Merlot Pork Chop Recipe

Cooking with wine sauce is dangerous for individuals watching their sodium intake. Cooking wine is loaded with salt to make it taste better in the food and if you use regular wine to cook with, often times it makes the food have a bitter taste.  Being Italian, many recipes call for cooking wine...so how exactly can I modify these recipes and make it healthy for me to enjoy? My mother-in-law discovered a new line of cooking seasonings and sent us a box full of healthy goodies for us to try. One of the seasonings is a merlot sauce made by Tastefully Simple. this sauce has a full merlot flavor but not the crazy amounts of sodium like other cooking wines.
This sauce can be used on a variety of different meats but remember red meat needs to be limited, or in my case never eaten unless for a special occasion. For this recipe I use pork chops, I prefer the small cut boneless ones the most. After the chops thaw out I poke holes in the meat, shake some minced onions on both sides, and then pour the merlot sauce on both sides. I usually try to let this sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to allow it to marinate.
While I wait for the meat to soak up the great flavor I start my side items. I like to make baked sweet potatoes with the pork chops and some sort of green vegetable, we will use asparagus for this dinner. Sweet potatoes are full of potassium, so I have to be careful not to have too much, but is also a great fat burning food to assist in losing weight (of course if you don't load it full of brown sugar). I wash the sweet potatoes, put a small amount of butter in some foil, and wrap the sweet potatoes in the foil, the butter helps keep the potato from drying out. I set the oven on 400° for usually about an hour because the sweet potatoes are so large. While the potatoes cook I wash and prepare the asparagus. If you like a crisper texture, place the asparagus on a cookie sheet in a thin layer, season with lemon, pepper, parmesan cheese, and lemon juice and let them bake on 375° for about 10 minutes and then check them. Another way I like to make my asparagus is in a skillet and saute them with basil, garlic, parsley, and pepper. The asparagus doesn't take long so wait until the meat and potatoes are almost finished before you start them to prevent them from getting cold.
To cook the pork chops, we love to use the grill but also have a grill pan that is used on the stove top. It still gives the meat the beautiful grill marks and taste wonderful but doesn't have that grill flavor. The pork chops are not that thick so we keep flipping them until the center is white which usually only takes about 10 minutes total. Lastly, I top my sweet potato with cinnamon, which is also great for many things-like helping lower blood sugar.

To find this delicious sauce plus other great seasonings that are healthier visit:
http://www.tastefullysimple.com/web/dmajkowski