Baked Pork Chops

Recipe

This recipe sure doesn’t look like much. Not so sure if my witty commentary can fill the absence of terrible ingredients.

I stumbled a bit over the bouillon packets, I’ve only ever seen cubes. There were none at the grocery store so I bought bouillon powder.  According to the All-Knowing Google, a packet is the same as a cube so 1 teaspoon of powder = a cube = 1 packet.

This has been the simplest recipe yet. Maybe I should have done a little dance or something to liven things up a bit instead of watching a Betty Grable movie while I sprinkled on the chicken bouillon powder ?

Grammie

There’s no date on this photo but I would hazard a guess that this was taken in the 1950s.  Again, guessing, but it was most likely Valentine’s day and not their August anniversary as they are both wearing long sleeves.  There aren’t many photos of the two of them showing much physical affection so this photo is special.

The glass that the water was in the above ingredients photo was inherited as a set of either six or eight from Grammie when she passed away.  According to Replacements.com, Grammie’s glass set was made by Libbey Glass Company and described as “Needle Etch 24 Clear.” Replacements.com also lists a shot glass and a “pitcher with Ice Lip” in this same pattern.  I did a some further research and found a “Hotel, Club and Cafe Service” Libbey catalog (on Libbeyhistory.com) that listed the exact glasses that Grammie had! In the 1928 catalog, the Libbey Glass Company said of the etching,

“We make a specialty of acid needle-etching, each design a combination of etched lines wonderfully executed, that seem like so many brilliant silver threads woven around the glass.”

Well I don’t know about the “brilliant silver threads” bit but they are nice enough glasses that we use every day. It seems that shot glasses and pitchers weren’t the only items that had the “Needle Etch 24” design. The Grammie’s glasses was one of their No-Nik tumblers with Safedge (a bit of a rolled edge around the top) but listed are a number of items including lemonade glasses, orange juice glasses, and high ball glasses, among other shapes and sizes.

1928 Libbey Catalog

I don’t know whether or not these glasses were sold in retail locations.  If not, then Grammie quite possibly nicked them from the hospital she secretly worked at the first year she and Grampie were married! Cool! I’m sure there’s a less salacious story behind how Grammie acquired the glassware but it’s still fun to wonder.

Final Product

VERDICT: Horrible

The Baked Pork Chops were totally overcooked and though I basted them several times in the last 30 minutes, they were dry.  I don’t know if the basting was supposed to help mix the chicken bouillon in with the water and make a kind of sauce or if it was just to flavor the top of the chops.  Maybe I was supposed to mix the bouillon together with the water before it went into the oven.  I don’t know, but this dish needs a revamp before I would consider making it again, which is a shame because it would have been a nice easy dish to make often.  So if I had to do it again (not going to happen but I wouldn’t put it past the Hubs to work his magic on it), I would definitely start checking the internal temp at about 45 minutes and make a sauce to go with it.  Maybe Grammie has a Horrible sauce recipe somewhere I could try…

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