I cook the pork and mash this way, using only two pans, to enable a single or small-portion meal in minimal time. It’s called being L.A.Z.Y. 😂

This is the kind of dish I starting making my daughter when she was a toddler, except in smaller portions. Mild but tasty, quick and easy. No additives, just real food. The whole package — carbs, protein, vegetables, fruit, dairy. Have oats for breakfast and a little dark chocolate for dessert, and you’re tipping your hat towards your iron intake.

My mother was a a big fan of pork over beef. That’s because she grew up on a farm, and what they had were pigs. I went for years thinking pork was too hard to cook, but it’s not, really. I don’t use thermometers or anything like that to gauge if it’s cooked. I cut it open a bit and peek inside. Honestly, this is home cooking. Does it matter if there’s a little slice in the top? It’ll be covered with the makeshift apple sauce anyway. I cook all my meat this way; time, touch, experience … and then maybe a little slice to peek in and double-check. If you buy your meat from the supermarket, the packet will often give you instructions, so feel free to check those too.

“Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.”
-Robert frost, from “After Apple-Picking”, poem in the public domain

Ingredients

250 g pork loin medallions (this amount is 2 medallions, but technically you only need 1. Depends how big they are and how hungry you are. If you cook both, other ingredients here don't change. Cooking this amount there's usually a little left over for lunch the next day.)
1-2 green granny smith apples (depends how large)
1 large potato
½ cup frozen peas
butter for cooking and mashing
OPTIONAL – olive oil (to prevent butter burning in pan), salt, pepper, parsley, lemon (if you want a little squeeze over the apple)

Instructions

Remove any excess fat from pork, unless you like that kind of thing. Salt and pepper both sides.
Peel and chop potato. Boil in saucepan until very tender. At last minute add in the frozen peas to cook.
While potato is boiling, peel and finely slice apple and put into frying pan in water to boil until soft. Keep adding water so the apple doesn't dry off.
When apple is soft but not mushy, push apple to one side of pan, and add a little olive oil and a knob of butter to the other side of pan and add pork. Fry pork approximately four minutes per side until done and no longer pink in the middle. The apple will mix a little with the pork juices, which is the idea. Rest pork for a minute.
While pork is resting, drain potato and peas and mash together with a good amount of butter until smooth to your liking.
Serve pork with makeshift apple sauce. Season to taste and sprinkle with parsley.

Hello!

5-Ingredient Pork and Mash with Green Apple