Everything's better wrapped in BACON!!! (Bacon-wrapped stuffed pork chops for your gastronomic...and viewing...pleasure)

After going to the store just before Easter and being greatly disappointed in the high prices of traditional Pascal dinner fare (turkey, prime rib & ham prices were exorbitant)...I decided to do a little something different.  I made bacon-wrapped stuffed pork chops for our feast.  They were, how shall I say this...um...FREAKIN' AWESOME!  Some have asked for a recipe, but alas, I didn't use one...I made this one up all by myself, my friends (and yes, how adventurous of me to try it out on my unsuspecting family on the one day it would be difficult to go out to eat should the meal turn out to be a disaster).  Though I don't have a written recipe, I have recreated the dish in pictures, just in case you are interested in trying these on your own family...

First, you start with a whole bunch of ingredients....feta cheese, smoked sea salt, onion, one large bag of spinach, asparagus (or mushrooms...more about that later), olive oil, THIN pork chops, seasoned salt and onion powder, and those items not pictured (thinly sliced bacon, dried cranberries, provolone cheese, the kitchen sink...).

Finely chop the asparagus.  On Easter, I used mushrooms, but for this demonstration, the mushrooms had gone bad (I have no idea how a fungus can go bad, but trust me, it does)...I opted to use asparagus for a variation and because I was too darned lazy to go back to the grocery store and buy mushrooms.

Finely chop 1/2 of an onion of your choice (red, yellow, white, green...it doesn't matter).

Put into a large stock pot with a little olive oil (about 1 tbsp) and saute.

Cook until the asparagus and onions become a little tender and the onions are a bit translucent.

After cooking, turn off heat to pot, and transfer onions and asparagus to small bowl.

Empty your large bag of spinach into a bowl big enough to hold all of it.  

Using this handy-dandy-really-fun-makes-chopping-easier salad chopper from Pampered Chef, chop your spinach.  Of course, you could chop your spinach the old fashioned way with a knife on a cutting board, but really...who wants to be old fashioned?  Or risk cutting off a finger? (This salad chop can be ordered through my buddy and Pampered Chef rep, Tracy Varin, at http://www.pamperedchef.biz/tracyvarin)

This is what your spinach should look like when you're done.

Put the spinach back into the stock pot and cook down over medium-high heat with a little onion powder and a pinch of seasoned salt (to taste) until it looks like....

...this.  Make sure to stop cooking it before it starts to look really dark green or gray.  If your spinach begins to resemble a compost pile, you've gone too far.

Squeeze out the excess liquid from the spinach...you should have about this much...and discard (unless you have a use for spinach fluid).

Chop up some feta...the amount is up to you.  I used sheep feta here, about 1 cup of it, but any feta or even crumbled goat cheese will do.

Grab some dried cranberries (I used about two handfuls) and...

...toss them in with your onion-asparagus mix, the cooked spinach and crumbled feta.  TIP:  Before cooking with the cheese, make sure that ALL excess liquid is discarded from your vegetables, otherwise the stuffing won't set up as nicely in your chops.

Heat this mixture up until the cheese starts to melt a bit and everything is nicely combined.  Turn off the heat and set the pot aside to cool slightly. 

OK, here's where it gets fun and a bit messy...it helps to have some pent up rage for this next step or even an unnatural affinity for beating things to a pulp.  Just kidding.  For the pork chops to be thin enough to roll, it is best to use a meat tenderizer to smack them down (I think "smack" is the proper culinary term...well, it works for me, anyway).  

I hit these things until they are super thin...the surface area of each chop just about doubles in size when I'm through with them.   Do not be alarmed if bits of pork make their way across your kitchen...this is par for the course.

Sprinkle a little smoked sea salt (I used salish)...and I mean A LITTLE...like the smallest pinch you can think of...the salt can be eliminated altogether if you don't want to add any extra sodium to your diet...I just happen to like the smoky hint that the salt brings to the meat.

Add about one large spoonful of the filling (which should be room temperature by now).

Roll the chop so it looks like this.  Tuck any filling trying to escape back into the roll.  

Wrap the roll length-wise in bacon (this helps keep the filling inside the roll when cooking). 

When you're done with bacon slice #1, it should look like this.

Next, wrap another piece of bacon around the rolled chop so it looks like... 

...this.

For the non-cow's-milk allergic people in my family (that would be everyone but me, thank you very much), I added a half slice of provolone cheese to the filling.

Put all your rolled chops in a baking pan (this is a cheap pan, I would recommend using a glass casserole dish or baker...these thin metal pans warp, as I found out, during the broiling step at the end...but, I, however, was covered in bacon grease and could only reach the lightweight  pans in the front of my cabinet instead of the glass ones in the back...I should've known to pull everything out beforehand...oh well).

Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees F, turning them over once halfway through the cooking.
If you are not using a convection oven, you may need to cook these a little longer.  Once the pork is done, the bacon won't look fully cooked.  That is OK.  Because now you get to tempt your smoke detectors.  At this point, you will turn your oven up to broil and broil each side of the chop until the bacon looks fried...about 2-2 1/2 minutes per side.  Oh, and yes, I set off my smoke alarms!

By the way, if you are a clean freak, heed this warning...this recipe does spew out a lot of bacon grease...all. over. your. oven.  This is why originally I cooked these outside on the BBQ.  However, during extremely windy or rainy days, using the grill is impossible.  Luckily for me, I'm not a clean freak AND I have an auto clean function on my oven that I'll be using real soon....

When the chops are done, serve immediately.

Yum!

By the way...

You will have a lot of left over filling...do not fret about this.  I used this the next day in a pasta dish...

Cook up the extra bacon left over from the pork chops and cut it into bits.  Reheat the extra filling in the microwave and then combine it with the bacon bits and 2 1/2 cups of orzo, cooked.  I also added about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and about 1/4 cup of additional feta cheese.

This hearty combo makes an excellent side dish or main dish.
You can add other diced protein (salmon, chicken, leftover stuffed pork chops)
to this to make a more balanced meal.

 You can also use the stuffing in other recipes:
Toast an english muffin, put a little of the stuffing on top, cover  with a fried egg and...
Voila!  A wonderfully filling and balanced breakfast!

Or, scramble the stuffing up with some eggs or use in an omelette...

Or,  try the stuffing in stuffing!  This would be a delicious and unexpected treat in your turkey stuffing.

Oh, and by the way, you can substitute different meats for the pork chops (I've used chicken and salmon...though I don't pound the salmon--I slice it very thinly). And the filling tastes just as good with mushrooms instead of asparagus.  

Enjoy!