Baked Pork Chops with Carolina BBQ sauce

It's Sunday afternoon and I have been sitting on the couch all day watching back to back football games. I have a bottle of Sam Adams sitting on the coffee table and I'm all by myself.

I know, I have problems.

I might have been a dude in my last life.

That might explain my obsession with large portions of meat.

And large portions of carbs.

(I added some kale in there to make myself feel better about the large portions of meat and carbs.)

Hey, at least I have not resorted to pizza delivery while watching the games. That's something to be proud of, right? ;)

Baked Pork Chops with Carolina BBQ sauce


For the brine:
3 pieces of pork chops (with bones)
8 cups of water
3 tbsp of salt
2 tbsp brown sugar
A handful of black peppercorns (I used ground black pepper)
Optional: a few cloves of garlic, bay leaves

For BBQ sauce:
See Bobby Flay's BBQ sauce on Food Network 
Note: I made half of the recipe for two people and still had a lot of leftovers. It was very delicious and could be stored in a Tupperware for a few days in the fridge.

1. Mix all of the brine ingredients and leave pork chops in the brine in the fridge for at least 1 hour, up to overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 385F.
3. Drain pork chops and pat dry. Heat a skillet on medium-high and sear both sides until light brown, about 3 minutes on each side.
4. Place pork chops onto a baking dish and cook for about 25 mins. In the meantime, prepare BBQ sauce.

Baked potatoes
Wash potatoes thoroughly. With a fork, poke holes around the potatoes. Lightly coat potatoes with olive oil and salt. Bake at 350F for 1 hour and 15 minutes. When they are done, use a knife to cut a slit and push on both ends of the potato to open.

Sauté Kale 
1 bunch of fresh kale, stems discarded and leaves roughly chopped
A few cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and pepper

Heat a skillet on medium heat. Add olive oil and sauté garlic for a minute. Add all the kale and cook until all the leaves are wilted, about 5 minutes. Add lime juice, salt and pepper to taste.