casero cremini stuffed pork chops with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach

for dinner tonite, i wanted to recreate something christien enjoyed at dinner a couple weeks ago at luna park. he had ordered the breaded pork cutlet stuffed with mushrooms and swiss cheese with mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple-cranberry sauce. i swung by lucky's and picked up ingredients that i thought would make something close to the original. so here it goes.

i started off with a half basket of cremini mushrooms, queso casero (a fresh mexican cheese that is briny and has the texture of firm ricotta), and a few sprigs of basil from the basil plant i bought from trader joe's.


these were chopped and combined in a bowl to serve as the stuffing for the chops.


i then sliced pockets into each of the pork loin chops to allow room for the stuffing.


and dijon mustard, olive oil, salt and pepper were combined into a marinade which coated the chops. the chops were then stuffed with the mushroom mixture, lightly dredged in panko breadcrumbs, and placed on a rack over a sheet pan.


this went into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes until brown.


10 minutes earlier, i had also tossed some chopped red potatoes, garlic cloves, and red onions with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a bit of chili powder in a pan, and placed this into the oven to brown and crisp.


i also sauteed a bunch of spinach with garlic and olive oil and plated everything up with a drizzle balsamic-honey reduction.


looks hearty doesn't it? the chops were pretty good overall and the stuffing added some extra moisture and flavor. there was some room for improvement though. in order to get the panko crust to brown, they needed to stay longer in the oven which sort of dried out the chops a bit. fortunately the stuffing added some moisture, but i might look at using a cheese that melts more than the queso casera. i'd also chop the stuffing finer so it holds together better.


the potatoes were nicely roasted and seasoned, and the spinach was, well, spinach.


a couple glasses of babcock chardonnay nicely washed the potatoes and chops down, being crisp and slightly fruity. yum.


while the recipe needs some finessing, christien thought, "it was simply wonderful," and "it had a lot more meat and more stuffing than luna park's." good stuff.