I’m sure everyone has a very different way of getting dinner on the table; after all, it’s a very personal thing dependent on tastes, budget and schedules. We usually eat around 7:30 or 8 every night because of work schedules, so when we get home at 7, neither of us are in the mood for big, elaborate recipes. My goal is to have minimal prep, fast cooking ingredients and enough quantity that we have leftovers for the next day’s lunch. Perhaps that is TMI for a food blog, but it seems to me that most people have similar requests from their dinner. Add to that the desire for it to be somewhat cheap and healthy, you’ve got quite a few requirements to follow. The following meal will satisfy all of them.

The players in the Dinner Dance:

• Bone in pork loin chop – a cheaper cut with lots of flavor, watch out to not over cook as it’ll toughen up on you
• Green leaf salad with feta, olives and a balsamic vinegarette – quick, easy and delicious
• Roasted asparagus – easy to prep and fast to cook, one of my favorite veggies
• Pumpkin ravioli – frozen fresh pasta, what a great invention

**Sorry, the salad was shy, no photo provided.

This meal will take you approximately 30 minutes from start to finish, unless you have two left feet in the kitchen. If that applies to you, give it about 35 min.

Here are the steps you will need to follow. Arrive home. Take your pork chops out of fridge and let the meat come to room temp as you change into comfy clothes, pour yourself some wine (or tea, like we did) and decompress for about 5 minutes. Yes, this is included in the 30 min time allowance. Now, put your meat on a plate, sprinkle about a tsp of kosher salt over one side and add your favorite seasonings. I used a pinch of cayenne pepper and another pinch of ground coriander. Finish with a light sprinkle of garlic powder. Set the meat to the side.

Take out your asparagus, wash under cold water, and pop off the fibrous ends. A little asparagus trick is to hold the stalk with both hands and bend. It will naturally break wherever your fingers are pressing and most importantly, that dry, fibrous part of the stalk will be no more. So pop, pop, pop and toss the cleaned asparagus onto the waiting cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 400. Toss them with about 1 Tbsp of olive oil and season with kosher salt and cracked red pepper. Set to the side.

Fill a large pot with water and a generous sprinkle of kosher salt. Put on the burner on high. This is for the pasta and boiling water always takes the longest. Take a few sips of your beverage, talk with your loved one or pet and then get back to your dance moves.

Using a large heavy bottom pan (we use our cast iron), heat a Tbsp of butter on medium heat until it starts to brown. This step gives your butter a nice toasty flavor but be careful as brown turns to black very quickly. Add a little veggie oil (1 tsp or so) in with the butter to bring up the smoke point of your cooking oil. Carefully lay your pork chops in and listen to them sizzle. Enjoy the lovely smell of buttery pork. Ahhh.

Now is the fastest part of the dance so take a deep breath. Slide your asparagus into the oven. Take your lettuce out of the fridge, wash and chop roughly. Toss it into your salad spinner (don’t have one? get one, we use ours every night) and spin dry. Take your favorite salad bowl out of the cabinet, drizzle about 1 1/2 tsp of quality balsamic vinegar in, appx 1 Tbsp of tasty olive oil (we have a cheaper cooking olive oil and nicer salad olive oil), sprinkle some dried oregano and sea salt in and then whisk briskly with a, get this, whisk. The dressing is done when the oil and vinegar is combined. Taste. Add more vinegar or olive oil as needed. Throw in your lettuce, chunk up some fresh feta, toss that in with a handful of olives and then mix the salad up.

Flip your pork. It should be a nice dark brown on one side. Not to be gross, but the bone part of your chop will have blood on it, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean your chop is still raw, it’s just part of the cooking process. Check your asparagus. Turn off the oven if it’s starting to get too crispy for your tastes. Hopefully your water is boiling, throw in your frozen pasta and take your dinner plates out. Take one more sip of wine, you’re almost done.

Take the asparagus out of the oven, turn off the pork chops (ours were 1/2 inch thick, if yours are thicker, you’ll want to allow a bit more time to cook so adjust your dance accordingly) and let them rest. Plate your salad. Drain pasta (fresh or fresh frozen pasta cooks much faster than dried). Put back in hot pot and throw in a small slice of unsalted butter and sprinkle with some sea salt (not much, you’ll be adding salty cheese), toss pasta around to coat and then serve. Sprinkle grated parmesan or your favorite hard cheese on the pasta. Add your asparagus to plate and a serving of the pork.

Serve to your happy, hungry dinner companions. Enjoy!

Bravo! You have completed your dinner dance. If you have leftover pork after you finish your meal, you can thinly slice it, mix it with bbq sauce and finely chopped scallions, and have it for lunch the next day on your favorite sandwich roll (we used a rosemary roll). Mm! Leftover asparagus is great in scrambled eggs and pasta? Well pasta is great just on it’s own.