Slow Cooker Meatloaf for the win!

The Pandemic continues and so I am still trying to teach 8th grade U.S. History from my living room while high school orchestra is in the dining room and Freshman year and Senior year occur upstairs!

Crazy.

But at least I can prepare dinner a bit more in advance when I am working from home and one of my favorite ways is with the slow cooker. I came to my site to find this recipe today and discovered that I have never shared it in this forum! Or at least I didn’t tag it so it could be found easily.  So I will share it today.  I like this one because it is a “magic pot” recipe—-combine, put it in, turn it on and walk away!

Slow Cooker Meat Loaf

Combine all the following ingredients:

• 1 lb of sweet/mild Italian pork sausage (removed from the casings but now I just buy the non-casing packaged kind and it makes it so much easier!)
• 1 lb of ground beef
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup of pasta sauce–whatever “flavor” you like.  Could even just use tomato sauce if you don’t have any pasta sauce
• 1/4 cup Italian cheese (I use either a blend or just shredded Parmesan)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 pinches of dried basil
• 1 pinch of dried oregano

Stir it all together.

Line your slow cooker with a liner or use two pieces of foil.  If you use the foil have the two pieces form a “+” in the bottom of the cooker and press the strips against the inside of the cooker, letting the ends hand over the outside.

Cover and Cook on low 5 to 8 hours or until a meat thermometer comes out at 165 degrees.

Tonight we had fresh pineapple, a green salad, corn on the cob, and a happy mom as I didn’t have to think about dinner at the end of the work day.

 

Five-Spice Pork with Roasted Oranges and Broccoli

This was an easy recipe that got thumbs up from my table of reviewers!  Well, each reviewer ate the pork but I can’t say the same about the vegetables.

I was in a hurry to get dinner going and didn’t read the recipe very well so I sprinkled the Chinese Five Spice all over the pork and THEN noticed that it said just 1 teaspoon…whoops!  Our pork was just fine though so I would do the same the next time I make this dish.

I found the recipe in the November 2011 edition of Food Network Magazine.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Toss in a shallow baking dish:

• 1 head of broccoli florets roughly chopped
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 ,2- inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 small orange (unpeeled) cut into wedges
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• pepper to taste

Set aside.

Pat dry:

• 1 1/2- 2 pounds pork tenderloin

Sprinkle over the pork:

• 1 teaspoon salt
• pepper to taste
• Chinese Five Spice (recipe called for 1 teaspoon but I just sprinkled it all over…probably closer to 2 or 3 teaspoons.)

Heat in a large skillet over medium-high heat

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Add the pork to the skillet and sear turning until golden brown on all sides (about 8 minutes)

Add the pork to the baking dish with the broccoli-orange mixture and roast until a thermometer inserted into the center of the pork registers 145 degrees.  (Mine took about 30 minutes)

Transfer to a cutting board and let rest 5 minutes before slicing.

Meanwhile, return the broccoli-orange mixture to the oven and roast 5 more minutes.

Chili-rubbed Girlled Pork Tenderloin

This is an easy one that we did tonight.  It was quick and yummy, as you know- two of my favorite things in a recipe!  The recipe is from the May 13-15,2011 USA Weekend Magazine.

Chili-rubbed Grilled Pork Tenderloin

In a small bowl, combine:

• 2 tsp ancho chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• two pinches of cayenne pepper

Rub the spice mixture all over

• 2 pork tenderloins (each about 1 pound, so around 2 pounds of meat)

Allow the pork tenderloins to come to room temperature

Place the pork on a preheated grill.

Turn the meat once or twice while cooking until a meat thermometer inserted in to the thickest part reads 155 degrees (probably around 15-20 minutes)

Remove from the heat and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Enjoy!

 

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Here is an easy recipe that you can make at the last minute.  I know because we did this week!  I bought pork tenderloins last week because they were buy-one-get-one free.  At 4:00 when I still didn’t know what I was going to do for dinner I turned to the tenderloin!  I found the recipe several years ago on “howstuffworks”.  We have modified it a bit to fit our family and it gets four smiley faces each time.

Mix together for a rub:

• 1 T garlic salt
• 3 T fresh chopped basil (or 1 T dried)
• 1 T dried thyme
• 1 1/2 t cracked black pepper
• 1 1/2 t dried rosemary
• 1 t paprika

Prepare your grill for grilling.

Sprinkle the rub evenly all over the tenderloin (we had 2 lbs).

Grill until done (internal temp should be about 150/155 degrees).

We served with our ever present sides….fruit salad and steamed broccoli.

Enjoy!

Orange-Smothered Pork Chops

You never know where you will find a good recipe.  At the end of the novel I just finished- The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out, the author, Neta Jackson shares some recipes as if they are from the characters in the novel.  I knew I had some pork chops in the freezer and in my refrigerator some left over orange marmalade from another recipe so I decided to try this one tonight.

Emily said I can put four smiley faces on this recipe (Translation—-everyone at the table likes it)

This is a quick one to put together.  I started dinner prep at 4:30 and we were eating by 5:20….with stops and starts to help the girls with their homework assignments.

We served ours with rice and had green beans.

The recipe says to have one pork chop per person.  I had 5 chops so I had to use two large skillets to get them all cooked.

In a large skillet put:

• 1  Tablespoon of vegetable oil (more if your chops are lean)

Cover each chop to taste with:

• seasoned salt
• ground, rubbed sage
• black pepper

Place the chops flat on the bottom of your warmed skillet

Sear the chops over high heat until brown on both sides.

Pour off excess grease and allow the pan to cool slightly.

Mix together:

• 1 Tablespoon of Orange Marmalade (per pork chop)
• 1/4 cup of orange juice (per pork chop)

Pour the mixture over the chops.

Gently simmer for 20 minutes or until the orange juice thickens.  Turn the chops 2 or 3 times. (You might have to up the heat a bit to get it to thicken, but don’t let the syrup scorch)

Serve over rice.

Enjoy!

Oh- and the book is good too.  I’ve read three in this series (#1, #3, and then this last one #7).

Sunny’s Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Who is Sunny?  Well, Sunny Anderson from the food network!  Yes, I have another recipe from the Food Network magazine for you.  This is the one that Heather picked out as she sat and browsed the magazine over and over again.  She thought they looked yummy and then tonight when it was on her plate she took a teeny-tiny bite, oh well- everyone else loved it.

At first glance the recipe looked overwhelming and I thought I wouldn’t be posting it here.  I like the recipes to be easy or fairly easy if I am going to post it.  This one has a ton of ingredients but it does fall in the fairly easy category.  You just have to plan a bit ahead as the meat needs to be prepped overnight before cooking.

Sunny says to put it in the oven at 250 and baby it all day.  I was planning on doing that BUT my stupid oven doesn’t like to be on for longer than  1 1/2 hours and started turning itself off.  So the slow cooker to the rescue!  You will need to have a large slow cooker if you have the 9 lb pork shoulder.

Here is our version on the recipe that appeared in the September 2010 magazine.

Combine:

• 1/2 cup spicy brown mustard
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 3 cloves garlic minced (I always add one more than the recipe so we had 4)

Prick, with a knife, about 1/2 inch deep all over a  7-to-9-pound bone-in pork shoulder

Brush the mustard mixture all around the pork.

Now wrap the pork in saran wrap, tightly, and refrigerate overnight.

(My girls helped me do all of the above and had a fun time helping in the kitchen with “Heather’s recipe)

Unwrap the pork and place into a slow cooker.  Add water (this is where I punted…we just put in “some” water and hoped it was enough.  We actually sucked some of the juice out mid-way through cooking as it was half-way up the cooker.)

Cook on High for 8-9 hours.

Meanwhile, make the sauce:

Melt over medium heat:

• 2 T unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil

Add

• 4 medium onions, chopped
• season with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender- about 6 to 8 minutes.

Add

• 8 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon paprika

Cook 2 or 3 more minutes—don’t let the garlic get brown though.

Stir in:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup apricot preserves
• 1 cup ketchup
• 2 teaspoons of Sriracha sauce (a hot chili sauce)

Bring to a simmer and then stir in:

• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• Kosher salt, to taste

(We made the sauce in the morning and put it in the refrigerator.  Then as we were pulling the pork, we warmed the sauce on the cook top)

Once the meat is done, remove the pork and take the meat off the bone. (Ours literally slid off the bone- it was fantastic!)

Now pull the meat by using 2 large forks and shredding it into bite sized pieces.

Toss the meat with the Barbecue sauce and some of the juice from the slow cooker.

Season with salt and pepper.

Serve on rolls with coleslaw.

You can figure about 1/2 pound of meat per person so, you do the math…this feeds a lot of mouths.  We fed 4 adults, 2 teenagers, and 3 kids –that actually didn’t eat but one sandwich between them as they were too busy talking and laughing– AND we have enough leftover to do it all again.  So you could easily feed 12 adults/teens on this recipe.

I know it has probably more ingredients than all other recipes combined that I have posted…but it is pretty easy and you can get it all done early and then just have the pulling of the pork left at the end.

Enjoy!