Applesauce & pork chops with glazed turnips

Pretty much the whole point of dinner this evening was to make applesauce. Everything else was incidental. That's why this post is called "applesauce & pork chops" and not the other way around.

Making applesauce is ridiculously easy--I used 3 different types of apples (Braeburn, McIntosh and one other that I can't remember) and got 2 of each. 6 apples peeled and chopped will make plenty of applesauce for 4 people. The annoying part is peeling but Brian helped me so it went pretty quick. Chopped them into small, uneven pieces (probably less than 1 inch in size). Put them in a pot with a tablespoon of butter and 1/2 cup of mixed apple juice and water. Sprinkled 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom, a teensy, unnecessary smidge of nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon into the mixture. Set over medium heat until they were quite soft (about 10 minutes) then mashed them up right in the pot. Tasted and added a tiny bit of salt. The only thing with applesauce is to make sure you get mealy type apples. Usually they are the kind you wouldn't enjoy eating fresh because they aren't crisp enough. You can cook them in any liquid you feel like--Brian said it was cheating for me to use apple juice, but I could have used orange juice or just water instead, if I felt like listening to him.

Peeld and cut 2 turnips into even 1 1/2" pieces and steamed them until they were a little bit soft but still not all done (about 6-8 minutes). Set them in a pot over medium-low heat in a mixture of 1/2 tablespoon butter, 1/4 cup of white wine, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar. Let them cook, gently stirring every now and then, until all the liquid had cooked away and they were shiny and lightly browned. Moved them around to make sure all sides got browned, then removed from heat.

4 gigantic pork chops just barely fit on my grill pan, did you know that? I had to nestle them together. I just stuck them over high heat until they were well-seared on both side with nice, dark grill marks. Then I poured some apple juice and water over them to keep from burning or drying out. Salt and peppered the tops. When they were cooked through, I removed them and tossed 3 cloves minced garlic and 2 tablespoons minced parsley into the empty, hot pan, stirred them around for a couple seconds then poured white wine (maybe 1/4 cup?) over to make a sauce. Poured that over the chops and that was it.

There was also asparagus, but I don't need to get into that.