BVC Eats: “The Marianne” pork chop casserole

This one-dish-meal recipe was given me orally by my neighbor Marianne, who learned to cook it during WWII when she was taken away from Poland by the Nazis to become a cook for a German family.  She gave me to understand that it is a German dish.  I think it’s weapons-grade.

Marianne cooked for the local high school for about forty years.  It’s nice to think they got something besides box macaroni and limp salads once in a while, poor little mites. At their age, all this grease was probably good for tempering their teen hormones.

1 lb sliced bacon, chopped in 1-inch bits
1 lb pork chops
1 large sweet onion, sliced or chunked
2 large baking potatoes, sliced or chunked
2 large granny smith apples, peeled and sliced
salt & pepper to taste
Sour cream to garnish

In a big cast iron pan like a chicken fryer, fry the pound of bacon bits until most of the grease is out.  Set the bacon aside.  Leave the grease in the pan.

Fry up sliced or chunked onion and potatoes, salted and peppered, until they’re brown and mostly cooked.  Leave the grease in the pan.

Lay your pork chops on top of that.  Cover and cook until the chops are almost done.

Put the apple slices and cooked bacon on top, cover, and cook a little longer until the apples are cooked.

Makes its own gravy!  Garnish with sour cream.