Crock Pot Week, Part Deux

These pork chops with sweet potatoes and apples might be my favorite thing we've made all fall.

Besides the Zuppa Toscana...and the double chocolate cookies. Actually, the more I look at the roll of past posts, the more things I remember loving. It's fun having a blog so you can look back over things you've made!

Anyways.













The only thing that made me nervous about making them was the brine.













I mean, look at that stuff, it looks gross, right?
Well it was worth it. These pork chops were literally falling-apart-delicious. The sweet potatoes and apples and sugar kind of melt down into a sauce. They're a little prep-heavy for a crock pot dish, in that you prep the brine, soak the meat in it over night, and brown the chops before putting them in the crock pot for 4 hours. But it was so worth it. I think we might make them again in the next couple of weeks or so.














This picture in no way does the food justice, but I feel like that tends to happen with meat and potatoes in the crock pot.

These are from the blog linked below, Cheap Healthy Good. And that's how I would describe this recipe. It's inexpensive, not super healthy but not bad for you, and so, so good.

Slow Cooker Pork Chops with Apples and Sweet Potatoes
from Cheap Healthy Good.

For the brine
1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
3 tablespoons cup kosher salt
3 tablespoons light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 teaspoons black peppercorns, slightly crushed
1/2 pound ice
4 (1 to 1 1/2-inch thick) boneless center cut pork chops (4-oz each)

For the slow cooker
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 Golden Delicious apples, cored and sliced into 1/2-inch wedges (DO NOT PEEL)
2 medium large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large red onion, sliced into 1/4-inch rings

Optional
Cinnamon or nutmeg
Dried cranberries*

1) Mix the broth, 3 tablespoons kosher salt, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, and peppercorns in a medium pan. Heat over medium-high and cook until the sugar and salt is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, add ice, and stir until ice is melted. Place pork chops in a gallon bag or 1-quart dish, add the brine, and refrigerate overnight (but not too much longer).

2) Remove pork from brine. (Discard brine.) Rinse the chops and pat them as dry as possible. Set aside. In a medium-large pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high. When oil is hot, brown chops, about 5 or 6 minutes on each side.

3) While pork is cooking, combine brown sugar in a bowl with apples, and stir until apples are coated. (There will be sugar left over, but we’ll use that later.)

4) Place sweet potatoes in bottom of slow cooker, and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Then, layer as follows: ½ the onion, ½ the apples, pork, the remaining onion, the remaining apples. Sprinkle with leftover brown sugar and cook on HIGH for 4-1/2 hours. Stir gently before serving, and be sure to spoon some of the sauce on top of each dish.


*We added a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, and I forgot that we had dried cranberries or I would have added them, too.