pork roast – Dad's Turn To Cook

When you’re working on a budget, you grab the deals. So yes, when you have the chance to snag an entire pork loin for relatively little cash, you grab that deal, you chop it up into meal sized roasts and you go with it. One thing I’ve noticed when you’re working with a particular cut of meat is getting into a rut with how you prepare it. For me (and I’m shaking my head as I write this) the ‘old standby’ is a bbq pulled pork (I’m shaking my head as I presently have one in the crockpot…). Sometimes you just need to shake it up, and with a little help from Google and some more seasoned bloggers, sometimes you stumble upon something quite amazing. I give you…

Ginger Glazed Pork Roast

Now the usual words of warning I’ll give when doing anything in a slow cooker.

Make sure you have plenty of time…it’s called a slow cooker for a reason.
Try to make sure your meat has been thoroughly thawed overnight if you’re working from a recipe and checking out their cook times.

# 2 is where I ran into an issue on this one. I didn’t take the roast out and let it thaw overnight, so I went straight into the slow-cooker and had to crank it up to high to finish in time for dinner. Bad move. I have a little chart that shows pork roasts should hit at least 145 degrees F to be considered done. I went WELL beyond that. Still edible, but almost to the point of crunchy. What can I say? Rookie move. But that’s why we eat every day, right? Plenty of chances to learn, adjust and excel on the next attempt.

That’s the roast. I had about a 1.5 lb cut…I would trim back the amount of rub as there was PLENTY left that really just went to waste. Now for the star of the show. There’s a pizza place in Regina that has the marketing slogan “The Sauce Is Boss”, and that is definitely an adage that is in play with this meal. It works, it is the spotlight and dang is it tasty. I’m not just saying that as I completely over-cooked the roast and the sauce was the only thing that turned out, this glaze just ‘works’ and it is quite easy to do. A notable change I made to the linked recipe? I found that my glaze was just a bit too runny and the cornstarch wasn’t really having an impact on thickening things up while it was on the burner. I added some more and it sorted itself out. One quick reminder on that – NEVER add cornstarch directly to a sauce without first making it into a paste with a very small splash of water. Straight cornstarch just turns into little clumps you’ll wind up straining out before using (unless you’re a fan of some little flavour powder shots in your meals – just like Grandma used to make!). A little water, a little whisk and you’re good to go. And when you DO start adding some cornstarch to thicken, do it a little bit at a time. You can very quickly go from a rather runny sauce, to straight up pudding.

I followed the glaze recipe verbatim with the exception of substituting white vinegar for rice vinegar (it’s what I had on hand) and using powdered ginger rather than fresh (again, I had it on hand).

This one is going in the rotation. And the slow-cooker a little earlier next time so I can roast it on “low”.

-g

When you have more time in the morning and will be jammed up against it in the evening there are 2 words that can save you every time. Slow Cooker.

If “This Is Us” hasn’t got you afraid to plug one of these bad boys in, well, this recipe might complete your phobia. Okay, that might be a spoiler. Honestly, it’s not THAT bad, it could just use some…oomph and there are a couple technical suggestions I’ll lay out.

Slow Cooker Pork Stew

The prep time for this one is pretty quick overall. Some ‘chunky cut’ veggies, a bit of a dry rub for the meat, and a couple cans to open. I stuck to the recipe on this one for the most part. I didn’t have fingerling potatoes (never heard of them before I read this recipe) so I cut good ol’ fashioned roasting potatoes into some longer chunkier strips to match the approximate size I saw on google image search. Carrots, instead of cutting 2 inch chunks, I just tossed in some mini-carrots we had kicking around as that’s about the right size. I used powdered ginger instead of peeling and grating as that’s what I had on hand, and I used a 1.5lb pork loin as, again, that’s what I had on hand. (Sweet deal at Costco…one massive loin for $15 that I chopped into 5 roasts about 1.5lb’s each – booyah!)

The prep was pretty easy. Fishing the bay leaves (DO NOT EAT THOSE) out afterwards was rather tedious. A couple notes. It’s not really a soup, but there’s quite a bit of liquid that makes it not really a ‘stew’ either. The potatoes were still pretty crunchy, and as my oldest child informed me “Carrots are never meant to be cooked”. This one was…hate to say it, a swing and a miss. 1/5 stars. The meat tasted pretty good when you got a chunk of it. Everything else was pretty bland. I though the tomatoes might kick things up a bit, but no. Not really sure how I’d save this one. Tomato paste for a more potent kink? Chopping the potatoes and veggies up into smaller pieces would be a good idea – the big chunk cuts are quick for assembling, but felt weird in the finished product.

I think overall, this one is going in the ‘Do Not Repeat’ folder.

With all that said, yeah, slow-cookers/crockpots! They’re pretty great. I’ve made some pretty amazing ribs in them before, they’re great for taking food to the next staff potluck, I really just need to dig in a bit more and figure out some recipes that ‘work’. And for those that are asking? No. I haven’t yet been converted to the wonders of the Insta-Pot, although I’ve met a few hardcore evangelists for the product. That said, if anybody wants to ship me one…. 😉 I’m always open to try it out.

-g