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Figuring out what to have for dinner on a Friday night is never easy. If you haven’t made a reservation by say Wednesday, it’s tough to get in much of anywhere that’s worth a Friday night date. Knowing that I didn’t have a res in hand, I decided I better come up with something good to make at home.
This week we’ve been on a vegetarian-ish kick — not on purpose, but I guess I’ve just had a lot of veggies on the brain (and in the fridge), so today was our day to have meat. I whipped up Pork Chops with Cranberry and Swiss Chard for dinner. Epicurious didn’t lie – it did take about 40 minutes to make…but it was the 20 minute wait in line they didn’t tell me about.
The upside of the Whole Foods excursion was the discovery of a decent $10 bottle of wine — a 2003 Chateau Fontalem L’Auriolle Bordeaux. The recipe called for 1/2 c. of dry red wine (why don’t they ever make a suggestion about what is truly dry?) so I took a shot thinking that Bordeaux is usually a mix of 2-3 different varietals,, so I had a good shot.
I followed the recipe to a T and then wondered, why the heck am I making swiss chard with butter, rather than olive oil? So next time I’ll do what I can to reduce the amount of butter, though nothing beats a pat of butter to thicken up a sauce, even a cranberry-red wine one.
