Slow-Cooker Pork Chops and Field Peas

Good Tuesday morning!

The Showcase Pic for this week is of Roxie in the mountains... getting all dolled up! (Doesn't she realize it's vacation? Make-up is optional... but obviously not for a 13 year-old.)

This week, the Gallery will feature five mountain pictures a day, PLUS a photo of one Hillbilly Sign each and every day. (The Hillbilly Sign theme will probably go into next week. I have a lot of them.)

Monday Mayhem on Tuesday

As I told you Friday, we went on our 12th Annual Mountain Trip with my family this past weekend. Monday Mayhem will last through Friday and will take you step-by-step through the details of every moment of our trip. WAIT! Don't go. I'm kidding. We'll have a quick overview, and then move on... I promise.

We stay in the mountains two full days once a year. On one of those days, we do "something." We have gone to Cade's Cove, Dixie Stampede, Black Bear Jamboree, the Aquarium, etc. This year we spent our "mountain activity" day in Gatlinburg walking up and down the main drag. We did this once several years ago when the kids were very young, so we decided to try it again since Roxie and Zac were so young the first time they didn't remember!

The three oldest boys went on their way. Tommy and Zac broke off for "male bonding and male shopping." Mikie and Roxie headed off in one direction while Katie, Bev, Mom and I wandered in and out of shops in search of the perfect purse for Katie. We met at The Pancake Pantry at 1:30 for lunch (with no lines). Mike and I LOVE The Pancake Pantry, but we haven't eaten there in 19 years. That's a long time. A lot can happen to one of your favorite restaurants in 19 years. It can really go downhill. But it did not disappoint, and everyone enjoyed their lunch before we headed out for the second part of our day... THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET.

On the other side of the street, the groups changed a little. Josh and Brad needed Mikie or Tommy to help them buy the machine guns they wanted. You have to have an adult with you when you purchase the weapons. (You know the ones. With the soft BBs. I think they're called "air soft," but I'll come back and correct this later if I'm wrong.)

Roxie, Katie, Josh and Zac wanted to ride the sky-lift. Mom wanted to sit down. Austin and I wanted to do something that just screamed "MOUNTAIN ACTIVITY" DAY! We wanted to visit the Hollywood Wax Museum. Everyone split up once more.

Austin and I had a ball in the wax museum. The whole place was set up for picture ops. Austin used his camera to take dozens of pictures because I gave Roxie my camera for the sky-lift ride. I'm not going to say much about our time there because he's bringing his camera home this weekend, and I'm going to post the Hollywood Wax Museum pictures next Monday. Because they're so good, you see.

Also, I'll just drop one little name for you... Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as The Scorpion King! That's right. I have pictures of ME with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson... in wax. No surprises for next week's Showcase Pic.

Everyone had a great time and we headed back to our little cabin in the woods. We had a birthday to celebrate. Our Katie turned Sweet 16!

I lied, you know. This is going to take all week, but I'll try to make it as painless as possible. And it will be labeled, so you can totally skip it if you can't take it any longer. As always, I'm only thinking of you... the reader. I'm a giver, I tell you.

Now, for that recipe of Bear Stew I talked about last week. You know that wasn't true either, right?

Slow-Cooker Pork Chops and Field Peas

If you don't already have the February issue of Southern Living, you need to run to Wal-Mart and pick it up today. I'm serious. It is full of great recipes. I'm putting this one in the crock pot tomorrow morning because I KNOW it will be a wonderful meal tomorrow night before church.

You will need:

1 (16-ounce) package frozen field peas with snaps, thawed
1 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
6 (1" thick) bone-in pork chops
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large sweet onion (sliced)
1 can condensed chicken broth

1. Place peas in a lightly greased crock pot.

2. Combine mustard and next 2 ingredients. Sprinkle flour over pork chops. Dredge pork in flour.

3. Cook pork in hot oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat 3 to 4 minutes on each side or just until browned. Transfer pork to crock pot. Reserve drippings in skillet.

4. Saute' onion in hot drippings over medium-high heat 6 to 7 minutes or until tender.

5. Add chicken broth and cook 2 minutes, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet. Spoon onion mixture over pork in crock pot.

6. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.

This is my favorite kind of meal. A vegetable is already cooked in with the meat. All I have to do tomorrow is add one more veggie, something sweet, tea and we're good to go. My pork chops are thawing as we speak!

Again, this issue is FULL of great ideas AND recipes... and the majority of recipes aren't difficult. It's also a very pretty issue, too. Those items alone cover my criteria for a magazine purchase... pretty cover, great ideas and lots of doable recipes. Oh, and Kate Gosselin has to be on the cover... with her new extensions. Did you see those? That's a topic for another day, I'm afraid.

Have an unbelievably wonderful Tuesday. It's a four-day school week, so I know the kids are happy. (I'm pretty pumped up about it myself!) We're back on schedule this week, so tomorrow we'll have Wednesday Wisdom and a Seasonal Tradition for the cold days ahead.

Take care, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting (and Slightly Sad To Be Home) Belinda