Peaches, Pork, Pancakes

After a week+ of celebrating birthdays, the end of the school year, second-years advancing to Ph.D. candidacy, and friends from out of town - Alex and I have been eating out a lot which results in a sparse kitchen and a serious yearning to cook something awesome. Here's what we came up with out of some left over pancakes, the only fruit we had in the fridge (1 small peach and 1 small aprium), and the pork chops that have been calling out to us from the freezer.

The Cornmeal Pancakes 
(modified from the Joy of Cooking)
3/4 cup AP Flour
3/4 cup Cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 cups Whole Milk
3 Tbsp Butter
2 Eggs
pinch salt

Combine the dry things in one bowl and the wet things in another bowl. Then add the wet things to the dry things and mix together until smooth. Then make pancakes! These last for quite a while (especially in the fridge) and are great re-warmed in the toaster.

The Pork

2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

2 Tbsp Liquid Aminos

~1 Tbsp Molasses

~ 1/2 Tbsp Fennel (dried and ground)

couple dashes Cinnamon

pinch Applewood Smoked Salt

Alex seared the pork, sauteed a chopped onion and some garlic in the pan after the pork was removed, and then mixed this all together with the above ingredients in a baking dish covered with foil. This all cooked in the oven for over an hour at 375F.

While the pork was cooking, I sliced our lonely peach and aprium and then went spelunking in our spice "shrine" (as a friend recently called it).

The Stone Fruit

1 Peach

1 Aprium

Harissa

Fennel

Red Pepper Flakes

Cardamom

Cinnamon

White Pepper

Nutmeg

I just sprinkled spices on the fruit until it looked right. I used harissa and fennel the most with slightly less of all the other spices. Then I melted some salted butter on the stove...

...When the butter was good and hot (just about to start turning brown), I threw in the spiced peaches and fried them until they were brown.

I finished by deglazing the pan with a bit of water and letting it evaporate off to make it kinda saucy. 

Lastly, we sauteed up a few carrots, potatoes and a medley of braising greens. Here's the finished product with cornmeal pancakes topped with sliced pork chop, topped with spiced stone fruit, with a side of sauteed veggies. Super delicious! I'm stoked that stone fruits are coming into season so I can continue to play with them in a savory way!