Tonight’s Dinner: Grilled fruit-n-cheese pork pockets

Tired of saving that cream cheese for your bagel every morning? Add a few spices and you’ve got a wonderful stuffing for pork chops.

I love cream cheese. I put it on anything bread-like. It doesn’t matter if it’s bagels, baguettes or rye because if it’s made of flour and yeast, I’m adding some cream cheese to it. Sometimes I’ll even spread a little jam on top to give that salty, cheesy goodness a sweet kick. Cream cheese on bread can get old pretty quickly, so I try to find alternatives. See, I don’t want my cream cheese to go bad. Just using it in the morning pretty much guarantees that if I don’t use it for something other than my bagel, I’m going to end up tossing half of it out, and I hate to waste good cheese.

So you can imagine how excited I was when Better Recipes came out with a recipe that used not only my favorite cheese but one of my favorite jams as well. They said that by just adding a spice or two, this creamy deliciousness becomes a wonderful stuffing for pork chops. If you warm up the jam, you have a sweet glaze to brush on top. The combination makes for one of the best chops I’ve ever had and one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever made.

Grilled fruit-n-cheese pork pocket

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 thick pork chops
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2/3 cup apricot preserves
• 1/4 cup cranberries, chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons horseradish

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese and ground cumin. Set aside.
2. Make a pocket in each pork chop by making a deep slit in the thickest part of the chop. Spoon 1/4 of the cheese mixture into each chop and seal with toothpicks. Sprinkle each chop with salt and pepper.
3. Preheat a grill for indirect cooking. Place chops on grill, cover and cook for about 40 minutes, or until no longer pink inside, flipping occasionally.
4. In a small sauce pan, combine the preserves, cranberries and horseradish and simmer over low heat until warm, about five minutes.
5. During the last five minutes of grilling, brush the pork chops with the apricot/cranberry glaze. Serve the chops immediately with the rest of the glaze on the side.

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Apricot & cream cheese coffee cake

Cream cheese chicken soup

Ground beef and cream cheese casserole