Pork Chops with Stuffing -- The Comfort I Carried Home from the Hotel Room

Revision week. I sat at the sunroom table from 5 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. every morning this week with a red pen and the stack of printed pages and I read my own book and I winced and I circled and I scratched out and I wrote in the margins. This is the part nobody tells you about writing. The writing is one thing. The reading-your-own-writing-critically is a different thing. I read sentences I wrote two months ago and I thought, who wrote that? and I thought, I did, and I thought, I can do better, and then I did it better. Seventy-five thousand words will become a tighter seventy-two thousand by the time Sarah gets the revision. The book is getting shorter as it gets more real.

Drove a Grand Forks run Tuesday through Thursday — a real haul, three days, a hotel in Sioux Falls each night — and I worked on the manuscript every evening in the hotel room with a cup of gas station soup and a pen. Truckers saw me at the continental breakfast carrying a binder and asked what I was working on. I said, "A book." One of them said, "About what?" I said, "This." He said, "Huh." He came back twenty minutes later with a napkin on which he had written the name of a diner in Wahoo, Nebraska, that serves a breakfast called The Hauler. He said, "You might want to put that in." I said, "I might." His name was Raymond Clay. I wrote that down too. The community of long-haul drivers is a network of generosity you only see when you are one of us. I am proud to be one of us. I am proud for Raymond Clay's napkin.

Amber got into UNL this week. Her second acceptance. She opened the email at the kitchen table Tuesday night while Tyler was doing math homework and Josie was practicing recorder (a sound experience I do not recommend) and Justin was microwaving leftover pizza. She said, "I got into Lincoln." Tyler said, "Cool." Justin said, "Cool." Josie said, "What's Lincoln?" Amber laughed. She is still going to UNK. But UNL said yes. Everybody says yes to Amber because Amber is the thing the universe says yes to. I am still learning how to be proud without being undone. It is a skill I practice every day.

Thanksgiving is in two and a half weeks. I have started planning the menu. The menu will be the same as every year — turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing with celery and sage, green bean casserole (yes, with the canned soup and the fried onions; there is a place for simplicity), cranberry sauce from a can (Josie's preference and I will not fight her on this), Gayle's rolls, two pies (pumpkin and pecan). Twelve people. Dave's brother Steve coming. Gayle. Us. That is twelve. I am happy. The house will be full. The book is done. The family is whole.

Three nights of gas station soup and red-pen margins will make a person crave something that actually sits in the bones — and when I got home Thursday evening, Amber’s acceptance letter still fresh and the manuscript two thousand words lighter, this is what I made. Pork chops with stuffing hits the same warm notes as the Thanksgiving menu I’d been planning in the margins of my binder: the sage, the celery, the smell of something real in the oven. Raymond Clay deserved a better dinner than I had on the road. I made this one for both of us.

Pork Chops with Stuffing

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in pork chops (about 3/4 inch thick)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 3 cups seasoned stuffing mix
• 1/2 cup diced celery (about 2 stalks)
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
2. Make the stuffing base. In a large bowl, combine stuffing mix, celery, onion, and sage. Pour in chicken broth and melted butter; stir until evenly moistened. Spread stuffing evenly in the bottom of the prepared baking dish.
3. Season the chops. Pat pork chops dry with paper towels. Season both sides with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
4. Sear for color. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sear pork chops 2 minutes per side until lightly browned. They will finish cooking in the oven — do not cook through.
5. Assemble. Lay seared pork chops on top of the stuffing in a single layer.
6. Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together cream of mushroom soup and sour cream until smooth. Spoon evenly over the pork chops.
7. Bake. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the pork chops are cooked through (internal temperature 145°F).
8. Rest and serve. Let rest 5 minutes before serving. Spoon stuffing and sauce alongside each chop.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 40g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 980mg