Slow Cooker night 2

Slow Cooker, night 2. It's Halloween and my husband is a bit of a Halloween scrooge. I love the kiddos in costume. I love handing out candy. I love sneaking pieces of candy out of the candy bowl between door bell rings. C hates it. This year I agreed to turn off the lights and watch a movie. So we did just that. We literally turned off all the lights in our house and sat in darkness in hopes that people wouldn't think we weren't home. True story. It's sad, it's shameful, it's....kind of amusing. We ate dinner by the light of the laptop screen while watching last week's episode of The Office. Good thing we had dinner ready in the crock pot. Cooking by candlelight probably would not have been fun.

I found this recipe last week online but I honestly can't remember where. Women's Health maybe? I can't remember so I'm sorry if you created it and I didn't credit you appropriately. Maybe you should make your printable version include a link to your website. There, I put the blame back on the author.

Anywho, this was the first time I'd made this and I'm not sure if I would do it again. It tasted fine, but was pretty bland overall. And, as you can see from the picture, lacked all visual appeal. On the bright side, it took minimal ingredients and completely met my criteria for "throw stuff in the slow cooker and leave" method. Prep time was very minimal since we already had some leftover chopped onion in the fridge. I just had to wash and cut a few potatoes into about 2-inch chunks.

Alsatian Smoked Pork Chops and Sauerkraut

serves 6 (I halved the recipe so it only made about 3 servings)

Ingredients:

2 lbs smoked pork chops (I couldn't find smoked ones so I just bought regular, boneless chops)

1 bag (2 lbs) refrigerated sauerkraut, rinsed and drained (again, I couldn't find this so I used the canned stuff)

3/4 lbs prescrubbed small red potatoes (I had some russet potatoes I needed to use up, so I used those instead...did I follow any of this recipe?)

1 cup fruity white wine (I followed this step!)

1/2 cup bagged baby carrots

1/2 cup prechopped onion

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme (I used rosemary. I thought I had thyme, it turned out that I didn't.)

Directions:

Coat the inside of a 3 1/2 quart slow cooker pot with cooking spray. Cut the pork, if necessary, into pieces to fit into the pot. Place the pork, sauerkraut, potatoes, wine, carrots, onion, pepper, and thyme into the pot. Cover and cook on the low-heat setting for 8 to 9 hours.

**Note: these can also be cooked on high for 4 to 4 1/2 hours.