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!

The Dreaded Brussels Sprouts

Everyone in my family knows how I feel about Brussels Sprouts.

In a nutshell, they’re yucky.

My mom would serve them every once in a while when I was a kid. I remember the feeling of dread that I felt when I realized what the vegetable du jour would be.

Sometimes I’d try to eat them, peeling off a leaf at a time and swallowing each leaf whole with large gulps of water.

Other times, I’d just cut them into as many pieces as I possibly could and then smear them around my plate and hiding them in other food scraps.

No one was fooled. My family took great delight in teasing me about it. My older brother would grab the serving bowl, help himself to a few Brussels sprouts, then loudly ask in a sing-song voice, “Oh Jolie, wouldn’t you like some?”

And that’s pretty much the last time I’ve come into contact with the smelly little things.

Until now. I’ve gotten to the point where I regularly cook and eat many of the veggies that I used to hate as a kid, even the green bell peppers that took me an extra long time to warm up to, so I recently decided I should give Brussels sprouts another chance. I’m almost 30, after all. Couldn’t it be that this lingering revulsion is all in my head?

So I found this recipe for maple-glazed Brussels sprouts and decided to give it a shot.

I decided to have them as a side with some boneless pork chops, sauteed in a frying pan after getting a thorough rubdown with smoky sweet seasoning. This is irrelevant to my story about Brussels sprouts, but I wanted to share this picture that I took because I like it.

First things first, I wanted to blanch the Brussels sprouts. I’ve done this with other veggies – it’s basically boiling for just a few minutes, then shocking them with an ice water bath. It’s a way to cook them without them losing color and without making them mushy. It’s wonderful with broccoli.

But I digress. Okay, here are my Brussels sprouts in the boiling water.

Followed by an ice bath!

The recipe says that the Brussels sprouts should be blanched, trimmed, and halved. I took that to mean that I was supposed to do those three things in that order. So I did. Here they are after. In retrospect, I could have trimmed a lot more off, but oh well. This was my first time.

Next step: sauté some sliced onions and red peppers. Or just onions if you don’t have bell peppers.

After about 5 minutes, I added the Brussels sprouts and sautéed them, too.

Meanwhile, I whipped up a glaze with soy sauce, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.

Finally, I poured the glaze into the pan with everything else and let it thicken up.

Served on a plate, this is what I had:

I was really disappointed. I tasted strong bitter flavor, masked somewhat inefficiently with sweet. The texture was too firm, as if they weren’t cooked enough, though I followed the directions exactly, and they just weren’t good! The onions also seemed out of place.

To be fair, taste is subjective. Hubby didn’t actually mind them that much, and he ate everything on his plate. I didn’t. I could have – this was certainly better than plain, steamed Brussels sprouts, and I could have sucked it up to be polite if someone else had made it, but I just was unenthused. I ended up throwing out the leftovers, plus the ones on my plate that I didn’t eat.

I turned to facebook. After talking to some of my much wiser friends on there, I realized that I’d made some key mistakes. First, I should have taken the time to trim and peel the Brussels sprouts before blanching. It would have removed a lot of the bitterness, which is primarily what I found unpleasant.

Okay, that was really the extent of what I learned. But it was really important. One friend said that when she boiled whole Brussels sprouts, she scores an x into them to help them cook evenly, and if I’d read the original recipe page more thoroughly, I would have realized that they suggested that, as well. Or I could have halved them, and it would also have helped.

All that aside, my friends pretty much all agreed that roasted Brussels sprouts were the way to go and strongly encouraged me to try it.

So I did.

I did it hesitantly, telling myself that if I disliked this, I would never again eat another Brussels sprout and no one could make me. I also did it while drinking a large glass of merlot. I felt as though I needed a little encouragement. Don’t judge.

But I really was intrigued enough by my friends reports that I had to at least try roasting before giving up. A good friend said she makes them all the time and that she and her husband call them candy because they’re so good. I couldn’t comprehend this, but I was so, so curious.

This time I trimmed, peeled, and halved them first.

They were a lot lighter in color after I removed the dark outer leaves.

This was my discard pile!

I dropped one of the leaves. Puppy stole it and ran away. I considered stopping her, but then giggled and let her discover the bitterness as her own little punishment. Then I had more wine.

Over the trimmed and peeled sprouts, I drizzled olive oil.

And then added plenty of salt

And pepper.

I stirred it all up to make sure that they were evenly coated, then turned them out onto a greased cookie sheet.

After some time in a 400 degree oven, this is what they looked like.

Haha, I had no idea until now that I somehow ended up with a picture of me. I have no idea what happened here, and it definitely wasn’t a deliberate attempt to be artsy and photograph myself, but I find it funny so I’ll share it.

So, here they are. Roasted, crispy, salty.

Turns out, they really were so much better! The intense bitterness of before was gone. The unpleasant firmness was also gone, replaced by a soft sprout encased in a delicate, crunchy, tasty shell.

They were very, very salty. I think this was my fault, as I had reduced the number of sprouts in the recipe without adjusting salt or pepper. But it was okay.

Brace yourself for this next statement, for it is profound:

I ate the leftovers.

I did! I ate leftover Brussels sprouts. I did it somewhat gleefully and even considered calling my mom to inform her that I was eating my Brussels sprouts, but in the end, I didn’t. I just smiled with self-satisfaction and told the dogs that they should be proud of me. They didn’t seem impressed.

Granted, these aren’t my favorite. They were pretty good, but they weren’t the best thing ever. But they were good enough for me to go back to the store, purchase MORE BRUSSELS SPROUTS, and make it again.

I’ll pause to let that sink in.

I’m thankful for friends who pointed me in the right direction!

Sloppy Joes and California Potato Salad

This post is about classic dishes. I was getting bored with my normal ground beef recipes and wanted to do something different. Allrecipes suggested Sloppy Joes. I’d never made Sloppy Joes before, so I was hoping for a recipe that was a good representation of what a good one tastes like. And for the side, potato salad. Although there are thousands of different potato salad recipes, many of which I’ve tasted, I had never made one of my own before. For my first attempt, I wanted to make the classic side dish but in a big way: a version that was unique and delicious. I think I accomplished both of these.

 

 

Two memories of Sloppy Joes growing up:

 

1. They were called “Sloppy Jolies” in my house because apparently I made a royal mess with them. This was the only acceptable term, and I’d bet money that it’s the one my parents still use.

 

2. The real reason I made a mess of them was because my mom hid tiny bits of onion on it and I was trying to eat around them. I was on to her tricks.

 

Current thoughts about Sloppy Joes:

 

1. It still feels weird to call them anything other than Sloppy Jolies, but I’m trying.

 

2. I like onions now, assuming they’re cooked down a bit.

So here we go. An onion and a green bell pepper.

 

 

All cut up.

 

 

I started with some ground beef in a big skillet on the stove.

 

 

A little browner…

 

 

When it was mostly done, I drained out the fat and added the vegetables.

 

 

The sauce that I made was a combination of a recipe and my own changes. I’ll post a link for it at some point. For now, this is what you need to know:

 

A bit of ketchup and also some barbecue sauce (I used KC masterpiece).

 

 

And some garlic powder, mustard, and brown sugar.

 

 

The meat and veggies are about done, so I transferred the mixture to a crock pot and added those sauce ingredients.

 

 

Then I added a touch of vinegar (not in the original recipe)

 

 

And Worcestershire sauce (also not in the recipe)

 

 

And then a healthy dose of salt and pepper.

 

 

Then I just mixed it up, covered it, and left the crockpot on low for a few hours.

 

 

 

Now for my potato salad. Here are some potatoes. I didn’t bother to peel them, just scrubbed and cut them up.

 

 

After cubing them, I dropped them in a big pot of water and let them boil.

 

 

I also put some eggs in water to boil.

 

 

Then I assembled my ingredients: garlic, Dijon mustard, rice vinegar, mayonnaise, and a can of artichoke hearts. This is looking yummy already.

 

 

While I waited for the potatoes and eggs to cook, I chopped up the artichokes.

 

 

 

When the potatoes were finally done, I drained them in a big colander.

 

 

And when the eggs were done, I drained out the hot water

 

 

Before replacing it with cold

 

 

When they were cool enough, I peeled the eggs. Here they are! I was surprised by how easy they were to peel. I guess I normally wait until they’re chilled, but this worked well.

 

 

Look at how amazingly perfect they turned out! No green tinge, just a perfect, bright, fluffy yellow yolk.

 

 

Anyway, I diced the eggs and added them to the artichokes.

 

 

Added the potatoes and mixed everything up a bit before adding garlic

 

 

Dijon mustard…

 

 

 

Rice vinegar…

 

 

Mayo…

 

 

The recipe said to use freshly shaved Parmesan. This was the best I had. A poor substitute, I know, so I only added a touch of it.

 

 

Then I mixed everything up.

 

 

Then, in a flash of inspiration, I crumbled and added three strips of cooked bacon that I happened to have in the fridge.

 

 

Then it was time to serve!

 

I put some hamburger buns in the toaster oven.

 

 

The Sloppy Jolie Joe mixture had gotten real nice.

 

 

When the buns were toasted, I spooned a little bit of the meat onto the bun and topped with the other half.

 

 

 

And of course, my California potato salad, bursting with artichokes

 

 

Impressions:

 

The Sloppy Jolies Joes were sweeter than I’d expected. I suppose adding BBQ sauce without decreasing the brown sugar is to blame. I’m not sure it was a bad thing or not, except that the flavor was more reminiscent of BBQ sauce than tomato sauce, as well. But it was good. Hubby seemed pleased enough with it to have seconds, so I guess I did all right.

 

 

As for the potato salad? I can’t praise it enough. It was SO DAMN GOOD. I was fighting the urge to snack on it all afternoon. I ate too much of it at dinner. I nibbled on it again when I was cleaning up later. I ate more the next day. Someone who does not like artichokes will not like this recipe, but someone who likes them will love it. It wasn’t too heavy on mayo, either. I plan on making it again today or tomorrow, if I can get my homework done with enough time to justify playing in the kitchen.

 

Seriously. So good.