CrockPot Pork Roast

Cooking a roast has always made me nervous. There's a fine line between undercooked and overcooked when it comes to roast, so I don't attempt it too often. But, making it in the CrockPot is pretty much foolproof and it is SO delicious! The extremely tender roast literally fell apart when I poked it with a wooden spoon after about 9 hours of cooking and the veggies that had been cooking in the sauce all day were just to die for!

CrockPot Pork Roast

4 lb pork loin

3 celery stalks, sliced

6 new potatoes, quartered

1/2 white onion, sliced

1 cup baby carrots

3/4 cup red wine

1 cup water

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon low sodium soy sauce

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons flour (if you want to make brown gravy)

Arrange the potatoes in the bottom of the CrockPot, followed by the onions, celery and then the carrots. Place pork loin on top.

In a bowl, mix the wine, water, onion mix, Worcestershire, soy sauce, garlic, rosemary, thyme and parsely. Pour mixture over the meat and veggies in the CrockPot.

Cook for 8-10 hours on low.

Once cooking is complete, remove meat and veggies from CrockPot, but leave the sauce behind. Add around 2 tablespoons of flour to the sauce, mix well and cook for about 10 more minutes. Sauce will thicken into a gravy.

I forgot to take an "after" picture because I was just too excited about successfully cooking a roast, haha! It was very pretty though! :)

CrockPot BBQ Pulled Pork and Homemade Mac & Cheese

Stop whatever you are doing, right this instant.

And go make this.

Seriously, it is that good.

I found two recipes for pulled pork last week, here and here, and then sort of combined the two to into what turned out to be a super yummy recipe. We ended up eating dinner at 5:30 the night I made this because the delicious smell made us SO hungry!

CrockPot BBQ Pulled Pork

4 pounds pork shoulder (ours was bone in, but you could use boneless)
1 white onion, sliced in rings

2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup worcestershire
1 tbsp ground mustard
1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tsp McCormick's Montreal steak seasoning
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp liquid smoke

5 splashes of Tabasco sauce
Dash red pepper flakes (we like things spicy, so I used about a teaspoon)

Salt and pepper to taste

Start by adding everything but the meat and onions to the CrockPot. Thoroughly whisk together.

Add meat to CrockPot and turn it a few times, to coat each side with the sauce. Then throw the onions into the CrockPot as well.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

When cooked through, place meat onto a cutting board to shred. The meat is so tender that it will literally fall apart when you touch it. Discard any bones and fat (or give them to the dog - made Shiner's day!). After the meat is shredded, place it back into the pot and cook it for another 30 minutes or so, just so that it can soak up a little more juice.

Be warned that this makes A LOT of food! We've eaten pulled pork 4 times already and there is still a ton left.

That face means that my recipe was a success. :)

I also used all of these ingredients (minus the pork and onion) and bottled up my own BBQ sauce! I added about the same amount of everything that the recipe called for and then just played with the ingredients until I liked the way it tasted. SO GOOD!

I served the pulled pork with some mac and cheese I whipped up from ingredients we had laying around the house.

Homemade Mac & Cheese

2 cups elbow noodles (we were out, so we had flower shaped macaroni. Ha!)
2 cups shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup fat free sour cream
3 tbsp butter (I used fat free Can't Believe It's Not Butter)
1/2 white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp italian seasoning
1/4 tsp ground mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup bread crumbs

Cook pasta as directed.

In a saucepan, sauté onion and garlic in 1 tbsp butter until golden.

Add spices, milk, sour cream, and 1 3/4 cup cheese to saucepan. Mix until creamy and cheese is melted.

Add pasta and mix well.

Spray an 8x8 baking dish with Pam. Add pasta and sauce.

Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup cheese and 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs on top.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

The final product! Also served with potato bread and baked beans. Not the healthiest meal out there, but it was worth it. Oh, so worth it.