Some Gave All ... Italian Broccoli and Pepper Jack Chicken Stacks

Monday - Today is Memorial Day.  What can I say that hasn't been said? God bless America, and every service person who gave their lives so that we could continue to live free.

Chelsea having a lavender-scented doggie soak

Sunday was all about shopping for a dish which did not get made, at least not yesterday - and Hoppin' John (what is a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn doing cooking Hoppin' John?) - and taking care of my little princess, Chelsea Rose, in our never-ending quest to get her some relief from those horrible fleas, and that involved additional shaving and trimming and soaking and bathing and combing, and she's so tiny it hurts to see her go through it.

It's also about watching the Eastern Conference Finals; Cleveland ahead of Atlanta by 2 games, and let's go Cleveland.  Sue me, I like Lebron.

Basil, sweet mint, Gtreek oregano; thyme, Thai basil, sage; Italian oregano, rosemary

And it was about checking on my newly-planted herbs and planning on where was the best place to plant the okra, cucumber, zucchini, Roma tomato, and Japanese eggplant.  This is a brand-new experience for me, and I'm having fun, thanks to my husband, who listened to me talk about an urban garden and ran with it.

Monday is about learning to work with the polenta, and that's where I am now, having overslept dramatically because of the medication I took at 4 AM to give me some relief from a bout of insane itching that almost had me in tears.  This polenta comes all prepared, in a tube, neatly sliceable.  I did some research online and found that this was a product well-thought of by many home cooks, easy to prepare - slice and sauté.

I never had polenta or grits until I moved south.  I'm still not thrilled with grits, but I've had some creamy polenta preparations that were pretty awesome. This solidified polenta is a whole new experience.

But before I even get there - I am having a sad day.  Can't get passed the sadness.  Can't eat, can't swallow liquids easily.  Just a crap day.  And tomorrow I have - wait for it - another lab test.  Nothing to eat after midnight. Well, that shouldn't be a problem for me. And then there's my weekly chat with the therapist.

So to go with the pretty Italian style stacks I just invented, I am making some Italian broccoli.  Mostly my grandmother's recipe.

Italian Broccoli

2-3 tablespoons olive oil (garlic, if you have some)
1 -10 oz. frozen block broccoli spears
lemon zest, to taste
2-4 cloves fresh garlic chopped
fresh Greek oregano, to taste, chopped

Put the ingredients in a small pan in the order given.  Turn the heat on high.  Once you can hear the oil sizzling, lower the heat to medium-low and cover the pan. Check it occasionally and rearrange the broccoli stalks.  Don't do what I did, which is to forget about the broccoli while I was building those stacks.  Broccoli is now overdone but delicious.  However, if you are the kind of person who eats with your eyes first, you will probably pass right by the broccoli - your loss, more for me. <insert smilie face>

Now about those stacks - easy, but time consuming.  They do make a very pretty presentation, but I must warn you, each of these is a big portion.  That pepper jack cheese was spicier than I anticipated, and while Rob loved it, there is no shame in making some of them with regular mozzarella or provolone.

Pepper Jack Chicken Stacks

1-45 oz. jar prepared sauce (I used Ragu chunky vegetable)
10 frozen chicken patties (I used Tyson, but Perdue is also good)
10 frozen eggplant cutlets (I use Michaelangelo brand)
1-16 oz. roll prepared polenta, basil and oregano flavored, cut into 10 slices
Wondra flour
canola oil for cooking

Dust the polenta slices with Wondra flour. In a skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons oil then cook the polenta on each side until golden brown. Set aside. Add a little more oil, and cook the eggplant slices as directed on the package.  Set aside. While cooking the polenta and eggplant, cook the chicken patties in the oven according to package directions.

Combine the ricotta mixture:

1-15 oz. container whole milk ricotta

1 egg yolk

kosher salt and ground black pepper
fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Construct the stacks:

sauce just to cover bottom of 2 pans
chicken pattie
sauce
ricotta
polenta
sauce
ricotta
eggplant
sauce (be generous)
ricotta
pepper jack sliced cheese

Now add some water to whatever sauce is left in the bottle and shake well.  Carefully pour the diluted sauce around the stacks to keep the bottom of the pan moist.  Probably best to do this just before you put on the pepper jack cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes intil the cheese is melted over the stack.

Next time, I may leave out the polenta layer.  It was good; my tasters just aren't sure it added anything to the dish since there was already so much going on.

Last Night I Dreamt of Plumbago - Hoppin' John

Whoo Hoo, Barbecue Pitmasters is back on the air! The official start of summer.

Today is a day for fatigue, and I HATE it.  Muscle weakness - I can't open a package of cheese.  My hands got tired, and I had to give the spray bottle to Rob so he could finish spraying the hibiscus for aphids. Completely washed out. Go upstairs, fall asleep.  Same pattern for most of this week.

Today Rob and I made a trip to Home Depot so I could try to pick up the herbs I hadn't been able to find at Lowe's - Italian parsley and cilantro.  Obviously I want to be growing herbs that I use frequently when I cook, and now I've got them.  I also picked up dill, okra, cucumber, a single Roma tomato plant (gotta try it), zucchini and Japanese eggplant.  Should be interesting to see how they do once they're all planted.

When we were at Lowe's the other day, I learned the identity of the pretty blue flowers that tumble over the fence between our home and our neighbors on Clyde Street.

That's plumbago, my friends, and that left me with a chronic earworm that had actually started while we were on our last cruise, which had included a stop at Belize.

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song
A young girl with eyes like the desert
It all seems like yesterday, not far away
Tropical the island breeze

All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

Every time I look out of my kitchen window, which is fairly often, the ear worm bites. Nice ear worm, though,  Sounds like Madonna. A very young Madonna.

Okay, now about food - no barbecue, sorry.  I do have an idea for an easy stacked entrée that involves minimal work on the part of the cook, namely me.  My first choice for today's activities was to drive to Austin, Texas and eat barbecue at Franklin's.  I was outvoted by the man who would have to drive the 15 hours or so, and then first wait on line at Franklin's for 3 to 5 hours.  Fair enough.  Let's go to BJ's and Publix - I never get tired of that.  No really, I never do.  Besides, I need to pick up the elements for these stacks I'm dreaming about.

The bad news is that my weight went down a bit.  The good news is that I ate breakfast this morning and mirabile dictu, it stayed down. The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away.  I'm off to buy food.

Just as well we didn't head to Franklin's.  I couldn't have stood on line for 10 minutes, much less 3 hours. Here's the thing about this thing I have to live with - I can start the day feeling normal, no aches or pains, and a reasonable supply of energy to expend on chores and such.  But then all it takes is a ride in the car, a walk through Publix, putting away groceries, petting the cat, watering the herbs - any one of those things can suck the joy out of what I was hoping would be a productive day.  There will be no dreamy stacks today. Too much work, too much pain.  I did, however, manage to make something I suppose is like a Hoppin' John to use up 2 slices of bacon I was loathe to waste.  As you might have figured out, this wasn't one of my grandmother's specialties.  In fact, I never heard of it until I started reading cookbooks. I had a basic idea of what goes into a Hopping John, and then I figured out how I wanted to put it all together.  Very easy, and more important, very tasty.  Totally out of season, as this is traditionally eaten on New Year's Day, and well ...  I didn't get Cinco de Mayo right either.  I am punctuality-challenged, like Bill Clinton.  But I cook better than him.

Hoppin' John

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 slices bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 baby bell red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Emeril's Essence
1 can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup converted rice (Uncle Ben's)
1 1/3 cup water
chopped fresh herbs, kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne or Raging River

In a skillet, heat the olive oil and add the bacon. After about five minutes, add the onion, red pepper, and garlic.  Sprinkle generously with Emeril's Essence and continue cooking until bacon is done to your liking (it will not be crisp).  Stir in the black-eyed peas and the rice.  Add the water, and seasoning (I used some Raging River and a little chopped parsley and rosemary FROM MY OWN GARDEN! Also salt and a lot of black pepper.)  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes.  At the end of 20 minutes, leave the cover on and move the pan off the heat for five more minutes.  Remove the cover and fluff the contents with a fork.

Flower Power - Meshuggah Kugel

I love the flower girl
Oh, I don't know just why
She simply caught my eye
I love the flower girl she seemed so sweet and kind.
She crept into my mind.

Landscaping at Ye Old Homestead:  So, we head over to Lowe's; I point, Rob pays, James does all the heavy lifting.  We have very little property to work with, which is fine with me.  We have no backyard or side yard for that matter.  We do have a rather nice parking lot with a handicapped slot and everything.  Part of the little bit of lawn we do have is devoted to being a ditch for proper water drainage.  Somehow, with all those restrictions we still managed to plan out some pretty planting beds with hibiscus and crotons, my favorite trees, magnolia, kumquat and crape myrtle, a gorgeous bougainvillea, and best of all, an herb and vegetable garden.  It's not done yet, but the herbs are in and I can't wait to go out and clip some rosemary or basil to use in cooking.

One thing I managed to do was organize my refrigerator, and while checking on cooked foods, I realized there were no starchy-type side dishes.  Vegetables, yes. But no potato or pasta or rice or noodle dish.  I watch enough Fox News to know that is neither fair nor balanced.

So I made a kugel.  New recipe, out of my own fevered brain. So very good, and pretty easy.  Not overly sweet, so it works as a dessert or a side dish.  I've made a lot of kugels during the course of my cooking life.  It's one of those things you do if you do Jewish cooking, and God knows I do Jewish cooking.

My grandmother was more likely to make a potato kugel (kugel translates to pudding) than a noodle kugel.  She could make a mean potato kugel, and I learned it directly from her, which was a rare treat.  She was a great cook, but a lousy teacher, so if I wanted to learn how to cook a particular dish, I had to hang out in the kitchen, keep out of her way, and absorb whatever information she chose to share.

Noodle puddings - lukshen kugels in Yiddish - are an entirely different breed of recipe.  Every Jewish cook has her (his) own recipe which they will swear is the best because they got the recipe from their mother, grandmother, or favorite aunt.  I got my noodle kugel recipes from a favorite cookbook, from another cookbook because that recipe sounded exactly like the one prepared by the cook at the kosher catering hall, and another from the back of a box of noodles.  I was supposed to get the recipe for my Aunt Anna's noodle pudding, but unfortunately that didn't happen, I think because I moved to Florida and forgot to follow up with Aunt Anna's daughter, my beloved cousin Marcia.  Then there's my mother-in-law's Hungarian noodle pudding and one of my ex-sisters-in-law's (I have more than one) very rich, very sweet noodle pudding.

My friend Terry would rather have one of my noodle kugels over a regular cake for her birthday.  Now that's a compliment.

Meshuggah Kugel from a Fevered Brain

12 oz. medium egg noodles, cooked according to package directions, drained
8 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained
11 oz. can Mandarin oranges, drained
14.5 oz. can tart cherries, drained
1 stick butter, softened
4 oz. cream cheese (Philadelphia soft pineapple)
8 oz. large curd cottage cheese
8 oz. dairy sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
5 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt

Place the butter, cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream in a medium mixing bowl and beat for about a minute.  Add the sugar, beat until completely incorporated.  Add the egg yolks and pinch of salt, and beat them into the mixture.  With clean beaters, whip the eggs until peaks form.  Add the teaspoon of sugar about halfway through.

Both the golden brown and white parts of the topping are done. Some of the egg whites have baked up like a proper meringue.    Looks good, tastes good.

In a 9 x 13 aluminum baking dish that has been sprayed with some no-stick stuff, combine the noodles and the drained fruits. Use your fingers to gently combine them so that the noodles don't stick together and the fruit is evenly distributed.  Pour in the beaten egg yolk and dairy mixture and fold into the noodles with a rubber spatula.  Then fold the beaten egg whites in, very gently, to lighten the kugel.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 60 minutes.

Watching me, watching you

They took you for a working boy, Kiss them goodbye - Creamed Southern Greens

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

In violent times
You shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white
They really really ought to know

Those one track minds
They took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye, you shouldn't have to jump for joy
You shouldn't have to jump for joy

I have no idea of what to talk about today.  Perhaps we could go over my bucket list, wouldn't that be fun?  Okay, here goes:

• Cruise and Land Trip through Alaska.
• Travel to Israel and spend a couple of weeks there.
• Drive cross-country, following the route that takes you through each of the Lower 48.
• Drive to Brooklyn, stopping to eat barbecue and see friends and family along the way.
• Finally get to meet all my Osher relatives
• Have the Doctor pick me up in the TARDIS and travel through time and space.
• Finish all my unfinished knitting projects.
• Be able to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" like Whitney Houston.

FUN FACTS APROPOS OF NOTHING:

• Bill O'Reilly from Fox News has a TARDIS iPhone case (didn't see that coming).
• Alton Brown would rather binge-watch Doctor Who over any other TV show.  That makes him a Thyme Lord.
• Both Queen Elizabeth II (not to be confused with Queen Elizabeth I, who actually married the Tenth Doctor) and Patrick Stewart are great fans of the show. Hail Britannia! Or is that Pandorica?
• Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) played a priest gone astray in the 1986 mini series "Lives and Loves of a She-Devil."
• The Fifth Doctor's son-in-law is the Tenth Doctor.                                            

REALLY GOOD NEWS:  Welcome to the world Easton Michael, second child for my Number 1 Niece and her husband, and new little brother to Bailey!  Happy family!

Funniest thing I've seen in a long time, posted by my son:

If you dune get it, I can't help you

I am officially investigating disability retirement.  I did not know such a thing existed; I thought it was one or the other,  I guess that means I am about to get an education.  Possibly a rejection.  I have issues with rejection.  But I have to Do Something - being in Limbo these past three months has been enlightening, if only to show me, once and for all, that I am not invincible.

I think I mentioned that I was unimpressed with Trader Joe's, the one that just opened in the Dr. Phillips/Bay Hill area. It reminded me of shopping in the grocery section of a Super Target.  It did not help that I was in the middle of a fibro flair; for once, walking around a food store did nothing to improve my mood.  I did not walk out empty-handed, however, but the bag of mixed greens and bottle of garlic olive oil were slim pickins indeed.

I initially planned on cooking the greens as I usually cook collards (you may ask: what is a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn doing cooking collards?) with some sort of smoked meat in the cooking liquid, but once I got them home, I started thinking about creamed spinach.

Creamed Southern Greens

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons roasted garlic olive oil
1-16 oz. bag Trader Joe's Southern Green Blend (Mustard, Turnip, Collards, Spinach)
1 very large clove garlic, chopped

Melt the butter with the oil in a large skillet.  Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, add the greens, gradually, as they wilt.  Season with a small amount of kosher salt and black pepper.  Lower the heat and cook the greens, stirring often until the stem pieces are tender but not mushy.  Remove the green from the pan and set aside while you make the sauce.

6 tablespoons butter
8 tablespoons flour
3 medium shallots, halved and sliced
3 - 5 cloves of garlic, depending on size, chopped
1-10 1/2 oz can Campbell's chicken broth
1 soup can of half-and-half

salt, white pepper, ground nutmeg, cayenne, granulated garlic

Melt the butter in the same pan.  Add the shallots and garlic and cook on medium high until just starting to show golden color.  Add the flour and cook, stirring well, for several minutes.  Add the chicken broth and the half-and-half, and stir until the sauce is thick.  Add a bit more half-and-half if too thick.  Add the cooked green and stir well to totally incorporate into the sauce.  When you adjust seasoning, don't go hog wild with the salt - the chicken broth is already somewhat salty.

Unbelievably good

Orange You Glad You Clicked On Our Link Today? - Orange-Lacquered Pork

Three Dog Night

Thursday - The electrician is here, and any minute all power is going to be shut down so he can work without getting fried.  I did get to watch a little bit of the news today - first, I saw Judge Jon Morgan on the bench, in some case I haven't been following.  Now there's a really good judge. Serious, pleasant, respectful, well-versed in the area of law, in control of his courtroom, the consummate professional.  He covered the juvenile bench for several months in 2005 while the assigned judge dealt with some legal problems of his own.  We were truly sorry to see Judge Morgan go back to his regular bench.  Truly.  Sorry,

The other bit of news I saw this morning was an online video from WFTV here in Orlando, announcing they were investigating nepotism and other unfair practices in the Clerk of Courts office in Osceola.  A little late to the party, that WFTV.  This has been a big issue, covered by every other news agency, since the moment Armando Ramirez took over the position from Malcom Thompson, who had several newsworthy moments of his own during his thankfully brief tenure.

I had two cats named Dora, both now gone over Rainbow Bridge. Had to take this picture.

A rhetorical question here: do you really need Donald Trump's ego and Harry Reid's arrogance to run for public office?  Do you have to be amoral and believe that rules and laws are for other people? Does it help if you are rude and thoughtless, a bully and a liar? A cheat, a conniver?  Someone who perverts the whole meaning of public service?

Enough of that - for now.

This is what I decided to do with the pork loin that was part of that gorgeous package of porcine perfection I picked up at BJs. The stacked and stuffed chops were a definite success according to my   official tasters. This crockpot recipe is also good; you can slice the meat, or chop it.  Not sure about shredding.  It's good, no matter how you slice it.

Orange-Lacquered Pork

2 tablespoons roasted garlic extra virgin olive oil

3 pound boneless pork roast

Your favorite seasoning blend or just plain salt and pepper

1-18 oz. jar orange marmalade

about 1/2 cup beef stock

3 full sprigs of fresh thyme

Season the pork roast all over. Heat the oil in a large skillet, then sear the pork on all sides.  Transfer the pork roast to a crockpot. Add the entire jar of marmalade over the pork.  Pour the beef stock around the roast, so that the bottom of the crockpot is covered.  Add the thyme sprigs around the roast.  Cover and cook on low for 10 to 12 hours, turning once. I cooked it for 12, and I think the meat came out a bit more done than I liked.  If you go with 10 hours, it should be more than enough to thoroughly cook the pork. Always check with a meat thermometer; the interior temperature should be between 145 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mine read 180 degrees, which was just south of dried out.  It was still moist enough to enjoy, however.

Remove the pork to a cutting board to rest before trying to slice it. Remove and discard the stems from the thyme.  The sauce is going to be very reduced; add a little fruit juice (I happened to have mango in the fridge) to dilute it just a bit.  Slice the roast, and serve it with the sauce ladled over.

Song Sung Blue - Stacked and Stuffed Pork Chops

Song sung blue, everybody knows one

Song sung blue, every garden grows one

Me and you are subject to

The blues now and then

But when you take the blues

And make a song

You sing 'em out again

You sing 'em out again

Song sung blue, weeping like a willow

Song sung blue, sleeping on my pillow

Funny thing,

But you can sing it with a cry in your voice

And before you know it get to feeling good

You simply got no choice

Tuesday - Finding myself in need of a stuffing recipe for 14 gorgeous boneless pork chops, I started to wrack my brain and the Internet, when I realized I'd had the perfect recipe all along.  It is something dreamed up by Rachael Ray when she was going through her creative-use-of-prebaked-muffins stage.  My version is very slightly different, all the credit goes to her.  How she puts flavors together never ceases to amaze me.

I have managed to prepare the stuffing, which is pretty damn amazing considering I had a a CPS attack in the middle of the day, but there is no way I'm going to be able to prepare and stuff the chops anytime today.  Besides, I am watching "The Five" on Fox (yes, Fox) and Kimberly Guilfoyle and Juan Williams damn near got into the center of the floor to try to knock each other out.  Smashing entertainment! 

This is the original recipe from Rachael Ray:

4 thick-cut boneless pork chops, center cut, about 2 pounds
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup rioja or other dry red wine, eyeball it, about 1/4 of a bottle
1/2 cup black cherry preserves or all-fruit spread
2 cups beef stock, divided
1/2 pound linguica or chorizo, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 corn muffins, crumbled
1 teaspoon smoked paprika, eyeball it in your palm
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves, 4 to 5 sprigs

Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Season pork chops with salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil to the pan, 2 turns around the pan. Add the chops and caramelize the meat, 2 minutes on each side. Transfer meat to a sheet pan and place in the oven to finish cooking through, 12 to 15 minutes. Return pan to stove, reduce heat a bit and add butter to the skillet. Add flour to butter and cook 1 minute. Whisk wine into pan and reduce 1 minute then whisk in preserves and 1 cup of stock. Season with salt and coarse black pepper and let gravy thicken over low heat.

Heat a medium nonstick skillet over medium high heat with 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan. When oil smokes, add linguica or chorizo and brown, 2 minutes. Add the celery, onions, peppers, garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook 5 minutes then crumble muffins into the skillet and combine with vegetables. Dampen the stuffing with remaining 1 cup of stock and season with smoked paprika and thyme. Reduce heat to low and keep warm until ready to serve.

Remove meat from oven and whisk the drippings into your gravy. Pile stuffing on plates, chops alongside and ladle gravy over both. Scatter parsley over meat and stuffing.

My changes to the stuffing:

I used roasted garlic extra virgin olive oil to sauté the chourico and vegetables

I used Gaspar's Chourico, because Publix did not have any linguica

I used just one celery rib

I used granulated garlic along with the salt and pepper; I also added the smoked paprika and the thyme at the same time

I sautéed the chourico and vegetables for quite a bit longer than called for in the recipe

I only used 1/2 cup of the broth in the stuffing

I added 2 tablespoons of butter and a generous 1/4 cup of cherry-infused craisins just before adding the crumbled corn muffins

I will be adding two lightly beaten eggs to the stuffing so it will hold together as the middle of the pork chop "sandwich", and I have allowed the stuffing to cool down completely before doing so.

Wednesday - Sucky day. Depressed. Feeling blue, caught an ear worm, passed it on.. Unimpressed by Trader Joe's.  Yet another medical-type appointment to shlep to.

My changes to the pork chops:

14 boneless chops from the loin, 1/2 inch thick
2 tablespoons roasted garlic extra virgin olive oil
7 slices regular bacon


Constructing the stacked and stuffed chops:

Fasten the bacon around the chop with a wooden toothpick

I did brown them on each side, but did not put the individual chops in the oven to finish cooking.  I divided the stuffing, 1 1/2 ice cream scoops on seven chops, then used a fork to pat the stuffing down evenly.  I covered the stuffing with the remaining chops, and wrapped each stacked and stuffed chop with one slice of bacon.  These went into a preheated 400 degree oven for 40-45 minutes.  Once they came out of the oven I ladled all of the cherry gravy over the chops.  

How I prepared the gravy:
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups red wine
2 cups beef stock
1-18 oz. jar Smucker's cherry preserves
1/4 cup cherry-infused craisins
salt, pepper, granulated garlic
a few drops of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons butter to finish sauce

Melt the butter in a large skillet and whisk in the flour, cooking for a minute, constantly whisking.  Add the wine and beef stock, raise the heat and cook until the gravy thickens slightly.  Add the entire jar of preserves, continue stirring until they melt.  Add the cherry-infused craisins and let them cook until softened.  Add the seasonings and the Worcestershire.  Continue to cook on medium low, whisking, until sauce reduces slightly.  Stir in the butter until melted and the sauce is shiny.  Ladle over the stuffed pork chops.

Now, I found the taste of the wine to be very pronounced, so either use a little less (make up the difference with stock or water, or try a different red wine.  Mine was a semi-sweet Russian red, a little too intense.