Pork Steaks from the Foothills

I am all for simple in the kitchen on a Friday night! To start off the weekend, and after a tiring work week, what could be better than a meal cooked in one pan on the stove top? Pour yourself a glass of Pinot Noir, take a sip and then let’s get started!

Ingredients
4 pork sirloin steaks
2 russet or Yukon gold potatoes
A generous handful of baby carrots
1 cup fresh mushroom sliced (I forgot to get these and will used canned instead! 😦 )
1/3 cup frozen peas
1 package of frozen artichoke hearts (or canned if you cannot get frozen)
3 TBS butter
Thyme
Fresh ground salt and pepper

Take the pork steaks and trim some of the fat from the sides of the steaks.

Trimmed pork steaks

Place the pieces of fat in a deep frying pan. Next peel the potatoes and carrots and cut them into chunks.

Cut up carrots and potatoes

These will need to be par-boiled before we use them. So get a pot of water going with these added and par-boil for 7 minutes. Before draining the water off the potatoes and carrots, place the frozen peas in the bottom of the colander. Rinse in cold water when done. While these are par-boiling let’s get the fat going. Turn the heat up on the pan to medium high. We are going to render this fat for use in our dish. Stir the fat so that all sides become a beautiful golden brown.

Browned pork fat

When this is done, remove the pieces from the pan and set aside on paper towel to drain. Then add the pork steaks and brown on both sides.

Start to brown the pork steaks

Then remove the steaks from the pan. Next, add the potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and peas to the pan and stir to coat the vegetables.

Coat the vegetables in the pork fat

Then move the vegetables to one side of the pan and add in the steaks,

Move the vegetables to the side and add the pork

moving the vegetables around so that the meat ends up on the bottom and are covered by the vegetables. Next, use a couple of really good shakes of dried thyme leaves over all, and then follow this with a couple of grinds of salt and pepper, then dot with the butter.

Top the vege's with salt, pepper, thyme then butter

Cover the dish, turn the heat down to medium low and cook for 30 minutes.

During the cooking process - smells great!

Turn the meat over, and re-cover with the vegetables. Using a baster collect the juices and spread over the top. Cover again and cook for another 25 minutes then serve this up!

Dinner is served!

This is one of those comfort food dinners that is so good on a wet a rainy night like tonight!  Oh, and the rendered pork fat, cut it into small pieces and give this to your dog as treats!  It will add luster to the coat!