Pork potato pepper and white bean sheet pan

Over the holidays a few of my besties asked what I thought the best recipes were on here. Hands down, my top two:

Meatball buns

Carbonara pasta

Unfortunately, I didn’t make either of these tonight. Looking at the pictures of the meatball buns is making my mouth water. They’re SO good. Tonight’s dinner was easy and BLAH. But like I promised, I’m sharing what I made even when it’s kinda shit.

Tonight’s cookin’ song:

Tonight’s takes:

Husband (PK): “What temperature did you cook this at? 400°F? Yea, too high. The fat hasn’t rendered off nicely. [5 minutes later] Ok, I take it back. This is just a thick pork chop. The fat should have just been cut off ahead of time. The rest resembles home-style hash-browns. I like it. Good seasoning. You usually overdo it, but this is nice; subtle.

Helen (8 years old): “Not your best dinner ever. It’s good. But it’s a bit last minute. It’s missing an element that would make it better. It’s like you were just using up what you had in the fridge, when you don’t have a plan for dinner.” 😳 Busted.

Hector (5 years old): “Not good. The worst dinner ever. Zero out of zero. I don’t like anything. [15 minutes later] The potatoes are 2 million billion trillion plus 4 million billion trillion. What does that equal?”

What I used:

• 5 marinated pork chops, boneless - I cooked 5 because who wants just one uncooked pork chop lingering in their freezer?

• 2 bell peppers

• 4 Yukon gold potatoes

• 1 can white kidney beans

• ~1-2 tsp cumin

• ~1-2 tsp oregano

• ~1 tsp paprika

• salt

• olive oil

Served with:

• feta cheese

• tzatziki

What I did:

Turned the oven onto 400°F. The pork was frozen so I pried it apart and put it in the oven ahead of the veg.

While the pork was cooking, prepped my veg.

Sliced the peppers.

Diced the potatoes.

Added lots of olive oil and salt, and cumin, oregano, and paprika.

Tossed veg and seasoning together.

After 20 minutes of cooking, pulled the chops out.

Added the veg to the sheet pans. Drained the can of beans and then added the beans to the bowl with the extra oil and seasoning. Tossed the beans, then nestled them in around the veg on the sheet pans.

After 15 minutes, the pork was done, but the potatoes weren’t. I always underestimate how long it takes potatoes to cook. Pulled the pork chops off the sheet pans so they wouldn’t overcook, and put the veg and beans back in the oven.

Roasted the veg and beans for another 10-15 minutes. I turned the convection on to get the potatoes as crispy as I could.

So all together, the pork cooked for 35 minutes (from frozen) and the veg and beans cooked for 25-30 minutes. Got some good browning on the veg and thrashed my sheet pans.

Served with feta and tzatziki (leftover from another night).

Done!

Next time:

Honestly, this was MEH. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either. The veg and beans were nice but the pork was boring. The tzatziki was fine, but the dish needed a sauce. Now I know why my mom was really into cream of mushroom pork chops when I was a kid. Last time I did a sheet plan like this I used tofu, maybe I’ll try that again. Or I’ll just use mushroom soup.

😋

-Ellisa