Maple-mustard pork roast

This dish is hearty and delicious – a perfect offering for dinner as the weather turns colder. When I started brainstorming ideas for a new pork roast dish, I aimed to include Dijon mustard. But then, I spied the Inglehoffer brand stone ground mustard in the refrigerator door. It is spicy and sour and chock full of mustard seeds. That’s when I forgot about the Dijon.

You’ll need:
2-3 pound pork roast (I used a sirloin roast)
1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon fresh, chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon diced garlic (one clove)

Place the roast in a 6-quart slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, maple syrup, rosemary and garlic. Pour the mixture over the roast and cook on low for about 8 hours. I turned the roast halfway through cooking.

After 8 hours, the roast will look like this:

Amazing how it browns up in the slow cooker, don’t you think?
I sliced/shredded the roast in portions and served it with penne pasta and fresh broccoli. Serve it and stand back!

Pineapple ginger pork

I found this recipe in a wonderful cookbook called 365 Easy Slow Cooker Recipes. It reminded me of Hawaiian Chicken, a dish my mother made when I was a child. That dish used chicken, onion, green pepper and pineapple chunks. I modified this recipe for Pineapple Ginger Pork, skipping the oyster sauce and sliced water chestnuts and substituting green peas and a cornstarch slurry for the (called for) snow pea pods and tapioca.

You'll need:
1 pound boneless pork shoulder, cut in 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1/4 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoons grated fresh ginger (I used 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger)
15 ounce can pineapple chunks
4 medium carrots, diced
1 large onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup frozen green peas
2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 1/2 cup water

In a large skillet, heat the oil and brown the pork in two batches. Drain fat. Drain the pineapple, adding the juice to a 6-quart slow cooker. Combine all the remainig ingredients except the pineapple, peas and cornstarch/water mixture. Mix well and cook on low for 8 hours. About 30 minutes berfore serving, turn the cooker to high. Add the peas; mix the cornstarch and water and add it to cooker. Mix the pineapple in, just before serving. Yield: 6-8 servings.

This dish is salty and sweet. We loved it, although my youngest son did not like the warm pineapple in the dish. He is used to eating pineapple cold, so having it in a hot dish threw him a bit.

Pork chops and gravy for dinner

This is an old-school, blue plate special kind of dinner. It's not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but a great comfort food dinner for once in a while.

You'll need

5-6 boneless pork chops
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 to 3/4 cups water

In a large skillet, heat vegetable oil about 1/4 inch deep. Season the chops with salt and pepper, then dredge them in the flour. Add the chops to the hot oil.

Fry the chops for about 8 minutes, turning once. Remove the chops to a plate to rest.

Your pan should have plenty of carmelization from the chops. This browned coating is full of flavor and is the basis of your gravy.

Remove any excess oil, leaving about 2 tablespoons. Sprinkle in about 2 tablespoons of flour and blend with a fork, scraping up the browned bits from the pan.

I combine the water and milk. Add the liquid to the pan, stirring constantly. You can use the same fork, or a wire whisk.

Cook until the mixture is thickened and bubbly. You can add additional water, if necessary. Making gravy is something you have to practice and get a feel for. How do you like my new gravy boat from Pier 1?

I served the chops with rice and greeen beans -- a classic blue plate kind of dinner.

Ranch makes pork dinner delicious

My family loves Ranch dressing on anything that doesn’t move – carrots, cucumbers (my youngest son); pizza crust or anything resembling bread (my husband); noodles, vegetables (my daughter). Ranch is notoriously high in calories, so I usually buy low-fat or no-fat versions. Recently, I bought the seasoning packets to make Ranch dressing at home, thinking I would use non-fat yogurt in place of sour cream or mayonnaise.

Instead, I have used the packets to season meats, vegetables and other dishes. I came up with this dish after seeing how much my husband loved pork chops seasoned only with the Ranch seasoning.

You’ll need:
1 pound pork chops (chops with bones are fine)
1 cup carrots
2 cups diced potato
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 Ranch flavored seasoning packet
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup red wine

Place the vegetables in a 6 quart slow cooker. Add oil and sprinkle half the seasoning packet over the vegetables.

Mix the seasonings and vegetables.

Dredge the pork in the remaining Ranch seasoning, then brown the pork in a medium skillet.

Place the chops over the vegetable mixture...

Deglaze the pan with red wine, scraping up any browned bits.

Pour the wine over the chops and vegetables. Cook on low for 7 to 8 hours. If the chops have bones, you may want to remove the meat from the cooker, debone it and return the meat to mix with the vegetable mixture.

This dish is hearty and satisfying and has a great flavor. Yield: 6-8 servings.

Start Your Ovens: Bristol Barbecue

The combination of vinegar, pepper sauce, garlic and onion will intoxicate you. This recipe is ridiculously easy and will feed a crowd – you will easily get a dozen sandwiches from this recipe. It’s no wonder this is a favorite from “Start Your Ovens: Cooking the Way it Ought’a Be” the official cookbook of Bristol Motor Speedway. The track is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011.

If you are a barbecue fan, mix up this recipe and let the slow cooker do the work.

Bristol Slow-Cooker Barbecue

2 small pork tenderloins, trimmed
¾ cup white vinegar
½ cup ketchup
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika

Cut the pork into 2=3 inch pieces, and then place in the slow cooker. Combine all the barbecue ingredients, mixing well; then pour over pork.

Mix all ingredients well, cover and cook on high for 3 hours.

Reduce the heat to low and cook for 3-4 hours longer. Shred the meat.

To serve, mound the barbecue onto soft sandwich rolls using a slotted spoon. Top with coleslaw if desired. Also good as an entrée served with potatoes, rice or baked beans. Serves 10-12.

Yes, this sandwich is a sloppy mess, especially if you add coleslaw (which I love!) Just use a paper plate and toss it when you are done.

Hearty Pork Chili, even in summer

I used the best of several different recipe ideas to come up with this creation. It uses white navy beans that my youngest son loves, along with green chilies for some heat. I got a creamier, thicker finish (without adding cream or milk) by removing and mashing some of the beans, then returning them to the pot.

I know the weather is hot – maybe too hot for some people to try this recipe in summer. But I love that you can put a meal like this together without heating up the kitchen. Any season, this one is a winner.

Pork chili

1 pound boneless pork chops
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup dried navy beans; soak them overnight, then rinse and drain before using
½ cup white wine
2 cups corn
4 ounce can green chilies
Salt and pepper
Optional: Shredded cheese to top the bowls

In a medium skillet, heat a teaspoon of oil then brown the pork chops on all sides. I added the onions and garlic and browned all slightly. Season all with salt and pepper.

Once the dried beans have soaked overnight, drain and rinse them.

Then add beans to a 6 quart slow cooker. Add the browned pork chops, onions and garlic to the slow cooker. Return the skillet to the heat, then add the white wine to deglaze the pan. Pour the liquid into the slow cooker.

Cook on low for 4-5 hours. Remove the pork to a plate to cool slightly. Also remove about a cup of cooked beans and place in a medium bowl. Mash the beans with a potato masher or the back of a fork. Return the mashed beans to the slow cooker and add the corn.

Shred the pork into bite-sized pieces and return it to the pot. Add the green chilies and mix well. Some recipes say to drain the chilies, but I never bother. The spicy vinegar adds to the flavor.

You can use a 14 ounce can of corn, drained, or 2 cups of fresh corn in this dish. I used a freebie from my mother-in-law – a bag of corn from their garden that had been put up on my birthday last year. Kinda ironic, don’t you think?

Let the soup cook another 2-3 hours until the beans are soft and all the flavors have melded. Put a scoop of rice in each bowl, top with a ladleful or two of soup and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese. So yummy! This recipe makes about 8 servings.

Here's the step-by-step

Pork chili

1 pound boneless pork chops
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup dried navy beans; soak them overnight, then rinse and drain before using
½ cup white wine
2 cups corn
4 ounce can green chilies
Salt and pepper
Optional: Shredded cheese to top the bowls

In a medium skillet, heat a teaspoon of oil then brown the pork chops on all sides. I added the onions and garlic and browned all slightly. Once the dried beans have soaked overnight, drain and rinse them. Add beans to a 6 quart slow cooker. Add the browned pork chops, onions and garlic to the slow cooker. Return the skillet to the heat, then add the white wine to deglaze the pan. Pour the liquid into the slow cooker.

Cook on low for 4-5 hours. Remove the pork to a plate to cool slightly. Also remove about a cup of cooked beans and place in a medium bowl. Mash with a potato masher or the back of a fork. Return the mashed beans to the slow cooker and add the corn. Shred the pork into bite-sized pieces and return it to the pot. Add the green chilies and mix well. Some recipes say to drain the chilies, but I never bother. The spicy vinegar adds to the flavor.

Let the soup cook another 2-3 hours until the beans are soft and all the flavors have melded. Put a scoop of cooked rice in each bowl, top with a ladleful or two of soup and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese. 8 servings.

Peanut Pork

It's a scorcher today in Bristol, so I am putting my slow cooker to good use. I have fallen so deeply in love with a new Peanut Chicken recipe (I've made it three times in the last month) that I decided to try it again today, but this time using pork as the meat.

I sliced up three boneless pork chops and added them to the slow cooker with about 2 cups of baby carrots and half of a large, white onion, cut in chunks. I did not use bell pepper this time. I made a sauce similar to the Peanut Chicken sauce -- soy sauce, curry paste, peanut butter (today I used chunky, not smooth). Instead of using lime juice and lime zest, I used orange juice and orange zest (that's what I had on hand!)

I also added a 4 ounce can of tomato sauce to the dish. The sauce seemed like it needed something and the tomato sauce seemed a good match. The house smells terrific. I am going to add peas and coconut milk about 30 minutes before the dish is finished, just like the Peanut Chicken recipe. I plan to serve this over rice and top each serving with roasted cashews (my husband prefers them to peanuts) and chopped cilantro from the herb garden outside.

Happy weekend, all. Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow.

Grilled porkchops and au gratin potatoes

This is one of my favorite storebought marinades: KC Masterpiece Chipotle and Lime. After a couple of months of enjoying this marinade on beef, chicken and shrimp, I finished the bottle on Saturday. Its final gift was to season some boneless pork chops that then made their way onto the gas grill. My husband raved about the flavor; it was the best use yet for this versatile marinade.

I served the chops with some au gratin potatoes that I mixed up before heading outside to grill. This was an excellent pairing – cheesy, creamy potatoes with the spicy pork. And since the potatoes need about an hour to cook, I could focus on cooking outside for a bit.

Au gratin potatoes was one of my mother’s favorite and most common side dishes. They are easy, delicious and pair well with just about any meat or vegetable. As a kid, we jokingly called au gratin potatoes “old rotten potatoes.” OK, an old tired joke. But now, as back then, the recipe was devoured.

Au Gratin Potatoes

3-4 medium sized potatoes (I used three Russet and one Yukon gold), scrubbed and cut into thin slices
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the sliced potatoes in a 2 quart casserole dish that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Arrange the potatoes evenly – sometimes I even fan them out in circles. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and blend in the flour. Using a whisk, blend in the milk. I usually add about half the milk, blend completely and wait for the sauce to thicken slightly, before adding the remaining milk. Add half the cheese and stir until melted completely. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the cheese sauce over the potatoes, covering completely. Top with the remaining grated cheese. Cover the casserole dish with foil and bake in the 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour. Remove the foil for the last 10-15 minutes so the top will brown.

After I grilled the pork chops and brought them inside, the potatoes still needed to tighten up and brown. I bumped the oven temp up to 400 for about 10 minutes and they were perfect. My husband is a huge fan. Making this dish is super simple and guaranteed to win raves. Add ham or leftover vegetables for a one-pot supper.

Pork quesedillas 2.0

On a recent afternoon I was unsure what to make for dinner and bored with just about everything, so I pulled package of boneless pork ribs from the freezer. I had tortillas, salsa, rice and cheese on hand, so I aimed to go Mexican for our meal. That is always a winner with my family and the tortillas were large ones – big enough for quesadillas or burritos.

I thawed the pork in the microwave and then put it in a 2-quart casserole dish. I sprinkled the meat with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and about a teaspoon of sugar. I covered the dish in foil and slipped it in the oven at 300 degrees. This was around 3:30 p.m., just before my son gets home from school.

I let the pork cook for about an hour or 90 minutes, when it looked like this:

I drained off the excess fat, then added about 2/3 cup of salsa.

Again, I covered the pan with foil and put it back in the oven. I let the meat cook for another hour or so. Around 6 p.m., the meat was tender and shredded easily.

I warmed some tortillas in a pan, added the shredded pork and made quesadillas with some shredded cheese. And yes, they were gone in a flash. I used about ¾ pound of pork to make this dish – it produced four large quesadillas.

Normally I would make a dish like this in the slow cooker, but I wasn't thinking about dinner (whoops) until the afternoon. Slow heat in the oven gave great results.

Cranberry pork roast

I came up with this recipe earlier this week in an effort to use some cranberry sauce I had on hand. I had seen recipes that used cranberry sauce as a glaze for pork, so I decided to make my own. I blended some vinegar with the cranberry sauce, but thought it was too sour. A bit of honey did the trick – to sweeten slightly without overpowering the dish. This was so easy and delicious! I work from home and the smell of this dish was so distracting that I ran some work errands to get out of the house (and keep from nibbling on it!)

Cranberry pork roast

3 pound pork sirloin roast, boneless
15 ounce can jellied cranberry sauce
¼ cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons honey
Salt and pepper, to taste
Oil

Season the roast with salt and pepper and in a large skillet, brown the roast on all sides. Place it in a 5-6 quart slow cooker that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Mix the cranberry sauce, vinegar and garlic; pour over roast. I added the honey to the sauce during the last hour of cooking.

Cook on low for 5-6 hours, then add the honey. Cook on low for another hour. Remove the roast to a plate. It has a beautiful rosy color from the cranberry sauce.

Slice or shred the roast and serve.

This recipe was both sweet and sour and a big hit with my husband and youngest son. I paired it with rice and green beans. Try it!

Pork fried rice

One of my favorite Asian dishes, fried rice, is really just a way for families to make use of leftovers. I tried my hand at this at home, with excellent results. With some leftover cooked rice, a bit of meat and vegetables and a couple of eggs, you can make something wonderful and inexpensive. If you are a vegetarian, this is a great way to use up a variety of veggies.

Pork fried rice

1 cup cooked pork, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
¼ cup green onions, diced
2 eggs
3 cups cooked rice, cooled (best if from an earlier meal and refrigerated until cold)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
Oil

Get everything organized before you begin:

In a wok or large skillet heat 1 tablespoon of oil. Add the pork and carrots and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a tablespoon of water and the green onion; reserve about a tablespoon of onion to garnish. Pour the eggs into the pan, with the carrots and pork. Scramble the eggs into the vegetables and meat.

Add the rice, soy sauce and fish sauce; blend well and heat the rice through. Remove to a serving platter and garnish with remaining green onions. I served this dish with prepared spring rolls from the grocery store.

Carolina-style pork with a twist

Pulled pork barbecue, with a heaping scoop of crunchy coleslaw, is a lifelong favorite. I can eat it on a soft, hamburger-style bun, or skip the bread altogether. But I definitely want some hot sauce, coleslaw and a splash of vinegar. I am a Carolina style fan and I shun saucy or sweet barbecue. I want vinegar and red pepper, and little else.

When I was a child, my family frequently visited Pardner’s Barbecue in Rocky Mount, N.C. It was a good stopover for dinner when we were traveling from Norfolk, Va., to Raleigh, N.C. to visit my maternal grandparents and extended family members. The restaurant featured Carolina-style pork barbecue, crisp coleslaw, corn sticks and Brunswick stew. My favorites were the pork and Brunswick stew, a thick blend of tomatoes, lima beans, corn and chicken. I loved the corn sticks, too. They were a special treat (versus cornbread) and required a special pan to bake.

Who knows how many times we ate dinner at that restaurant, but it was an unspoken promise that we were stopping there on our trips to Raleigh.

I made a hybrid sauce for a pork picnic that I recently fixed in the slow cooker. I used saucier ingredients to keep the meat moist, while trying to stay true to the Carolina style. It contained ketchup and sugar, along with hot sauce, vinegar and red pepper. The pork was moist and tender after about 8 hours of cooking in this glaze; it easily shredded with two forks and paired perfectly with coleslaw.

In a medium bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients: ketchup, vinegar, sugar, hot sauce, garlic, black pepper and red pepper.

Pour the mixture over the pork, which has been put in a 6-quart slow cooker.

Cook on low for 8 hours. This is a better method than cooking on high for four hours. The roast needs to cook slow and low. After 8 hours, remove the pork from the crock – use two spatulas because the meat will be falling apart tender.

Use two forks and shred the meat into small pieces. Try to stay focused; the savory smell is keenly distracting!

Pile the pork high on soft hamburger style buns. If you are making one for me, you must add coleslaw and extra hot sauce. Dig in!

My coleslaw was falling out all over the plate, just the way I like it!

Here’s the recipe:

Savory pulled pork

4 pound pork picnic
½ cup ketchup
½ cup vinegar
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon hot sauce (Frank’s Red Hot)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper

Spray a 6-quart slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray; place the pork inside. Combine all the sauce ingredients and pour over the pork to cover completely. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Remove the pork from the slow cooker. Use two spatulas because the meat will be so tender it is falling apart. Shred the meat with two forks. Pile high on soft buns with a dollop of cole slaw and extra hot sauce and/or vinegar. This feeds a crowd; certainly enough for 10 sandwiches.