A Bartender's Cookbook: Apple Bacon Stuffed Porkchops

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but beep freaking beep, cause these were amazing!!!! Star of the show? Whiskey, of course. Oh, and bacon. Theres something about apple and pork that's just so right. So I started off with a marinade of apple juice and whiskey. Not just any apple juice tho, Simply Apple Juice, its more cidery than regular apple juice.

So about a half a cup of Simply Apple juice and half a cup of whiskey, I used Jim Beam. Add a spoonful of dijon mustard, about 2 tbsp of brown sugar, 2 cloves of garlic, my mom gave me this awesome garlic press in my stocking for Christmas this year (yea, I'm 25 and still get Christmas stockings, so what?)

I shook in a little cayenne pepper, a splash of vanilla and stir that baby up! Pour about half of the marinade over thick cut pork chops. I only made three chops so up the ingredients if you are cooking a larger portion.

Stick them in the fridge and let them marinate for a couple hours.

...

Fast forward to three hours later

Dice half an onion and one apple. Chop up 2 slices of bacon into baby strips and cook bacon.

When the bacon is done set it to the side and pour out half the grease. Add the diced onion to the bacon grease. Let the onion brown and add a splash of whiskey just 'cause. After the onion browns add the apple, sprinkle in a little sage, and let cook for about 5 minutes then add the bacon.

Set aside...

Heat a tbsp of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Sprinkle chops with salt and pepper. Sear chops for about 5 minutes on each side.

Flip

Remove chops from heat and put them on a plate. They won't be fully cooked yet but its okay, we'll be returning them to the heat in a minute. Add remaining marinade to pan and let reduce.

Take porkchops and cut length-wise about 3/4 of the way through, do not cut through to the other side.

Fill the chops with the apple bacon mixture.

By now that reducing marinade should be a little bubbly and look something like this:

Add a tablespoon of butter and whisk into a glaze. Carefully put the chops back in and let them cook in the glaze til done. Make sure to spoon the glaze all over them.