Pork chops with apple and sage

Looking at this recipe gave me a sense of deja vu: I am sure Delicious magazine published a version of it as one of 'Jamie's quickies' (they came in small cut out card form) last year, and I tried it, and it was delicious. I subsequently mislaid the card and so I was eager to see this one, which I don't think is the same but is quite similar. I love pork chops, apples, and sage, not to mention the optional blue cheese (when is optional cheese ever just an option?). So: tonight I finally made the dish.

I made regular cuts along the fat of the pork chops and then fried them in a hot pan to render the fat out and crisp the chops up. I then transferred the pork from the pan and placed on an oiled baking tray, browned segments of a Cox's apple in the pan the pork had been in and then placed the apple wedges on top of the pork, before adding sage leaves and topping with the 'optional' cheese (Jamie suggested strong cheese; I went for Stilton). The baking tray went into the oven for 5 minutes.

Simon's chop, on a bed of mashed carrot:

I served this with the braised cabbage I described in the previous post. A very very tasty and comforting dinner to ward off the rain that was battering on our windows...

Oh and I nearly forgot. Yesterday we had friends over as a sudden impulse (a casual midweek affair, no planning, no fuss) and I decided not to cook from Jamie as we had The Great Fish Store to use up (remember I bought enough fish to fill the freezer last week...). So we had Delia's plaice with parmesan crust, which I didn't take a picture of because it would have looked sad, with salad and red cabbage and then Nigella's store cupboard choc orange cake, only I replaced the marmelade in it with chestnut puree (recipe courtesy of the baking experts at Nigella.com). Mmm. I must say that this easy-as-can-be cake is immeasurably comforting - if Jamie's lemon drizzle cake cheered me with its pure lemony hit, this cake is calming, gentle, the sort of cakey equivalent of Sunday night television. I can wholeheartedly recommend it: it almost makes itself, it smells divine, and it is genuinely heart warming: an unpretentious, but incredibly comforting, mid-week chocolate cake.