Pork with Paprika, Mushrooms & Sour Cream

California is getting it's fair share of rain, and I'm very happy about it.  I think about our local grower's and how much I'm looking forward to my local fresh Salinas Valley produce.  I'm longing to bite into fresh strawberries, peaches and cantaloupe. But, I know that we still need a lot of water for our crops to be bountiful-- and we've had a couple weeks of 70 degree weather, and that's been lovely.  Given that my friend in Rhode Island is shivering from the heavy snowfall they've had, I don't complain when the skies turn dark and I can  hear the pitter-patter of steady rain.  We're on day two of a four day holiday weekend, and since it's been steadily raining, I want to bake....

...I'm honing my Artisan bread skills.

..I finally took the plunge and learned how to make doughnuts. Yes, they're fried. They're also very good, and I am proud of my will power that I didn't eat more than 1 and half of my another...

I ate mine with cinnamon-sugar.  It was tender and reminded me of churros. It will cost me ten extra laps in the pool, but it was worth it!

I haven't left my house in two days, and I'm fine with that!  Not wanting to go grocery shopping, I scoured my freezer and found a package of pork chops that I had forgotten about.  Then, I remembered a recipe I had bookmarked from "Kalyn's Kitchen".   I've made Chicken Paprikash, ages ago, but it never occured to me that pork and sour cream would go very well together.   As luck would have it, I had all the ingredients I needed to make a dinner that would be warm, and hearty on a rainy night.  After noshing on a sweet doughnut, I was ready for a good meal-- and I wanted a one-pot meal, since I'd done three loads of pots, pans and tools.

Because I had spent a great deal of  too much time in the kitchen, photographing the bread and doughnut recipe (and I will post those later on) I decided not to photograph how I made this recipe.  Kalyn's photos are so lovely, that I will send you over there if you'd like to see all the steps involved.  Trust me, this is a very simple dish to prepare. 

TASTING NOTES:  I made only two minor changes to the original recipe.  I added a little bit of flour to the seasoned pork, before searing.  I think it helps the sauce to thicken a bit.  I also added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, in addition to the diced tomatoes.  I didn't have petite diced tomatoes, so you can see them in the sauce, more than Kalyn's version.  I love the richness of tomato paste-- the rest of the recipe, I followed to a "T".   The sauce was rich, with notes of sweet paprika and I like the flavor of caraway seeds.  I used cremini mushrooms and light sour cream.  This dish reminds me of a cross between beef stroganoff and my Austrian Goulash.  I think that pork tenderloin would be the best choice in making this dish, as the pork chops were a teensie tough in texture.  The flavor made up for that, though.  I loved the combination of paprika and sour cream. Oh, so good!

Thank you, "Kalyn's Kitchen" for sharing this recipe.  It's comfort food made simple.  A printable recipe is at the bottom of this post, or go visit Kalyn to see her lovely photos.