Crock Pot Brown and Maple Sugar Pork Tenderloin

I started a new job recently.

It’s so, so wonderful to have regular hours again. Working two part time jobs, while it helped pay the bills, led to an inconsistent and unpredictable schedule that made things hard to plan around. I had to put everything in a shared google calendar just so hubby would know if he could plan on spending time with me or not.

Now that I have a regular full-time job with predictable hours for the first time in a long time, I find myself getting home about the same time as hubby, give or take a half hour. Without an afternoon to prepare dinners, I’ve been looking for meals that I could throw together quickly.

Enter the crock pot.

I found this recipe via Pinterest, hosted on a blog called “Your Homebased Mom.” Leigh Ann’s pictures looked pretty yummy, so although pork really isn’t my favorite meat to cook with, I was game to try it. A little variety is always nice, and let’s face it: I love maple syrup.

My first step was greasing my crock pot. No recipe ever says to do this, and it never occurs to me to do it independently, and I always end up with some charred sauce bonded to the sides of the porcelain. I’m trying to be better about this.

Next, I put my pork in the bottom of the crock pot, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Next, I made my sauce. I started with a bit of garlic…

Added maple syrup…

Added Dijon mustard…

And some honey…

And some brown sugar…

Some balsamic vinegar…

And finally, some dried thyme.

Whisked together, this is what it looked like.

Just pour it over the pork…

Cover and set it to low!

At the end of the day, this is what the pork looked like. A little nasty looking, not gonna lie.

Before serving, we’re going to make a sauce. This is super easy and quick. Just take the juices from the crock pot and cook on the stove.

Dissolve some corn starch in water…

And mix it into the sauce to thicken it up.

That’s that!

To serve, I put some instant mashed potatoes on a plate, topped with some of the pork (which pulled apart easily at this point), and dribbled some of the sauce on top.

At this point, I was still skeptical. I informed hubby that I wouldn’t be offended if he didn’t like it, as the pork looked dry and the sauce looked a lot darker than I expected. But as it turns out, everything was quite good. The pork wasn’t dry, just tender, and the sauce had a nice sweet-yet-smoky taste to it that made me happy that I’d bothered to put it together.

Give it a try!