Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions

Pork.

I love pork. Even though something about it creeps me out so I try not to have it too often, I totally enjoy eating every delicious, succulent bite I get my hands on. Since we’re still living in a hotel room, I’ve started to use my crock pot for just about everything. I must say I love this thing. It sautés, boils and slow cooks all in one pot. This recipe involves pork and my crock pot. I wish I could say I had the most amazing, thick pork chops, but alas, I did not. My chops were pretty sad-looking. I got them at Aldi. The top chops (try saying that five times) looked like how you’d expect a respectable pork chop to look like but the bottom ones were jacked up.

Fo real.

But anyway, back to pork. I always love mixing sweet and savory when it comes to this succulent meat and what better way than to include caramelized onions? They’re so delicious and almost creamy. They are the definition of sweet and savory. They’re also really easy to make, albeit a bit time consuming, but don’t worry!  I really just threw this dish together so the caramelized onions are going to be the most involved part of this whole thing. I must admit I uncovered my pot about halfway through to turn my meat since the liquid didn’t fully cover everything, but I don’t think that really did much besides interrupting the cooking process. It was still tender and delicious!

I think it may depend on what slow cooker you have but the cooking time may vary. If you can, check your meat at the two hour mark to see if it’s reached an internal temperature of 140. Otherwise, if you set it and forget it, you’ll still have a really flavorful dinner, but it might be a bit…slow cooky. You know, dry but not because of the sauce.

Let’s get into it!

Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions

Ingredients

6 thick-cut pork chops, preferably bone-in

1, 5 lb. bag of onions, cleaned and sliced about ¼ in. thick

1 ½ c. chicken stock

½ c. barbeque sauce

½ c. balsamic vinegar

Butter, as needed

Olive oil, as needed

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Method

1. Caramelize your onions in half butter half oil. You’ll need enough to cover the bottom of your pan. Remove them and set them aside.
2. Drizzle more olive oil in the pan and set to medium high heat. While it’s heating up, generously season your chops with S&P on both sides and then sear then on both sides*. Make sure you do only a couple at a time to avoid crowding the pan. Add more olive oil as needed.
3. Once all of the chops have been seared, add the meat, your barbeque sauce, stock, onions and balsamic vinegar to the crock pot with another sprinkle of salt and pepper and just flip the chops to coat them in the liquid.
4. Cover and cook on low for about 2-2 ½ hours. Go much longer than that and they become stringy and dry.
5. If the sauce is a little too thin for your liking, remove the meat and reduce it a bit by basically boiling the crap out of it (making sure to not burn it) until it thickens and the flavor intensifies.

Serve this with a nice, green salad and some rice or mashed potatoes for a complete meal!

* Put your seared pork chops on a plate as you go. When they’re all seared, dump everything, especially the juice from the seared meat back into the pan.

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Hi Friends!

Isn’t it weird that I always say kwee-no-ah in my head when I’m trying to remember how to spell quinoa? See that? I did it again. Anyway here’s a great recipe for a quinoa salad. It really could be a meal on its own. I was inspired by this recipe but I made a few changes.

A couple notes:

Make sure you wash the quinoa if it wasn’t washed already. Usually the instructions on the package will tell you if it’s been washed or not. There was a time I would wash it anyway if it already was, but now…I guess I just don’t really care. So far, so good!

Cherry tomatoes cut in half would be beautiful in this! I just used what I had and I encourage you to do the same. Definitely break out the cherry tomatoes if you plan on serving this at an event though.

You can really add anything you like-feta, olives, that kind of stuff. I had mozzarella so I used it but parmesan would be delicious as well.

Whenever I have to cool something relatively quickly like the quinoa and mushrooms, I put the food in a shallow dish (or rimmed cookie sheet if you have the space). Then, just throw it in the freezer and stir occasionally.

Onward!

Ingredients:

For the salad:

1 c. quinoa

2 c. chicken broth (or veggie broth)

1 cucumber quartered lengthwise and sliced

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 small red onion

1 large green pepper

1 c. mozzarella

1 avocado, diced (or two if you love them!)

1 small package of mushrooms, sliced

5 roma tomatoes or about 1.5 c. any diced tomato

Olive oil

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

For the dressing:

1 handful of cilantro, rinsed

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 T. Apple cider vinegar

Juice of 2 limes

2 T. honey

1/3 c olive oil

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Cook your quinoa according to the package instructions, but instead of water, use broth.
2. While the quinoa is cooking, chop all of your vegetables.
3. Sautee your mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. When the quinoa and mushrooms are finished cooking, cool them down. Make sure they’re not hot when you put your salad together.
5. Make the dressing by adding all of the ingredients including a couple pinches of salt and pepper to a food processor. Blend until thoroughly combined. Taste and adjust to your liking.
6. Once everything is prepped, combine the quinoa, mushrooms, cucumber, chickpeas, avocado, red onion, green pepper, tomatoes, mozzarella, and dressing in a large bowl. Fold everything together gently with a big spoon or spatula.
7. Let the salad chill in the fridge for an hour or so and serve!

So there you have it, a quick, healthy, fresh, delicious salad. This would be great as a side for some nice salmon or grilled chicken or even as a main course.