The end of the choad + RECIPE #3: Spinach-Mushroom Stuffed Pork Chops

When I got home last night, there was a dead bird in front of my entrance and a tax refund check in my mailbox. That's March for ya. See you tonight, I hope. On with the goods.

"Galaxy Hunter"
(2004)

Thankfully, I don't have much to say about this boring T&A space action flick. So cheap you can barely hear the main actors during major conversations, yet so simple you won't have trouble following along, my final subject for March probably wishes it were "Barbarella," or at least "Galaxina." The uncreatively-named Shelley Michelle (that's her and her huge rock-hard boobs on the cover up there) stars as an intergalactic secret agent who responds to a distress call on a planet one inhabitant charitably describes as "a lot like Earth." The call was from her father, an agent who disappeared 20 years ago. He's played by famed star of stage and screen Stacy Keach (that's him superimposed in the stars on the cover up there, looking like he's about to vomit). She meets up with four bounty hunter babes and inveigles them in her scheme to hunt down her dad - they agree for money, but naturally they all become blood sisters in minutes. Shelley gets a job dancing at the bad guy's gentlemen's club, looking much better in a black wig. Then the two hotter bounty hunters, the British robot girl with the funky hairdo and the alien/lion black girl, get killed. I should have shut it off right there. But, no, I soldiered through as Shelley saves her dad (the obnoxious, cackling drug-runner villain shoots him during their escape) and has her final showdown with evil before heading off to the sack with a hunkasaurus bartender. You wouldn't think a movie with spaceships, strippers, saloon battles, rampant drug use, laser battles and lots of girls kissing would be boring, but "Galaxy Hunter" makes Andy Sedaris look like Russ Meyer.

I wanted to do something with meat, and since I've never cooked pork (bacon doesn't count), pork chops sounded like a good start. I wanted some recipe for stuffing them with mushrooms, so I Googled "pork chop," "stuffed" and "mushroom" and stumbled around until I came across one I liked from cooks.com. It looked pretty involved, but I didn't have to buy any extra equipment this month.
You start by defrosting a 10 oz. package of frozen spinach. I suppose it's just easier to measure frozen than fresh - spinach really shrinks when you cook it. You mix the spinach with 1/2 cup of chopped onion and 3/4 cup of chopped mushrooms, both of which require less raw material than I anticipated. (Leftover mushrooms aren't a problem to me.) Also, you want 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/8 teaspoon of pepper and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. This last ingredient makes the whole experience... I never would have thought to try nutmeg with pork on my own. This mix of veggies and spices is your stuffing, and it's pretty simple. Now you attend to the meat.

The recipe specifies 8 center-cut pork chops, but I got the bone-in kind out of personal preference. It really didn't affect the process, although my grandma tells me meat with bones usually needs to cook longer. So, you slice a pocket into the side of each chop and stuff it with your mixture, closing off the hole with a toothpick. Dammit! When I went over the recipe list for shopping, I forgot the toothpicks because their appearance was buried in the recipe. So, I washed my hands and drove to the Jewel. The biggest lesson of this recipe was to make sure you have everything you need, and check the recipe twice. I ended up using three toothpicks for each chop, just to make sure the stuff stayed put.

Once your chops are stuffed, you put some salt and pepper on them, roll them in flour and brown them with some butter in a skillet. With the toothpicks in place, this is easier said than done, but I just slid the meat flat and it browned with no problem. The chops supposedly go into a 9"x13" baking dish, but I needed two because of their size. Next comes the first part of making the sauce, my favorite step. Once your skillet has cooled off a little, pour in 1 and 1/2 cups of white wine (I went with a $10 chardonnay of some sort) and swirl it around to mix in the gunk from the pork. Then you dump this over the chops, cover them and stick the whole mess in the over at 350 degrees for an hour.

Your last step comes after you remove the chops from the oven. You drain the liquid out of the pan back into the skillet, then bake the chops for 20 more minutes while you thicken the juices with flour. This goes over the chops when you take them out - this time for good - and you eat them bastards. I had to improvise with this last step - I made these to take over to my parents' for a family dinner, so I made and applied the gravy before I left, then baked them for the final 20 minutes when I got there. The chops came out very tender and the wine's/nutmeg's effect on the flavor was delicious. I just wish I didn't have pork juice all over the floor of my car, but, hey.