Tunisian Spiced Pork Chops and Garden Rainbow Swiss Chard

The origin of this meal is that we have a thriving rainbow swiss chard plant

in our garden.  I went online to find something to do with it.

I was finding mostly soups or sauteed dishes and mostly just side dishes.

I came across this meal, it was written to be lamb chops.

My Dutchie does not like lamb very much, so I made a slight change to 

pork chops and we were set.

This recipe would be great on almost any meat, especially chicken.

I started by harvesting some rainbow swiss chard from the garden.

Then I prepared the spice rub for the chops. Ground cumin, caraway seeds, crushed red pepper

and of course s/p.  

I love this photo, a close up of the rub.

I then dipped the chops into the spices and rubbed it in a bit.

I made sure that even the sides had spice on them.

A little canola oil in the cast iron on high heat, I sear the chops for a few minutes

to get a nice crust, then turn down the heat and cook till done.

Around this time I put on my Israeli (Pearl) cous cous.

After the meat was done, I added a little more oil to the cast

and added some minced shallots (I choose to omit the optional dates

from the recipe, but I think they would work).  After a few minutes, I added the

rainbow chard (stalks and all) and then some toasted pine nuts.

Plating went well and was a good representation of the meal.

The meat was spicy and it really went well with the 

chard and the cous cous.  

This meal was quite good and pretty healthy too.

Zachary liked it, but eventually the spice got to him and he

requested that we cut off the edge to remove it.

He also wasn't a big fan of the chard, though we required that

he taste a bite or two so he knows for sure.

He loved the cous cous, and even asked for seconds.

So the father began with a garden element and produced a

dinner around it to feed his flock!

I wish I had taken a photo of Zachary's answer when I asked

him if this meal got a thumbs up.....he smiled really big and

thrust TWO thumbs up!