Pork Chops with Beer & Bacon Gravy

During our Wisconsin weekend in the fall, Matt and I picked up a pound of thick-cut, double-smoked bacon from Bavaria Sausage. Now, this ain't no normal bacon! I've been dreaming of what to do with it for months, as you just don't use this for anything. Surprisingly, inspiration came to me of all places but the treadmill.

Let me state this off the bat: I'm typically not a Rachael Ray fan. In fact, she drives me bonkers most of the time. (Seriously, she has a tab on her website called "Yum-O!" Can you feel my eyeroll through the computer?)

However, I've learned that I enjoy watching her 30 Minute Meals show, sans sound and closed captioning, while on the treadmill. The harder I run, the more I can justify eating the things she makes - like Pork Chops with Beer & Bacon Gravy. As soon as I saw her grab a beer from the fridge and pour it on the bacon & onions, I knew this was going to be the first use for the 'Sconsin bacon. Needless to say, it was delicious. Recipe can be found here.

(Yeah, the photo looks a little gross, but the camera ran out of batteries before I could get a snapshot of the plated entree.)

I made a few alterations to the recipe, but I think it would be pretty hard to mess up.

1. The recipe calls for German beer, but I used one of our Dry Hopped Irish Stouts. This gravy does retain some of the beer flavor, so use something you like.
   
2. I used homemade turkey stock in place of the chicken stock.
3. Doubled the bacon! (Can't have enough bacon.)
4. Cooked the gravy for about twice as long it calls for.*

*Matt's the gravy maker in our house, since I lack the patience to reduce anything to its proper thickness. So props to Matt for doubling the cooking time.