It's been a while …

since I've posted a recipe. Last night I needed to use a piece of pork tenderloin which I'd taken from the freezer and not used the day before. I also wasn't much in the mood for actually cooking it, I really was more interested in eating it. You've probably never felt like that, right?

I was going to just slice it into chops and sauté them, but even THAT seemed like too much trouble. Then I remembered Mrs. Thornton's Pork Chop Casserole.

Or, rather, I remembered my former co-worker, Dave, who invited me to dinner one night and served Mrs. Thornton's Pork Chop Casserole.

You won't get any hits if you Google "Mrs. Thornton's Pork Chop Casserole." We're talking 25 years ago, way before food.com and allrecipes.com and Epicurious. She was pretty modern for her time, though, since she typed the recipe instead of writing it out by hand. Or maybe Dave did that. Because after dinner I insisted he share the recipe with me.

And now I'm sharing it with you, because you need a sure-fire, delicious and easy-peasy way to fix dinner while you take a nap. All you need are four ingredients and an oven and you'll be dishing it up in less than 90 minutes. That's long enough for a nap, right?

Mrs. Thornton's Pork Chop Casserole

1 cup long-grain rice (not instant)
1 package dry onion soup mix
1 can mushroom pieces and stems, drained
4 lean pork chops (or 1 pound pork tenderloin sliced into chops)

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly coat an 8- or 9-inch square baking dish with cooking spray. Add rice. Reserve 2 Tblsp. onion soup mix; add remaining mix to rice and stir. Add drained mushrooms.

Add three cups boiling water to rice mixture. Top with pork chops (you can brown them first if you want to, but I don't). Sprinkle reserved onion soup mix over chops. Cover with foil and bake for an hour. Remove foil and continue baking for 10 more minutes.

Nutrition Information: 310 calories, 3.1g fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 60mg cholesterol, 1175mg sodium, 42g carbohydrates, 26g protein.

To reduce the sodium significantly and eliminate the preservatives used in the packaged soup, you could make your own dry onion soup mix. There are lots of methods out there; this one doesn't use bouillon.

Bon appétit!