I went grocery shopping Saturday, and, I've gotta say, I got a little miffed at Kroger. And by "a little miffed," I mean really fucking pissed. I'm trying to find as good of a balance as possible among flavor, affordability, convenience, and nutrition. I really wanted some onions, and there were no canned onions. Then I realized I don't think I've ever seen canned onions, so I Googled it. Turns out, canned onions don't hold up well. And then I found myself in the produce section looking at onions when I saw a box, $5, EBT eligible, of julienned onions but no indication of how much onion was in the box, so I grabbed a box and threw it in the scale. About 0.6lb for $5. The same onion, whole, cost $1.39/lb. That means they're selling 83 cents of onion for $5. That's about a 500% markup. In more real world terms, if it takes you 5 minutes to slice an onion, spending $5 on that sliced onion is reasonable if you earn $50/hr. So, long story short, they're way overcharging you on that particular convenience. Buy an onion. Cut it with a knife.
Now, what would you say if I told you you could make yourself and whoever is eating with you a nice little meal, not too unhealthy, pretty damn tasty, and cheaper than a single Big Mac meal in 26 minutes? Equipment-wise, all you need are 1 pot, 1 pan, 1 knife, 1 strainer, 2 spoons, some tongs, and 1 cutting board or plate. Ingredient-wise (with prices from my local Kroger; yours will likely vary), you need some orzo ($1.33 for 16oz), pork chops ($5 for 5), a can of sweet peas ($0.89), a can of sweet yellow corn ($0.99), 1 onion (~$0.87), some apple cider vinegar ($1.69 for 16oz), a can of chicken broth ($0.89) and a little salt, black pepper, and jarred garlic. So, for the ingredients, in total, we're talking $11.66 (for actual usage, probably closer to $5 or $6). For comparison, a Big Mac meal about a mile and a half from my house is $11.99. Also, we're not eating all of the ingredients (so we can use them again), and this will feed more than 1 person. Let's fuckin go.
Starting off, I dumped about half the can of broth into a pot, then added water to dilute it. The broth was "low sodium," but was still a pretty good amount of salt in it. I went with about a 3 or 4-to-1 ratio of water to broth, then I dumped in half the can of peas and half the can of corn (both rinsed, of course, which was honestly the longest part of the prep time). This amount could easily feed 4 people, so adjust as needed. I brought that to a boil, then added about 4oz of dried orzo and let that all boil together. Incidentally, while the pot's coming to a boil, go ahead and start preheating your pan and dice some onion. Also, be sure not to splash the damn broth on your hand and burn yourself and yelp like a little bitch because you haven't burned yourself in a while. I used about 1/3 of my onion for 3 servings. Also, please note that orzo doesn't pick up flavor quite like rice or some other pastas, so you could probably just use water to save $0.45 in broth if you like. If you do use just water, feel free to salt it.
I seasoned my pork chops with some salt and pepper and started them in the pan with about a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once the first side was browned, I flipped them and added in the diced onion. I let the orzo mix keep boiling.
Pro tip: cut the fat on the edge of your pork chops so they don't curve up and look like shit like mine did. The flavor will still be fine if you don't; this is just an appearance thing, and mine appeared like ass.
Once the pork chop was fully cooked (there's probably a temperature you could check if you're not comfortable cooking pork yet), I threw a little black pepper on each side and gave them an extra little sear to stick the pepper on before pulling them out to let them rest. Of course, because of all the extra moisture in the pan, I ended up rinsing some of that shit off, but it's all good. Just adds flavor to the onions.
Once the pork chops were out, I dumped in a couple tablespoons of jarred garlic and let the onions and garlic cook in the leftover butter, oil, and pork fat. Once again, don't fucking burn your dumbass hand. I haven't been cooking as much in recent months, and it showed.
Meanwhile, the orzo was about finished, so I took it off the heat for a moment so I wouldn't spill boiling pain on my toes. For once tonight, I wasn't acting like a dumbass.
A splash of apple cider vinegar went into the pan, and I let that lightly simmer and reduce to thicken up a little bit. In case you didn't know, apple goes great with pork. I've got some other apple and pork recipes that'll give you a huge stomach boner.
Lay down a bed of the orzo mix, top it with some sliced pork chop, then spoon some of the onion, garlic, vinegar goodness on top. Simple, fast, decent nutrition, and quite inexpensive. The only skill you need is dicing an onion, and you can do that while the pork chop and orzo are cooking - save yourself the $4. The orzo mix didn't have the strongest flavor, but, since the onion topping was fucking exploding with it, it all balanced out quite well. In the future, though, I'm going to save my broth for rice or noodles. Also, be sure that, if you don't use all of the cans of veggies, that you store them covered in the fridge. You don't necessarily have to use a new container (i.e. not the can) anymore, but I prefer to transfer it because there are arguments about preserving quality and cutting down odors.
26 minutes. $11. Let's fucking eat.
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