3 of his favorites meet at last!

Recently Bradley expressed his love for smoked gouda to me, to which I said, "where did you hear that word?". I knew I have never cooked anything with gouda for him before, but maybe I needed to. I had made a sort of "inverted chicken parmesan" before by stuffing a chicken breast with gouda and then breading and pan frying it, but it required some intense effort. I finally decided to just combine two of his loves - smoked gouda and bacon - and stuff them inside another one of his loves - a top loin pork chop.

DeLa's "Apparently my Husband Loves Gouda" Stuffed Pork Chops
recipe courtesy of his cravings

2 extra thick top loin pork chops
4 strips of bacon
2-3 ounces of smoked gouda
1/8 teaspoon of parsley
Alessi Dipping Spices

To prepare the stuffing -
fry the bacon, but do not toss out the grease, leave it in the pan. dice the gouda up into small pieces, crumble the bacon and mix both together with the parsley.

To prepare the chops for stuffing -
i found that my boning knife worked really well. the trick is to keep the insertion point small and swing wide with the knife, cutting out the pocket so the stuffing will go almost to the edge, that way you won't have overcooked thin areas and undercooked thick areas.

Stuff the chops with the stuffing. I then added just a little of the dipping spices to the outside of the meat, mainly for color. Presentation is very important. Take tongs and hold the chop insertion side down and stick it to the hot pan full of bacon grease (we're so healthy). This will sear the opening and help keep the stuffing where it belongs. I rolled it in the pan so all the edges were seared, then set it in the grease. Do the same with the other one, and let them both cook about 5-7 minutes per side.

The bacon grease turns the outside of the meat into a crust almost, it cooked them SO nicely and really added an incredible element of flavor. And the stuffing..... WOW! It definately got the "sit back in the chair and moan with delight" approval from Bradley. In fact, he did it with almost every bite.

Since the main course was not so healthy, I tried to counter it with the side dish. We both ate couscous for the first time. I described it to him as "not quite grits but not quite rice" so for the rest of the meal he asked for more "grice". It was original flavor, so I added some freshly grated parmesan to the top to make it a little more tasty. I really think it is one of my new favorite sides. The grocery store where I bought it only had original flavor, I'm going to make an effort to go to a bigger grocery and buy different flavors.