Sunday, October 12, 2014

Slow Cooker Jerk Pork

Old & busted on top and
new hotness on the bottom.  Giggity.
It was time.  The slow cooker that the hubby had loved and used for the last 15 or so years had given up the ghost.  Well, I shouldn't say that.  It still worked, only it had turned into this kind of situation:  (now this is where you imagine the slow cooker can talk)  Oh, did you want the high setting to actually mean high and cook the meal as it's supposed to?  I'm sorry, I'm not capable of that anymore.  My apologies on that less than tender beef stew I just turned out.
 
It was time to get rid of the old and busted.  Enter the new hotness.  I didn't do a whole lot of research into crock pots, but I did enough to learn that the model on sale at the Exchange was highly rated by the folks who do that type of thing.  So, the Hamilton Beach set it and forget it became our new crock pot.

The inaugural meal was a jerk pork recipe I found at slenderkitchen.com.  It turned out delicious.  As crock pot meals tend to go, it was pretty easy, too.  Not a whole lot to do once you throw everything in the pot.

The recipe called for chicken, but also recommended substituting pork if you're feeling it.  Since we had a pork loin in the freezer already, we went ahead and used that.

Here's the gist for the jerk sauce

I used my little Nutri-Bullet to whiz up all the ingredients for the jerk sauce.  It was super easy, and the scent of all those fresh ingredients was so fragrant once they were blended together.  I think next time I'll use more than just one jalapeno, though.  The finished meal could have used just a tiny bit more spice.  I ended up adding some crushed red pepper flakes to give it that extra kick of heat that it needed.

Ready to get zipped through the blender

Once everything was blended, it was just a matter of melding it all together and setting the slow cooker on low for 8 hours.  So yes, that meant I was pajama clad, chopping pepper and mincing ginger at about 9:30 in the morning.  But hey - I could be at work, right? I'll take experimenting with a new kitchen contraption and a new recipe over work any time.
About a half hour left till deliciousness

It didn't take long for the house to be inundated with the scents of jerk seasoning.  Not a bad melding of flavors to be wafting around throughout the day while I puttered around the house doing this and that.

This is a recipe that can easily be prepped the night before, and then tucked away in the crock pot before you leave for work in the morning.

It gets all happy while you're out and about for the day & you'll come home to a house that smells like a Jamaican haven of food love.  Is there anything better than coming home to the aromas of a home-cooked meal?  It counts as one of my favorite simple pleasures.  We served it over short grained brown rice & it was fabulous.  And now for one of my favorite parts...well, besides the eating it part.  The food porn picture:

Definitely recommend adding fresh pineapple in the last 30 minutes.  Makes it!

Damn good slow cooker meal!  And seeing as it's the start of hibernation time up here, this won't be the last of the crock pot dinners I tackle this fall and winter.   Which I'll more than likely be sharing here. Let's hear it for the new hotness slow cooker!

Ta-ta for now.



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