Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Dust

For those who didn’t watch it (and I don’t blame you), the episode “Homerland” is about the Simpson family suspecting Homer of being a secret Muslim terrorist, when in actuality he was brainwashed by radical hippies. This explains why he doesn’t want to eat Marge’s Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Dust – because he is now vegetarian, not Muslim. Of course, Homer refusing to eat anything, let alone pork chops, is a rare occasion indeed. The only other instance that I know of is when he criticizes Marge’s pork chops way back in Season 11:

Marge: Who wants pork chops?
Homer: Mmm. Sorry, Marge. I’m afraid this gets my lowest rating ever- seven thumbs up.
Marge: You always liked my pork chops.
Homer: Marge, I’m sorry, but your cooking’s only got two moves- shake and bake.
– Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner? (The Simpsons Season 11 – Episode 3)

Even then, it appears that Homer does eat the pork chops; he just doesn’t like them as much as he used to because his pallet is apparently more sophisticated. So I decided to make Marge’s Shake ‘n Bake Pork Chops as well. For consistency and because I certainly wasn’t going to make Shake ‘n Bake Coffee again.

Ingredients

Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Dust

• Pork Chops
• Cheetos

Shake ‘n Bake Pork Chops

• Pork Chops
• Shake ‘n Bake

Directions

Preheat oven to 375F for both pork chops.

Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Dust

Crush Cheetos with a mortar and pestle or food processor. Note: I do believe this recipe is the least classy thing I have ever used my mortar and pestle for and I felt a little guilty afterwards. This cooking utensil dates back at least 35,000 years and THIS is what I’m using it for?!

Crust pork chop with Cheeto dust and bake approximately 10 minutes.

Shake ‘n Bake Pork Chops

Pour Shake ‘n Bake into the provided bag. Shake the pork chop until coated, then bake for approximately 10 minutes.

For those paying attention, this is actually the second time I have used Cheetos in my cooking, the other being Cheeto Root Beer Noodles. Crusting Cheetos onto food is actually kind of a thing, based on my casual internet research anyway. Probably the best site I found was Cheetoing.com, whose slogan is “Let’s make bacon Cheetos a reality in our lifetime” – which is pretty straightforward as far as mission statements go. Here’s the thing though, the Shake ‘n Bake pork chops were superior to Cheeto dust pork chops – they just had more flavor. Maybe if I had been more fancy and added some extra spices these would have turned out better. As it stands, this just tasted like pork chops with Cheetos on top, which is exactly what I made. Meh.

Cromulence:

Shake ‘n Bake Pork Chops: 6 Johnny Newspaperseeds out 10
Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Dust: 3 Superoos out of 10

Shake ‘n Bake Pork Chops Recipe From: Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner? (The Simpsons Season 11 – Episode 3) / Pork Chops Crusted With Cheeto Recipe From: Homerland (The Simpsons Season 25 – Episode 1)