The three favorite regular meals my mom used to make were her meatballs and rice with mushroom gravy, her crock pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, and her pork chops and rice casserole. I learned to do all three myself before I left for college, and have been making all three ever since, evidenced by the fact that they are now three of our kids’ favorite meals as well.
The easiest of the mom food triumvirate was probably pork chops and rice. It’s nothing fancy, but it is classic comfort food, and mighty tasty with very little prep time, using items you should mostly always have in your cupboard. It could be served with salad, but it seems like we always did it with frozen peas or corn.
Mom used to always make cornbread muffins (Jiffy Cornbread Mix out of the box!) to go with it, but that pushes it past the “healthy” barrier with Colleen, so we don’t usually do that anymore. If you wanted to, though, you might try Mosley’s Jalapeno Cornbread Muffins.
Everything but the pork chops should already be somewhere in your pantry.
Rice and liquid in the pan--yes, the rice should be nearly invisible underneath.
Pork chops on top, with liquid spooned over, seasoned with salt and pepper.
Cover the pan with a lid or with aluminum foil.
That's what it looks like when it is done! Takes about an hour, but it is done when the liquid in the rice is fully absorbed, something that is much easier to determine in a glass dish with a glass lid.
- 6 pork chops (1-1.5 lbs)
- 2 cups white rice
- 1 can Campbell’s French Onion Soup
- 2 cups beef broth or stock or bouillon
- Salt and pepper, or seasoned salt to taste
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees
- Pour rice in 9 X 13 pan or casserole dish
- Pour soup and broth over top of rice and mix
- Place pork chops on top of rice, and spoon some liquid and onions from the soup on top of chops
- Season pork chops with salt and pepper, or your favorite seasoning
- Cover dish with lid (like my mom always had for the casserole dish) or seal with aluminum foil
- Bake in oven until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked (about an hour)
- Serve!
This is how we did it growing up--pork chops, rice, and peas. (not pictured: yummy cornbread muffins!)
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Article by Jeff Greene
I'm a professional political hack who loves the outdoors and loves to cook and loves to cook outdoors. I also love Colleen. :-)
Jeff has written 82 articles for The Taste Place.
