Pork in Mushroom Sauce

The other day my wife asked me what was for dinner.  I responded that I didn’t know, and asked if anything sounded good.  She said how about pork in mushroom sauce.  I checked our freezer and we didn’t have any frozen pork chops or loin, so while I when I went out that afternoon to donate blood, I stopped by the store and picked up a package of sliced pork loin pieces.  This recipe is so easy to make, I don’t even have to ask my wife how to make it anymore.

Pork in Mushroom Sauce


Ingredients:
   Pork chops or loin pieces (enough to fill a 9x13 inch baking pan)
   2-cans cream of mushroom soup, 10½ ounce, condensed
   2-cans mushrooms sliced, 4 ounce
   2-tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
   Salt and Pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place pork pieces in a single layer in the baking pan then lightly salt and pepper.  Mix the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.  Spread sauce mixture over the pork; be sure to cover the top of each piece to prevent drying.  Cover the pan with foil and bake for 60 minutes or until the thickest piece reaches 165 degrees in the center.

In the past, I found that if I use all the mushroom sauce to cover the pork, then I usually get a boil over in the oven and have to clean it afterwards.  As I prepared the recipe this time, I filled the baking pan with the pork pieces and had three left over.  Instead of freezing these pieces, I went ahead and used another small baking pan with the three pieces and there was enough mushroom sauce to fill both pans.  Because I split the mushroom sauce between the two pans, I had no boil over in the oven.  Hurray!

These pieces are quite a bit thicker than I would normally bake (I would usually butterfly the pieces to make them thinner), so they required about 70 minutes baking before the pork pieces reached the correct internal temperature.  Once I removed it from the oven, I let it sit for about five minute to allow the carryover heat to finish cooking the pork.

We had our pork with mushroom sauce over brown rice and a green salad.  The mushroom sauce goes well with either rice or baked potato.  I like this recipe because it only requires about 10 minutes of preparation time, and then the rest is letting it cook while you do other activities.  It seems like a hearty meal and we usually have it in the fall and winter, but on a summer night it tasted great and also made for a surprisingly light and delicious meal.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell