Oven Baked Pork Chops....with rice and veggies

It's a lovely brisk fall morning here in Ft Worth peeps!!   I've tossed on my holey yoga pants and a comfy AE sweatshirt and I'm ready to rock n roll today.  Seriously...there is nothing like a good well worn holey pair of yoga pants to bum around the house in AND if you do need to make an emergency wallyworld run then it's a heck of a lot better than your jammie pants!!! 

I'm cleaning my oven and my house smells funny....just thought you should know that.   Besides it's finally not a bazillion degrees outside and I can turn my oven on again without the electric company calling to thank us for being one of their best supporters!

In honor of cooler temps and the ability to use the oven again freely, I made oven baked pork chops last night for dinner.  I even used my delayed timer setting and cook time functions on the oven!!   It was great to come home from the gym and dinner be all smelling good.

Let's roll with this one because hubby declares it's a KEEPER.

 Cast of Characters:
pork chops                                                             optional items added:
1 cup sliced celery                                                  1 zucchini
1 1/2 cups long grain rice                                        baby carrots
1 med sliced onion
3 cups water
4 tsp instant chicken bouillon
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1 med green pepper

Now let's get a little bit of oil going in the skillet for the pork chops

Once the oil gets hot we are just going to brown the pork on each side, we're not cooking all the way through just getting both sides brown.  Brown those on a med high heat.

Now while those pork chops are browning, let's get the celery, rice, carrots and zucchini in a big baking dish.

The recipe I was kinda sorta following stated to put the onions on top of the rice and veggie mixture which I did but next time I'm just going to mix the onions in with the other stuff and I'll probably dice the onions and not use slices.  It's just a personal preference because if you are like my momma and you loooove your onions then slice them and leave them on top for more oniony chunks.

Once those chops get browned slap them on top of the rice and veggies mixture

In a separate pan (or I did mine in the microwave in a big glass measuring cup..see picture of ingredients)

Bring the water, bouillon, herb seasoning and salt to a boil.  Stir to dissolve and then pour over the chops.

Now that you got that brothy mixture all poured over the food

Take some foil and wrap that baby up all nice and snug.

It goes in the oven at 350 degrees for 70 minutes.

See why this is such a great dish to use that timer on?

It should cook until chops are fork tender then take it out of the oven and remove the foil and add the green pepper strips to the top of the pork chops.   Next time I may even mix the green pepper strips into the rice and veggie mixture.  They need to bake uncovered for about 15 more minutes.

As a side note....I think you can see why I am cleaning my oven today!!

Take that bad jamma out of the oven and dinner is ready!

I'm telling you this was surprisingly good and I felt like something the cat drug in, played with, half chewed, spit back out then the dog ate and puked back up.  How's that for gross???  Actually I did feel really horrible yesterday and my surgery later this month cannot get here fast enough.  

Back to dinner....it was good and something different and the only thing hubby asked is that next time we use boneless pork chops.  I'll oblige as long as I don't find anymore with bones hidden in my freezer  :0)

Peace, Love and Yummies!!!