Meal No. 241: Smothered Pork Chops

For last night's very fun dinner party, it was a return to last weekend's smothered pork chops with onion-thyme gravy, but I tried a different recipe that uses the CrockPot. That means that for hours there was the incredible aroma of this stuff cooking, and it led me to wish that I had some way to blog smells. The Pavlovian response was unrestrained--I think I salivated from 3 pm until serving dinner at close to 9 pm.

And while the result was still fall-off-the-bone tender and full of good flavor, I'm not sure I think it was better. In fact, I imagine I'll stick with the dish the way I made it a week ago.

Alongside, I tried another new recipe, one that comes from the Palmetto Cheese folks, who make a delicious version of southern pimento cheese. This concoction was introduced to the household by a good friend from my college days at UNC, who had visited earlier this month and brought it along.

Basically, this is a Palmetto Cheese version of macaroni and cheese, and boy-howdy, it works for me.

I suppose it is quite the endorsement of the sufficiency of the meal when one of the guests said: "This is one of those times I'd like to have a vomitorium."

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"Smothered Pork Chops with Onion and Bacon," Slow Cooker Revolution from the Editors at America's Test Kitchen, 2011, p. 109.