Monday, January 22, 2007

Honey on the Brain

This past Wednesday I was looking for something to do with a pork loin roast that I had in the freezer. Ideally, it would be something that I could at least finish in the crock pot. I toyed with the idea of making carnitas with it and turning that into tacos or something similar, but then I flipped through my crock pot cookbooks and found a suggestion that used on-hand ingredients and looked simple enough to throw together.

Honey-Dijon Pork Roast was my answer, and it turned out as good as I'd hoped. I followed the directions mostly, except that I started with a frozen roast, and fired it up to high for the first two hours. I also didn't turn the remains of the pot into a sauce- I didn't think we needed it, the roast was moist enough. I was intrigued by the coriander in the recipe. The instructions said to use 1/2 teaspoon of coriander seeds and crush them a bit, rather than use pre-ground bottle coriander. I store my whole coriander in a box with other Indian Spices, and just pulling those seeds out was a treat for the nose- all those wonderful spices combining and making my mouth water for Indian food! Crushing the coriander produced a slightly lemony scent, and I just knew the pork would be good. And it was. I would repeat this in a second- even for company.

Honey-Dijon Pork Roast

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 apples, peeled, sliced
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon coriander seed, crushed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (2-2 1/2 lb) rolled boneless pork loin roast
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cornstarch

1. In a 4 to 6 quart slow cooker, combine onion and apples. In a small bowl, combine honey, mustard, coriander and salt; mix well. Spread on all sides of pork roast. Place pork over onions and apples.

2. Cover; cook on low setting for 7 to 8 hours.

3. remove pork from slow cooker; place on serving platter. Cover with foil.

4. In a small saucepan, blend water and cornstarch until smooth. Add apple mixture and juices from slow cooker; mix well. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils, stirring occasionally. cut pork into slices, serve pork with sauce.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This looks great! I may have to try it whenever I get up my nerve to buy a pork loin...raw pork just makes me shutter!

Erika W. said...

Oh you're missing out! 2007 is the year of the pig! We could eat pork every day of the week and not be sick of it. (Course, then we'd all have outrageous cholesterol and other issues, so we have it about once a week.)

Unknown said...

Can't live wihtout park, especially with honey-Dijon sauce! Got the pork gene.