Slow-Cooker Pork with Apples, Rosemary, and Fingerling Potatoes (Whole30 + Paleo)

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Slow-Cooker Pork with Apples is healthy comfort food at its best. Whole30, paleo, and gluten-free, this rosemary-infused pork dish is the perfect fall meal.

I have been feeling more anxious than usual lately.

Not that anxiety is anything new for me. Oh, no. It’s an old, stubborn friend. It’s something I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember being a whole person. Or, as it can make me feel, not a person at all.

It’s not a very good friend, that’s for sure. It’s tricky and conniving and beyond selfish. It tries to steal everything it can from me and I have to fight against it with all of my might every single day, or it would.

But life is particularly stressful and up and down at the moment. I just started an intensive, taxing therapy program, I’m the Maid of Honor in a wedding back home, and I just had a major contract I was really counting on fall through.

I really admire bloggers and writers who talk about this. Anxiety, depression, real life. Some follow the advice that it’s best to keep those things separate, and that people are here for the recipe/fashion/financial advice/what-have-you. But I find something very fake in an influencer only showing the good. It’s artificial. Disingenuous. And it’s not real life.

It’s also a little boring, to be frank. I understand why certain influencers, bloggers, and celebrities have the followings they do. Their lives seem completely perfect on social media. Their dress is without a single wrinkle, their hair is flawless, and their walls and furniture are the crispest, cleanest, whitest whites, even with children and pets. Their candid Instagram shots laughing, enjoying happy hour with friends, or traveling seem effortless, and their smiles flash teeth whiter than their living room walls.

We all want that, and strive for it. We want that perfection. And it seems obtainable when we see that a regular ole blogger has it.

But more and more, I realize that I actually don’t want that. I want the mess. That’s where the good stuff is.

It doesn’t sit well with everyone that I talk about mental health on a food blog. But I just want to be a real person. I don’t want to be an “influencer,” and I would never want to make you guys think my life is perfect. It’s far from it. It takes a lot of work just to keep my shit together.

I don’t want to show you guys my perfect house and perfect over-stylized Instagram shots of me laughing over a glass of wine. There’s a ton of accounts like that if that’s what you want. I just want to give you guys good, real food. Paired with real life.

I want to promote honesty, both in cooking and in my words, not perfection.

Perfection is so boring anyway.

What do I do when I’m feeling anxious, stressed, or sad? I cook.

Cooking is like a form of meditation for me. It slows my mind down and it makes me feel peaceful.

I love to peel, chop, and cook fresh vegetables, especially if they’re ones I just dug up myself from the ground. I love the smell of fragrant herbs as they’re cooking. I love that a meal I’m making is going to nourish myself and my family, body and soul.

Cooking is a magical thing.

Cooking this slow-cooker pork with apples was a magical thing. A kind of therapy, a kind of nurturing. A pause, a moment. A remedy.

It’s certainly comfort food at its best. Nourishing, healthy, seasonal, and savory. You can feel as good cooking it as you can feel about eating it.

I love the sweet and savory profile of this slow-cooker pork with apples. The fragrant rosemary will perfume the whole house. The apples do add a sweet note, but it’s perfectly balanced by the onions, carrots, fingerling potatoes, garlic, herbs, and Dijon mustard. A touch of apple cider vinegar imparts some zing.

It really is a recipe meant to feed the mind, body, and soul.

I hope that you make and enjoy this Slow-Cooker Pork with Apples, Rosemary, and Fingerling Potatoes. Is cooking a form of stress-relief for you? What are your favorite ‘comfort food’ recipes to make? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you.

And here’s a few things you may need for this recipe:

Organic Chicken Bone Broth // Crock-Pot 7-Quart Slow Cooker // Bragg Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar // Annie’s Homegrown Organic Dijon Mustard

This post contains affiliate links, and are always products I highly recommend, love, & use in my own kitchen.