Vanilla is a good flavor, but when vanilla extract is used, it is advisable to occasionally substitute almond extract.
The most important recipe I have to impart is a sauce best applied to meatballs (not Swedish, but any other kind of previously-existing seasoning is acceptable). It is renowned on multiple continents, ever since I told it to that German guy who now imports the ingredients at great expense on occasions when he needs to impress someone using food. Western hemisphere folks shouldn't have to go to that much trouble.
Okay so it goes something like this. First you take a bunch of ketchup. Or catsup. Any spelling or variety you prefer. Then you take a roughly equal amount of grape jelly, and just a dash of cinnamon. Mix them together over heat - maybe even the same heat as you're using for preparing the meatballs - until they are of uniform consistency. Should be pretty thick. It has a surprising flavor, both sweet and savory, and rather unlike either of what went into it. Adjust the ratio to shift the balance accordingly.
Here's another recipe I've found and adapted. You could do this in a slow cooker or a dutch oven. Sizes are approximate because, fuck, it doesn't really matter. It's practically a stew. You'd have to be trying to fuck up a stew.
-Several pork chops
-Several bratwursts
~4 sweet pickled gherkins
-Vegetables! Carrots are the important ones here. You gotta have the carrots. Onions are always good. You like celery? Toss it in. Water chestnuts? Look, man, you don't need my permission. But you need the carrots.
-28 oz. can diced tomatoes
-3 to 5 potatoes. The thicker you cut 'em, the more you'll need. The idea is that you cut them up and layer them one-thick on top of everything else.
-Plenty of chicken broth.
-Enough flour to coat the pork chops with.
-A gigantic amount of caraway seed.
-Salt and pepper in nontrivial quantities.
-Various miscellaneous seasonings and flavorings and whatever the fuck else you want.
Chop up all your vegetables into the desired sizes. The gherkins in particular you want to mince rather finely. Peel those potatoes, private, and then slice 'em into pieces about half an inch to an inch thick.
Take the caraway seeds and pour it in a little dish. Mix in some salt and pepper. You're going to coat the pork chops in a veritable carapace of caraway seeds. As much as can be persuaded to stick, on every surface. Once that's done, cover 'em in flour and brown them (both sides) in a skillet, preferably with a bit of bacon grease, but any oil will do. If the caraway seeds get burnt, you've done it too long. Use that same skillet for the bratwurst - either whole links or cut into small pieces - and any of the vegetables you think might need it (definitely onions unless you've really minced them). Some of them are still good raw.
The order you do all these next steps is not so terribly important, but I'm telling you how I do it anyway. Put all your sausages and vegetables and spices and such into the pot. Put the chops on top of that. Pour in chicken broth until it's just up to the very top of the pork. Now dump the tomatoes on top of those. Finally, daintily layer the potatoes on top of the whole mess until you can't see anything below them. Cover and cook on low heat. On a stovetop, it'll take up to an hour. In a slow cooker, give it eight hours. In either case you'll know it's done when the potatoes are not all raw and nasty in the middle.
Slow cooker is recommended. Nice, tender pork.
