Crock Pot Pork Chops and Apple Sauce

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This is a long shot, but does anybody remember the episode of The Brady Bunch where Peter (I think) says “pork chops and apple sauce” in the goofiest voice?

Well, as a former Nick at Nite fan, I used to watch reruns of The Brady Bunch with my sister and we somehow picked up on this little quip.

The Place for T.V. Reruns!

Now, whenever I think of pork chops, I always think of apple sauce. This word-association inspired my dinner for tonight.

What are your favorite T.V. show reruns?

My favorite reruns are definitely episodes of Friends. Hands down, no competition there! After all, Joey and I do share an affinity for Peanut Butter Fingers!

Crock Pot Dinner

This morning before I left for work, I prepped dinner in the crock pot.

I started by trimming the fat off pork chops before placing them in the crock pot and covering the meat with applesauce and cinnamon. I let this cook on low for about eight hours.

When I arrived home from work, the aroma smelled fantastic. I bet it was driving Sadie crazy all day!

Cinnamon Apple Sauce Pork Chops

Cinnamon Apple Sauce Pork Chops

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops
• 3 c. apple sauce (or enough to coat the meat)
• Several dashes of cinnamon

Directions:

Trim unwanted fat from pork chops. Place in a slow cooker and top with apple sauce and cinnamon. Stir mixture so cinnamon and apple sauce coat the pork chops. Cook on low for 6 – 8 hours.

The chops were pretty good! Nothing amazing, but we agreed we’d make them again.

We paired the choppers with a bowl of Amy’s organic black bean vegetable soup.

Amy's Black Bean Veggie Soup

I love Amy’s products for the simplicity of their ingredient list. Here are the ingredients in this soup: (VEGAN) ORGANIC BLACK BEANS, FILTERED WATER, ORGANIC ONIONS, ORGANIC CARROTS, ORGANIC CORN, ORGANIC POTATOES, ORGANIC CELERY, ORGANIC LEEKS, SPICES, ORGANIC CILANTRO, ORGANIC GARLIC, SEA SALT, ORGANIC HIGH OLEIC SAFFLOWER AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL, ORGANIC BLACK PEPPER.

I recognized every last one except for high oleic safflower oil – huh??? A quick Wikipedia look up informed me that safflower is “a thistle-like annual, usually with many long sharp spines on the leaves.”

Plants and flowers = good for you, right? The use of safflower in my food is a-okay by me.

Delicious Soup

This soup was tasty! Both Ryan and I gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up. 😀

Holiday Movie Night

Tonight I’m heading to my friend Kaitlyn’s house for our weekly girl’s holiday movie night. The movie on the agenda for tonight is Love Actually.

Love Actually

“I feel it in my fingers,
I feel it in my toes,
Christmas is all around me,
and so the feeling grows”

My favorite part of the movie is this scene:

Together Now: "Awwww!"

Ryan, if you’d like to hold up love posters for me I wouldn’t object. 😉

…And I’m off to movie night! G’night all!

Giveaway

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway! The winner will be announced tomorrow morning.

Behind on Breakfast

This morning I opted to dedicate my a.m. post to this awesome giveaway (be sure to enter!), so I have some catchin’ up to do since my breakfast post was severely neglected.

Last night I made homemade cranberry sauce in the microwave. Didn’t know that was possible? Me neither, but it is! Oh joy.

Beautiful, Shiny Cranberries

To make my homemade sauce, I combined a bag of fresh cranberries and water in a bowl and microwaved it on high for 3 minutes, stirred and microwaved it for another 3 minutes or so until the cranberries popped open, releasing their flava!

I stirred in just enough sugar to make it taste slighty sweet and take some of the bitter punch out of the sauce. I ate a bucket-load of warm cranberry sauce as my dessert after dinner last night. It was so good!

Breakfast

Needless to say, I just had to incorporate my homemade cranberry sauce into my breakfast.

Today’s breakfast included:

• 1/2 c. cottage cheese
• 1/2 c. homemade cranberry sauce
• 1/2 sliced apple

Apple-Topped Cranberry Cottage Cheese

Even though this wasn’t that large of a breakfast, it really filled me up! I think it must have been all the fiber from the cranberries and the apple.

Wednesday's Breakfast

I’m incorporating the cranberry sauce into my lunch wrap today too (whole wheat tortilla, Laughing Cow Swiss cheese, turkey and cranberry sauce). Yum.

Google Reader Issue

Are my posts showing up in your Google Reader? They aren’t for me and it’s making me a lil’ peeved. 😦 Any thoughts on how to fix this… I am not computer savvy!

Popcorn and Almond Giveaway

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway of several 100 calorie packs of Pop Secret popcorn and Emerald almonds. YUMMY! I’ll announce the winner in the mornin’ so don’t delay!

Poppin’ Good Giveaway

Yay for yummy giveaways!

Giveaway Goodies

One lucky reader will win:

• 5 bags of Pop Secret 100 Calorie Butter Popcorn
• 5 bags of Pop Secret 100 Calorie Kettle Corn Popcorn
• 5 packages of Emerald 100 Calorie Natural Almonds
• 5 packages of Emerald 100 Calorie Dry Roasted Almonds

Oh Nuts!

If you’re a nut-lover like me, these 100 calorie packs are a great way to eat only one portion of nuts, rather than handfuls and handfuls and bazillions of calories worth of the crunchy lil’ guys.

I’ve always enjoyed the 100 calorie packs of popcorn because it really seems like you get a great volume of food for a measly amount of calories. Fine by me! Also, did you know popcorn is a whole grain? It’s true, just ask the Mayo Clinic. 😀

“Whole grains are better sources of fiber and other important nutrients, such as selenium, potassium and magnesium. So whenever you can, choose whole grains over refined grains.” – Mayo Clinic

Thank you to Ann with Diamond Foods for providing me with the goods for this giveaway.

To Enter

To enter this giveaway, leave a comment telling me about your favorite movie theater food (healthy food options not required 🙂 ).

My favorite movie theater splurge is definitely a tub of salty and buttery popcorn. My friends Merri and Leah also told me this tip for adding some deliciousness to the popcorn: dump a bag of M& M’s in the popcorn tub, allowing them to melt all over the popcorn. Talk about a sweet and salty treat! How fantastic does that sound?

I will announce the winner tomorrow morning using the random integer generator at Random.org.

Feed Your Fingers

Also, don’t forget about the Feed Your Fingers Web site, full of fun holiday recipes and coupons!

Here’s a tasty-lookin’ recipe from the site that would make a yummy addition to any holiday party:

Popcorn Peanut Clusters

Pop Secret Homestyle and Emerald Peanut Clusters

Ingredients:

4 c. popped Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn
2 c. Emerald Dry Roasted Peanuts
1 c. dried cranberries
11/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. light corn syrup
1/2 c. water
1/3 c. unsalted butter
20 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Lightly oil a large baking sheet; set aside. In a large bowl, combine popped Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn, Emerald Dry Roasted Peanuts and dried cranberries; mix well.

In a large (3-quart) saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup and water; bring to a boil, stirring over medium-high heat. Add butter; cook without stirring until the caramel reaches a temperature of 300 degrees, about 8 minutes. Carefully remove from heat; immediately pour over popcorn mixture. Wearing an oven mitt and using a wooden spoon, stir well to make sure that each nut and popcorn kernel is coated.

Using two metal spoons, quickly scoop out tablespoonfuls of mixture and drop onto prepared baking sheet; let cool to warm. Once they are cool enough to handle, roll them into clusters, pressing any loose peanuts into place. Cool to room temperature.

In the bowl of a double boiler, melt the chocolate slowly until completely smooth over medium heat. Dip clusters into warm chocolate about one-third of the way up the sides. Set back on tray. Refrigerate until set, about 1 hour. Store in an airtight container in a cool place for up to one week.

Makes about 50 clusters.