR the same effect).
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (I used Kirkland brand)
• 2 TBS dried thyme leaves (or I'd use about 2 1/2 tbs fresh leaves)
• 1 TBS honey (I used local)

First spray your cooking  vessel of choice with non-stick cooking spray.  Trust me your pan will love you later and you'll love not trying to scrub off  burned on sugar...trust me I learned that lesson a while back the hard way. 

Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.  Taste and adjust the sauce to your personal preferences (if you like it sweeter add a bit more honey or preserves if not using the fruit based mustard, etc. or use more vinegar or mustard if you like it tarter).  Then spread sauce evenly over pork chops (I used my silicone pastry brush to do this part as it made slathering the meat easier and the sauce was pretty thick) and cook in a 375 degree oven until done (mine were defrosted and took about 45 minutes or so to get well done).  I cooked mine covered for about 25 minutes and then took the foil off for the last 15 minutes of cooking to carmelize the sauce onto the meat.  Yum!  You could also use this on a pork loin and I think it'd come out really good too!

Serve with a nice salad with a balsamic vinaigrette for a complimentary type of side dish.  I also served ours with some applesauce (husband loves applesauce and pork together) and some rice.  It was delish.

Hope you are having fun with your food this week as well :).