Pomegranate and Parsley Pork with Spicy Eggplant

Sometimes an entire dinner comes together to participate in my no-ingredient-left-behind policy.

There are two main ways I've found to stop ingredient-wasting pitfalls and both of them play a role in this evening's dinner.

First: keep track of what's in the fridge. I try to keep tabs on "investment" ingredients (condiments, sauces, salty/pickley treats) and cycle them through now and again, in different permutations to keep it interesting. Pomegranate molasses, I'm looking at you.

Second: Make friends with the freezer. Find a great deal on meat but don't want to eat the same chicken breasts all week long? Freeze it. Family packs are great for this, especially when you don't have a family.

So here's how this meal is a waste-saver: I'm using the pomegranate molasses dish-by-dish, I'm freezing the half of the pork loin chop family pack I didn't cook, and all the veggies come from the CSA vegetable dump, which is getting so big as summer comes to a close that I'm going to start freezing some items we don't get to each week.

Pomegranate and Parsley Pork

3-4 lean boneless pork loin chops

1 heaping Tablespoon pomegranate molasses

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 c. parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper

In a shallow bowl, mix the pomegranate molasses, olive oil and parsley. Add salt and ground black pepper. Slide the pork loin chops in and turn until well-covered with the marinade. Set aside for 10 minutes. Heat a nonstick pan with a little olive oil over high heat. (You can try it without the olive oil, too, but I just find my pan needs a little help to prevent sticking.) Cook pork on both sides. These were thin cuts so they cooked about 3 minutes a side.

Spicy Eggplant

1 medium-size Japanese eggplant

1 teaspoon Ras el Hanout

2-3 scallions, chopped

olive oil

Slice off the ends of the eggplant and cut in half. I cut 1-inch slices, but if you are short on time, go smaller. In a bowl mix the eggplant with the Ras el Hanout. Set aside.

Heat some olive oil (about 1 Tablespoon) in a saute pan over high heat. Chop the scallions and start to saute in the pan. Then add the eggplant on top and cook, stirring, until the eggplant has turned darker and is soft. The scallions will get crispy and the eggplant will be nice and tender.

Salad: lettuce leaves + juice of 1 lemon + olive oil drizzled + sea salt

Tally:

Standard veggies and lean protein take a trip to Morocco

Pantry items find new ways to the table

Pork family pack's $5 split over two nights = thrifty

3 Ingredient Ideas

When I first started cooking, and not just the delicious dishes my mother and grandmother had handed down, but really exploring flavors on my own, it was at a time in my life when I didn't have a lot of cash. So I'd read my various food magazines (this was pretty much before food blogs) or trawl the pages of cookbooks I was working on and I'd think, that would be a delicious meal if only I could afford to buy all those ingredients.

And then I came upon a cookbook author and chef who seemed to speak to my predicament -- the desire to expand my flavor and cooking know-how without buying out the grocery store. Vibrant and complex flavors, as I found in Rozanne Gold's fantastic 1-2-3 volumes, can come from just three ingredients. Now these are not necessarily thrifty ingredients, and some can be quite pricey. But being able to keep it to three ingredients meant being able to cook more than one new dish a week. Eureka!

I'm back to watching my grocery bills, and so I've been thinking a lot about Ms. Gold's approach. Many of her recipes call for ingredients that aren't "processed foods" but do include several elements: anchovies with capers in brine, garlic oil, flavored vinegars and so on. I thought of her when I had Mr. Lemon pick up Ras el Hanout on his adventures to Brooklyn's Sahadi's Grocery. (We call it going to the souk, and it really can be as exotic and exciting.) One ingredient, but so many spices in this delicious Moroccan staple that literally means "top of the [spice] shop."

So here's a dinner with 2 dishes, 6 ingredients (not counting olive oil, salt and pepper), that takes about 25 minutes from start to finish. Easy as 1-2-3. Thrifty as $5.

Pork Chops with Ras El Hanout

1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Ras el Hanout

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 pork chops, bone in

Combine the Ras el Hanout and olive oil and spread on all sides of the pork chops. Let sit for 10 minutes while you get the grill ready. Grill until white inside, about 8 minutes a side.

Grilled Collards and Potato

5-6 large collard leaves, rinsed, thick rib removed and torn into large pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tablspoons olive oil

4 small potatoes (white or red, but waxy), thinly sliced

Create a "bag" with tin foil, using two sheets. In the bag toss the sliced potatoes, olive oil, garlic, and torn collard greens. Add salt to taste. Cook over direct heat, 20 minutes on the grill.

Tally:

Easy and healthy dinner on the grill

Investing in spices is worth it for this dish

A balanced meal in two steps

On sale pork chops find a new flavor from Morocco

Vietnamese Grilled Pork Chops

Mr. Lemon and I are not vegetarians, or accidental vegetarians, or even flexitarians. If anything, we've become thrift-arians. That means when there's a nice "deal" in the meat aisle, as long as it's lean, we hit it.

Pork chops were on sale at the grocery around the corner and after all our CSA-inspired veggie dinners and lean chicken dishes and all-around healthy habits, it was time to indulge in some pig.

I've tried making pork chops pretty much every which way, and I always find them a bit dry compared to other cuts. The only time I've ever been blown away was by the chops from Asia Grill, back in the old neighborhood. Succulent, great sear on the outside and thin enough that the chops never became dry on the inside, they were a big part of my order-in rotation. Looking at my two big flat chops, I knew what I had to do.

Putting my fingers to the keyboard, I found Josh Friedland had covered Vietnamese pork chops on his great blog The Food Section. Of course, I didn't have all the ingredients, so this is adapted from his recipe.

Vietnamese Grilled Pork Chops

2-4 pork chops, thin

2 Tablespoons nam pla (Thai fish sauce)

2 Tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon sesame oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons lime juice

Combine the fish sauce, honey, sesame oil, garlic and lime juice in a shallow bowl. Add the pork chops and let sit for 15-30 minutes.

Grill chops over direct heat, spooning extra marinade over the chops, until chops are cooked and white inside. They will go pretty fast depending on your fire. Ours took about 12 minutes.

Tally:

Succulent thin chops are a small but satisfying treat

This thriftarian special came in under $3

"Pantry" staples make this a quick and easy marinade