Saturday, March 22, 2008

A Roast in a Crockpot?

I know the first time I thought about this, I thought "Man that sounds weird!" But it depends on how you want to use the meat. I have discovered that pork works best. I use a pork loin (boneless or not). The crockpot I have is now oval in shape instead of circular and that works better too.

1 whole sweet onion (vadalia or equivalent)
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
4-5 cloves of garlic coarsely chopped
if your final meal will be BBQ in some form, add about 1/2 bottle BBQ sauce
Put this on the bottom of the crockpot
put in the roast
cover the pot
turn on high and walk away.

After a few hours, things will be getting juicy.
I let this cook all day.

Remove roast from crockpot and transfer all the juices, cooked onions and tomatoes to a saucepan. Reduce by about 1/4 to 1/3 depending on how much liquid is there. Using a stick blender or your food processor, blend the sauce until smooth. Now you have a lovely gravy/BBQ sauce to pour over the meat.

The meat will basically fall apart in chunks, that's what you want and you don't want to slice it. Just put chunks on a plate, cover with the sauce and you are good to go. I serve with mashed potatoes and a veggie. If you have leftovers, you can shred the meat, heat with the sauce you made fortified with extra BBQ sauce in a pan and put on rolls for a great BBQ sandwich. I usually serve with coleslaw I have added some fruit to: raisins, small pineapple chunks, small apple chunks (or even all three).

If you don't add BBQ sauce, I use this meat as a base for a number of Mexican favorites. Burritos, soft tacos or even homemade tamales.

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