Quick fix meals can still be visually appealing

I know some of you have read some of my posts and said to yourselves, "does this guy have a life ?  Does he do anything but cook ?"  I play golf at least three days a week, and serve on a charity Board, as well as a few other activities, like attending a lot of my grandson's games, so yes, I have a life and I don't always prepare a gourmet meal.  Today I played golf and got home at 4:00PM.  I had a meeting to attend from 5:30 to 6:30, so what do we do on nights like this.  Some times we go out, but this morning we remembered to take a couple of Berkshire pork chops out of the freezer.  We had some Sweet potatoes and a bag of broccoli slaw mixings on hand.  We always keep a jar of Marzetti slaw dressing in the fridge.  Before I left for my meeting, we agreed that Jan would put the sweet potatoes in the oven to Bake at about 6:30.  She mixed the broccoli slaw mixings with the Marzetti dressing and put it in the Fridge.  When I got home at 6:35, I mixed up a quick egg wash (two eggs and a little cream), and dipped the pork chops in that.  I then dredged them in Italian bread crumbs and a little salt and pepper.  I melted a little butter in my braising pan, that I wrote about yesterday and added a little olive oil. I browned the chops on all sides in the braising pan and then looked in the pantry.  I found a jar of Cherry Republic Cherry BBQ sauce.  I dumped the jar of BBQ sauce over the chops, put the lid on the braising pan and put them in the 375 degree oven with the sweet potatoes.  Twenty-five minutes later we had this plate for dinner.

Nothing too fancy, nothing gourmet, just using items we had on hand.  I think the plate is beautiful and the meal was very tasty.  Notice the colors though.  We always try to have at least three colors on the plate.  I also sliced the chops, which makes for a more attractive presentation, and then ladled the sauce over the sliced chops. I  find if you slice a chop or a steak and just put some of the chop or steak on the plate, you won't eat as much as you do when you throw the whole chop on the plate. We cut the baked sweet potatoes and cross hatched them with a knife, and dolloped a little sour cream on them. All of these quick tricks made a pretty plain meal into something that looked  very attractive.

The whole point is, just because you don't prepare a gourmet meal every night doesn't mean your meals have to look plain or unappetizing.  Take care in what you prepare.  Try to have a protein, a starch and a vegetable with each dinner, and think about the color and contrast on the plate.  Believe me when I say, things taste better when they look good.