{"id":562,"date":"2010-07-09T10:15:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T15:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=562"},"modified":"2010-07-09T10:17:01","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T15:17:01","slug":"greek-style-pork-chops-from-cooking-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/general\/greek-style-pork-chops-from-cooking-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek-Style Pork Chops"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron\u00a0@ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Greek Pork Chop<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the magazines I subscribe to is Cooking Light<\/a> and it has a good looking recipe for Greek-Style Pork Chops in it\u2019s July 2010 issue.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d give it a try and made it over the weekend.\u00a0 The family loved it!<\/p>\n

The recipe is rather simple and makes 4 servings.\u00a0 4 servings means the recipe feeds four people by the way.\u00a0 When reading food labels make sure you check to see how big each serving is.\u00a0 This can make a huge difference in the number of calories you are consuming.\u00a0 See below for nutritional information on this dish.<\/p>\n

I did modify the recipe a little by adding the kalamata olives to the vegetable mixture.\u00a0 The olives added some much needed flavor in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/h4>\n
    \n
  • 2\u00a0 tablespoons\u00a0 red wine vinegar, divided<\/li>\n
  • 1\u00a0 teaspoon\u00a0 dried oregano<\/li>\n
  • 2\u00a0 teaspoons\u00a0 olive oil, divided<\/li>\n
  • 2\u00a0 garlic cloves, minced<\/li>\n
  • 4\u00a0 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops<\/li>\n
  • 3\/4\u00a0 cup\u00a0 plain fat-free Greek-style yogurt<\/li>\n
  • 1\u00a0 tablespoon\u00a0 chopped fresh dill<\/li>\n
  • 1\/2\u00a0 teaspoon\u00a0 salt, divided<\/li>\n
  • 1 1\/2\u00a0 cups\u00a0 diced plum tomatoes (about 2 medium)<\/li>\n
  • 1\u00a0 cup\u00a0 diced seeded cucumber<\/li>\n
  • 1\/2\u00a0 cup\u00a0 diced red onion<\/li>\n
  • 1\/2 cup diced kalamata olives (seedless!)<\/li>\n
  • Cooking spray (or a teaspoon of olive oil)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Marinate the pork<\/h3>\n

    The first thing you need to do is marinate the pork.\u00a0 Take a large zip-lock bag and put the pork into it along with 1 tablespoon of vinegar, the oregano, one teaspoon of olive oil, and the garlic.\u00a0 Let this sit on the counter for\u00a020-45 minutes depending on how cold it is.\u00a0 If the pork is frozen you need to thaw it in the refrigerator before you do this\u00a0step.\u00a0 Do not thaw it on the counter as this will promote bacteria growth and can lead to illness or\u00a0worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Prepare the dill topping<\/h3>\n

    The topping is made from yogurt which keeps the calories down.\u00a0 Luckily, it\u2019s very easy to make!\u00a0\u00a0Mix the yogurt and \u00a0the dill\u00a0in a small bowl.\u00a0 Mix it well enough to where the dill is blended throughout.\u00a0 Set aside or in the refrigerator if you are waiting to cook the pork.<\/p>\n

    Prepare the vegetable mixture<\/h3>\n

    This is the easiest part of the meal to make.\u00a0 Take the tomatoes, cucumber, onion, and seedless kalamata olives\u00a0and dice them all into small cubes.\u00a0 Put the diced vegetables in a bowl and mix in the remaining tablespoon of vinegar.\u00a0 Add 1\/4 teaspoon of salt\u00a0and one teaspoon of olive oil to the\u00a0bowl\u00a0and toss the mixture well.\u00a0 Set the mixture aside on the counter.\u00a0 It does not need to be refrigerated while you finish everything else.<\/p>\n

    Cook the pork<\/h3>\n

    Heat a non-stick skillet on medium-high and once it\u2019s hot, coat the cooking surface with cooking spray or a teaspoon of olive oil.\u00a0 Once the cooking spray starts to bead, or the olive oil is runny (this tells you it\u2019s hot,) add the pork to the skillet.\u00a0 Sprinkle the top of the pork with the remaining salt (1\/4 teaspoon.)<\/p>\n

    Do not over-crowd the skillet with the pork as this will keep it from browning properly.\u00a0 This is actually a \u201crookie\u201d mistake to make as the meat will cool off the skillet if over-crowded.\u00a0 At most, you should cover 2\/3 of the cooking area with meat.\u00a0 If you need to, cook the pork in batches.\u00a0 Just be sure to wipe the cooking area down in-between batches or you will be cooking with burnt left-over pieces.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0Cook the pork for about 4 minutes, until its golden brown on the one side, and then flip it.\u00a0 Cook it on the flipped side for another 4 minutes until golden brown and remove it to a plate.\u00a0 The meat should rest for about 5 minutes.\u00a0 The resting period gives the meat time to soak the juices back up that it released during the cooking process.\u00a0 If you do not rest the meat it will end up dry.\u00a0 This applies to steak as well, so always let your meat rest after cooking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    To be sure your pork is cooked, make sure it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees.\u00a0 It needs to be hotter than this to meet FDA requirements, but it will continue to heat up while it rests.\u00a0 This is important to remember as meat continues to cook after you remove it from the grill or stove.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t magically stop cooking unless you put it in a blast freezer. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    Toast the bread or tortilla<\/h3>\n

    I served the meal with warmed up corn tortillas.\u00a0 The recipe calls for pita bread but I didn\u2019t have any handy.\u00a0 Pita also has more calories which I think are unnecessary.\u00a0 For the dinner I heated up\u00a0four corn tortillas and put one teaspoon of the dill\/yogurt mixture on each one for serving.<\/p>\n

    Serve<\/h3>\n

    Fold the corn tortillas in half, with the dill mixture in between the folds.\u00a0 Put about a cup of the vegetable mixture on each plate and set one pork chop to the side.\u00a0 Top the pork with a tablespoon (or more) of the dill topping and you are ready to go!<\/p>\n

    Nutritional Information per Serving (not including the tortilla)<\/h4>\n
      \n
    • Calories:233<\/li>\n
    • Fat:9.3g (sat 2.8g,mono 4.8g,poly 0.8g)<\/li>\n
    • Protein:30.1g<\/li>\n
    • Carbohydrate:5.7g<\/li>\n
    • Fiber:1g<\/li>\n
    • Cholesterol:70mg<\/li>\n
    • Iron:1.2mg<\/li>\n
    • Sodium:361mg<\/li>\n
    • Calcium:74mg<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      By Todd Barron\u00a0@ FoodieCuisine.com One of the magazines I subscribe to is Cooking Light and it has a good looking recipe for Greek-Style Pork Chops in it\u2019s July 2010 issue.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d give it a try and made it over the weekend.\u00a0 The family loved it! The recipe is rather simple and makes 4 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[201,70,31,156,200,69,40],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-chops","tag-cooking","tag-green","tag-healthy","tag-light","tag-magazine","tag-pork"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}