Monday, June 29, 2009

A (seriously) quick, simple, delicious recipe

I do a lot of cooking at home. I enjoy it and I'm pretty good at it. Unfortunately, I don't cook as often as I like due to a number of challenging factors:

  • My schedule is really weird and inconsistent.
  • I don't have a big kitchen.
  • I don't have a lot of fancy utensils.
  • I don't have a lot of money.

So I like quick, simple, delicious recipes. Also, I don't own a cookbook but I do have internet access. The problem is, some people who post recipes on the internet have different definitions for quick, simple and delicious than I do. Often, a search with those words will send me to something that looks like this:

"This is a really easy and delicious meal that you can prepare when you're in a hurry. First, marinate the labuanium trapezoideum crabs in a tagine while you dice the capers for the remoulade..."

At which point I have no choice but to tune out. But here's something I make once in a while that is simple, easy and delicious. It cooks in a crock pot, so the cooking is slow, but the prep time is minimal. If you're old, or resourceful, enough to get beer, can cut an onion and open a can, you're in...

BEER PORKCHOPS
INGREDIENTS

  • Two porkchops (I'd recommend boneless; they're going to fall apart while cooking and you don't need to find a small bone by biting or swallowing it)
  • One can or bottle of beer (See the note below about beer)
  • One onion (I like the Spanish ones)
  • One packet of dry onion soup mix (You probably have at least one packet of this laying around; every home in America does)
  • One can of mushrooms (optional; I know some people don't dig mushrooms. Leave them out if you want. I like them though, so I will leave them in, thank you.)
  • One crockpot (This doesn't work if you don't have a crockpot. If you don't have a crockpot, what is wrong with you? Stop what you're doing right now and go get one. Not just for this recipe, just to have one. Seriously, they're so awesome it isn't even funny.)

DIRECTIONS

  1. Cut up the onion into big pieces
  2. Open the can of mushrooms (unless you didn't get any because you don't like them. See note above)
  3. Open the beer (don't drink it, you lush)
  4. Dump everything into the crockpot (you did open the packet of onion soup mix and poured it in, didn't you? I shouldn't have had to tell you that)
  5. Set the crockpot on low (make sure it's plugged in), put the lid on and let it do it's thing for 7 hours (it'll be done before that but with anything you cook in a crockpot, the longer you let it cook, the better it is)

Serve it with noodles, rice or potatoes. You won't get a thick gravy but the sauce with the onions and mushrooms is really good over starchy food.

ABOUT COOKING WITH BEER

First of all, don't worry about DCF showing up and taking away your kids or anybody getting a DUI because everybody got drunk eating this. That won't happen. The alcohol just evaporates during cooking but the beer flavor remains and makes the porkchops taste amazing.

Secondly, if you do a search on cooking with beer, you will find all kinds of advice and opinions from various know-it-alls on what kind of beer to use. There's probably some merit to what some of them have to say if you can sift through the beer snobbery and find notes on why certain kinds of beer are better than others at bringing out flavors in food but who has time for that? You know how when you're out and just trying to enjoy a beer because it's cold and you can drink them fast which is good if you got there late and are trying to make up lost time and some person tries to make you feel bad about yourself by getting in your face, "What are you drinking?! That's pisswater! Ugh! That's disgusting! How can you swallow that swill? You're might as well let a dog pee in your mouth. Gross! I only drink (fill in name of whatever beer you aren't drinking) because I'm a better human being than you are" and how that isn't ever any fun? Don't subject yourself to the online version of that just because you want to make perfect beer porkchops in the crockpot. Just use a beer that you think tastes good and you'll be fine.

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