Garlic and chops.

Oh, how I love simple, flavorful meals. In all honesty, I can be damn lazy. On those days, a simple meal is always best, otherwise we head out for dinner. Most likely for Pho from our favorite place that happens to be only a few minutes from our house. And is next door to the frozen yogurt place we frequent. We actually stopped at both last night after I came home from a hellacious day at work. I believe my husband remarked at one point we spend more money at these two places then we do on our mortgage, but I couldn't hear him clearly. Too busy slurping noodles.

But I digress.

My parents had us over for dinner recently and my Mom made garlic pork and aranitas. I loved it and recreated it to the best of my memory the other night for dinner at home.

Of course, garlic was required.

And some lovely, lean, boneless pork chops.

And some shredded plaintains, also with garlic.

Reheated for lunch at work yesterday, I had all sorts of people asking me what I had, the garlic was wonderful and fragrant. So was the mint I had before heading back to check on my patient.

Garlic Pork

6 pork chops (bone in or not, my local grocer happened to have boneless on sale)

1 cup vegetable oil

1 head garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Chop garlic and combine with oil, adding desired amount of salt and pepper. If cooking immediately, brush chops with garlic oil during cooking. If you time, reserve a few tablespoons of garlic oil and use rest to marinate chops (I marinated for 2 hours).

Cook on grill on medium, direct heat until done, turning halfway through cooking. Time will be dependent on thickness of chops. You can also cook inside on a grill pan. which is what we had to do. The weather here still isn't exactly conducive to grilling out in the yard, damn June Gloom that doesn't know August starts on Sunday.

Aranitas

2 plantains, peeled and shredded

2 cloves garlic chopped finely

Salt and pepper to taste

Vegetable oil for cooking

Combine all ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls into hot skillet over medium heat with 1/4 inch of oil and cook until browned on both sides. Serve hot.