Thursday, January 9, 2014

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pork Chops

My Facebook newsfeed always has a recipe someone posted or shared on to their wall. And every once in a while, something catches my eye. Or it gets shared by numerous friends and I see it every other post. This is what happened with the Teriyaki Pork Chops. Well, I should be more specific. The post I kept seeing was:

I have to admit, there were a few days I scrolled right past, but then after seeing it appear on my wall, shared by several friends, I got curious. I love everything crockpot. Meals made in the slow cooker are so convenient. Everything is just about ready when dinner time rolls around. So one day, I clicked it. It brought me to Mommy's Fabulous Finds (a mom, blogging about her fabulous finds/ideas). I scrolled through the recipes to see what all of the fuss was about. I gave a few "meh's" until I got to the Teriyaki Pork Chops. I stopped there because 1. we don't eat a lot of pork chops in this house and 2. I love anything teriyaki. The recipes looked easy enough but I didn't want to prepare it, then freeze it. So I bookmarked the page to come back to later. And later I did. Here is my version of the recipe with a couple of added twists. 

Original Recipe
Crock Pot Teriyaki Pork Chops
Ingredients
  • 4 pork chops, about 1 in thick\
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • ¼ cup soy sauce
  • ⅓ cup chicken broth
  • salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Sprinkle salt & pepper on pork chops if desired, place in a gallon-sized freezer bag. In a small bowl mix garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, and chicken broth together, add to bag. Place flat in freezer, when ready to use thaw in fridge overnight. Empty contents into crock-pot and cook on high 4-5 hours or low 6-7 hours. 

A photo journey of my preparation of the meal.

In the crock pot I mixed together the minced garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce and chicken stock. I mixed well until all of the brown sugar was dissolved. 


After I had prepared the sauce, I got my chops ready. I bought four because two was not enough for this family of three. I seasoned each side of the chops with salt and pepper (I use Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper). While I was seasoning the chops, I had some oil (EVOO) heating up in my NEW stainless steal skillet (Christmas present - which I LOVE).


Once the chops were seasoned, I placed them in the preheated skillet to brown both sides. Browning (or searing) helps keep the meat moist when you cook it. 



After they were down browning, I placed them in the crock pot. I turned it on low and let them cook away! (Note: my crock pot seems to cook hotter on low than normal crock pots, so in the future I'll probably cook them for a shorter amount of time). 


During the cooking process, I also flipped them a couple of time to make sure the marinade/sauce coated both sides. 

Below is what the chops will look like when they are done cooking. 
When they were done, I removed them and placed them on a plate and then covered the plate with tinfoil to keep the chops warm. 


The liquid in the crock pot was still warm and had a lot of flavor. So I took out a bag of leftover spinach and threw the remainder of the bag in the pot. My crock pot has a "stop top" setting so I turned the dial over to that setting and started to let the spinach wilt. 


When it was done, I topped the chops with the wilted spinach and it was SO good. The spinach had soaked up the sauce nicely and that gave extra flavor to the meat when you eat the two together. 

For a side I made some Parmesan noodles. I just took a box of spiral noodles and cooked until al dente. When the noodles are cooked, ladle a few spoonfuls of the noodle water from the pot into a bowl. You will need this later. Drain the rest of the pot and put the noodles back into the now empty pot. Take 2-3 tbsp of butter (I use unsalted) and mix it in with the noodles. Here is where the starch water comes in handy. Your noodles may seem to be getting a little "dry" so take some of the starch water you saved from when you boiled the noodles and add it back in to the pot. This will help moisten the noodles. Then take your grated Parmesan cheese and add as much or as little as you like. I LOVE Parmesan cheese, so I mix quite a bunch in. Again, you may need to add some of the starch water to moisten the pasta back up. Make sure you only add a little bit at a time, not too much or the noodles will become soupy and we don't want that. The more cheese you use, the more starch water you'll need, so make sure to alternate so you get the right ratio. When you're done adding the cheese, season with salt and pepper. 

And voila! A delicious dinner!


I hope that you'll be inspired by this recipe! Make changes as you see fit as you make new discoveries each time you cook!




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