The Never-Ending Task of Deciding What’s for Dinner Every Single Day How About Rosemary Pork Loin Chops?

My daughter, Jenny, who cooks for three teenage boys, recently sent me the most hilarious video about a mother venting over the never-ending task of making dinner. Since I take shorthand and because I found her tirade so entertaining as well as true, I transcribed her rant to share with you. Please note that I am deleting the expletives. Her rant:

“What is happening here? Do we just keep coming up with dinner ideas and making

dinner over and over again until we die, or is there like an end game? Is everyone in my family seriously going to keep wanting dinner, every day? Why didn’t anyone tell me what a kick in the #$?% this was going to be. I genuinely thought I was going to enjoy making dinner for my family because I genuinely like to cook. But nobody tells you about the soul-crushing task of deciding what’s for dinner. Every single day. I can already hear myself thinking it, and I already hate myself. What should I make for dinner? Scream.

Not to mention, I should hold a vigil for all of the food that my kids have left out to die, alone, in the cold, on their plates. Never mind their totally unwelcomed commentary. What’s this? From now on nobody is allowed to ask me that. From now on they have to ask me how I made this. Then I am going to tell them that every day I think really hard about a healthy dinner idea that everybody will hopefully like. Then I go out and buy all the right ingredients, in all the right quantities, and I prepare it and cook it in a time that hopefully coordinates with everybody’s busy #$?% schedule. And then I start to pray that everybody will just sit the #$?% down, shut the #$?% up, and eat their #$?% food without complaining, so I that don’t have to hand another piece of my soul over to the dinner devil for the love of mashed potatoes and gravy.”

Have you ever felt this way? I certainly have. And the comments from children? We had company for dinner when Jenny was about four, and wanting to impress them, I made paella. Jenny came into the kitchen, and in front of our friends said, “That looks disgusting.”

Now this young mother’s rant got me to thinking. Just how many times have I had to decide what to make for dinner. Have you ever wondered about that? I have been married 52 years (52 times 52 weeks in a year is 2,704 days). Now, let’s just say I have made dinner five days per week for 52 years (2,704 times 5 is 13,520). That is a lot of decisions. This doesn’t include the meals I cooked before I was married or when the kids were little and we went out very rarely. Not too seem morbid, but at my age I do wonder, when the end game comes, what will be my last dinner decision.

It is my hope that my blog helps you decide once a week what’s for dinner and relieves you a bit of this soul-crushing task. And, if you need more inspiration or want to make a recipe again that I shared some time ago, all my recipes are posted on my website under Blogs.

Rosemary Pork Loin Chops

Serves 4

Serve with garlic mashed potatoes and a salad or green veggie.

For the marinade:

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

4 bay leaves, crumbled

2 teaspoons large grind black pepper

4 (5-ounce) boneless pork loin chops, cut 1-inch thick

In a shallow glass baking dish, combine olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and pepper. Add pork chops and turn to coat. Cover and chill at least 3 hours, turning occasionally.

For the reduced broth mixture:

1 can (14 ½ ounces) chicken broth

2 teaspoons tomato paste

In a medium saucepan, combine chicken broth and tomato paste and bring to a boil over a medium-high heat. Cook until reduced to 1 cup.

For the pork chops:

Scrape off excess marinade from pork loin chops and baking dish into a large, heavy skillet and heat over medium high. Add pork chops and sauté until cooked through, about 5 to 7 minutes per side. Transfer pork loin chops to a platter and keep warm. Pork chops should be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. If the pork chops are thick and don’t reach that temperature, put them in a 350 degrees F oven until they do.

For the sauce:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons shallots, minced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

¼ cup cooking sherry

Reduced broth mixture

½ cup half-and-half

To the same skillet used for the pork chops, add olive oil, shallots, and garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add cooking sherry and boil until reduced to a glaze, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add the reduced broth mixture to the skillet, bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to low. Gradually stir in half-and-half and simmer until the sauce thickens. If the sauce doesn’t reach the desired consistency, sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour into the sauce and whisk to incorporate.

Carol Ann

Carol Ann Kates is the award-winning author of cookbook, Secret Recipes from the Corner Market, and international Amazon best-selling and award-winning author of Grocery Shopping Secrets. She’s an expert in how to shop, select, and store produce for maximizing home cooking outcomes and minimizing time and money spent. As a former supermarket and deli operator, Carol Ann shares grocery-insider wisdom—the same expertise you used to receive when patronizing a mom-and-pop establishment. Contact her at CarolAnn@CarolAnnKates.com and explore her website, www.CarolAnnKates.com.

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