Sunday Dinner. It's the best dinner of the week...most of the time--unless we have something simply stupendous on Wednesday, or Tuesday, or Friday...you get the picture? But, tonight was pretty stellar, if I say so myself. I made Maple and Brown Sugar Pork Roast, and served it with garlic and parsley roasted red potatoes and a vegetable medley of squash, carrots, and broccoli.
The recipe I have calls for pork loin...but they tend to be pretty temperamental when you are using a crock pot. (I have learned from many a sad and dry pork loin in the past!) So I picked up a couple of small tender pork roasts and used my handy-dandy crock pot to free up my Sunday afternoon without sacrificing the big dinner flavor. Prep time for everything=20 minutes, but tasted like at least 2-3 hours of work! I LOVE crock pots!!
Maple and Brown Sugar Pork Roast
2-4lbs pork roast
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
1 clove of minced garlic--(I cheat and use about 1-2 tsp of the store bought stuff that's in the jar ready-to-go)
4 Tablespoons grainy Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 T Balsamic vinegar (can substitute cider vinegar, but the Balsamic is tastier)
1/2 tsp dried /crumbled Thyme
1 Tablespoon pure maple syrup (shhh...so, I used 2 T of Mrs Butterworth's...and it was still delicious ;)
I mixed everything together with a whisk right inside the crock pot and the put the pork roasts in. I like to drizzle them with some of the sauce before I put the lid on and call it good for 3-4 hours. I got off to a late start today and didn't start the crock pot until 3pm, so I set it on High. It was fork tender in 3 hours.
I doubled the sauce ingredients because I had 2 pork roasts. The roasts always seem to reduce in size and I wanted to make sure I had enough for the feast. Before I cut the meat into slices, I thickened the sauce with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons of cold water. The sauce is a little tangy and sweet...and very delicious. The kids slid their potatoes through the sauce to make sure that they didn't leave any on the plate. Clean plates are a sure sign of a winner!
For the roasted potatoes: I cut about 2 1/2lbs of baby reds in half and doused them with about 1/3 cup of olive oil. Then I added a heaping spoonful of the store-bought minced garlic, a spoonful of dried parsley, and a tsp of sea salt. I stirred it all up in a bowl, before pouring them onto a baking sheet. They roasted up perfectly at 375 degrees for one hour. These beauts are so easy to make and compliment any mouth-watering meat recipe.
