In 1987 this recipe (called Tahoe Brunch back then) was published in our neighborhood weekly newspaper. I clipped it out and prepared it numerous times over the years – often when we did a brunch on our sailboat because it can be prepared the day before, then baked the day-of. (We have a smallish oven on the boat, and I did have one pan that would fit in it.) A month or so ago I went to a Phillis Carey cooking class, and she prepared it too, with just a couple of modifications. It was then I realized that I’ve never posted this recipe here on my blog. That mistake is now fixed!

It seems that I don’t entertain for brunch anymore. I think it’s because every Sunday morning we’re busy attending morning services at our Presbyterian church, and to try to put on a brunch after that, when we don’t even get home from church until about 11 is just not feasible. Do people have Sunday brunches on Saturdays? I suppose I could – I just haven’t ever thought of it.

So this delicious recipe has been updated just a little bit – I reduced the amount of Italian sausage, tried to quantify the amount of bread called for, have given options for the cheddar or Provolone, and options for either parsley or basil. And gave you options for adding the mushrooms (I used to) or fresh tomatoes (Phillis’ recipe). I’m a bit staggered by the calorie count on this recipe – I may have never noticed it before.

What’s great about it is the fact that it’s made the day before, and over the years I’ve made this numerous times for Thanksgiving morning, Christmas morning, or New Years Day morning. It’s the Italian sausage in it that I like so much. Spicy sausage just gives this a wonderful flavor. Mix that with the cheese, and it’s kind of like pizza in a breakfast dish, I suppose.

It’s very easy to put together once you cook the Italian sausage and onions. Phillis’ recipe had you cube up the bread. My old recipe calls for buttering bread in slices. Either way works.

What’s GOOD: It’s the Italian sausage in it that I like the best, but then I’m a fan of the stuff. The recipe just has lots of flavors abounding in it from the mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes and the seasonings. Love that it can be made 24 hours before. Do bake in a glass or ceramic dish, not metal. You’ll hear lots of mmmm’s and sighs when you serve this.
What’s NOT: nothing really except that it’s rich and high in calories! But it’s a special occasion kind of dish.

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Pork Tenderloin is such a versatile meat and is also very quick and easy to prepare. We needed to eat dinner by 6pm (to leave to go to a concert) and I started dinner at 5 and everything was done at exactly 6:00. This version is quite simple and very tasty.

This time I searched at Eat Your Books to find a pork tenderloin recipe that would be (1) easy; and (2) quick. Success on both counts. I have Barbara Kafka’s book that’s all about roasting any kind of meat. It’s one I refer to whenever I’m doing some hunk of meat, so when her book popped up on the list, I looked at the ingredients needed – oh good – I had them all. If you’re at all tentative about the process of roasting, you might consider having her book in your repertoire: Roasting: A Simple Art.

This recipe required no more than combining a simple rub that went on first, then I gently rubbed olive oil into the meat as well. The spices are Moroccan in culture – hence the Tangiers in the title, but the spices are available everywhere. Nothing all that exotic – the recipe called for salt, cinnamon and cardamom. I added some turmeric and smoked pepper. Into a roasting pan it went, into a hot oven and in 20 minutes flat it was out of the oven and cooked perfectly. I tented the meat with foil and while the meat rested, I made a very simple sauce from the few pan drippings, adding some white wine and stock, and lastly adding in just a little bit of butter. So very easy. We’re trying to eat less and less red meat (although pork tenderloin is really, really lean to begin with), so this one tenderloin actually provided enough for us for 3 dinners. I sliced the meat thinly and widely diagonal, so we had the illusion of eating big pieces of meat, but it really wasn’t. Each serving had just a tiny bit of the sauce drizzled on top.

What’s GOOD: how quick and easy it was to make. Including the sauce at the end. I got everything ready so when the meat came out of the oven everything was right there to whisk together the sauce on the stove top. I quick-like made a vegetable and a salad, and dinner was ready. Love it when that happens. Taste was nice – this isn’t an off-the-charts kind of dinner, but it was good for sure.
What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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No, this isn’t a commercial for All-Clad. I do have these adorable little single-serving ramekins, though, that my friend Cherrie gave me a year or so ago and I forget to use them. They were just perfect for this dish. You could also use just a regular pan for both servings.

While we were on our trip I got a nice email from the folks at Frieda’s Produce. It’s apple season again (hooray) and they wanted to send me some. We got them a few days after our return, and after eating one out of hand right away, I tucked them away in the refrigerator because I knew I wouldn’t use them immediately. But some nights later, once I got back into the routine of fixing dinner (gosh, it was so nice to be on vacation and eat out every meal – no prep, no planning, no cleanup), I was ready to start using some of those organic apples. They sent me baby Cortlands, Cox’s Orange Pippins and Ribston Pippins. If you’re interested, at least the Cortlands are available at some Sprouts markets. Maybe not all. Call and ask. They’re an unusual apple because when you cut them up, they don’t turn brown. All of these are heirloom types: Cortlands date to 1898, the Cox’s from the early 1800s and the Ribston from 1708.

It was so nice of Frieda’s to send the apples to me. I just love apples. Ordinarily I would make dessert with them, but I talked myself out of that since we’d had ample desserts on our trip. I wanted to give ourselves a little break. Not that we had dessert every day – we did not, but even every other day is more than we do at home. If I did my favorite apple dessert, I’d be making my Mom’s Crisp Apple Pudding. I just don’t ever seem to tire of that one. And maybe I will still make that one of these days.

One day before we went on our vacation I decided to clean out one shelf in the freezer. It just wasn’t packed very well, and items kept falling off the shelf and onto my tender sandal-clad toes. Ouch. I found a package of 2 small thick-cut pork chops in there that I’d forgotten I had, so I placed them strategically in the front so I’d see them when we got back. Once we returned, I reached into the freezer for something else, and gosh, wouldn’t you know, those pork chops fell OUT and landed on my toes again. So, that made my decision – I’d cook them.

Making these was not difficult or all that time consuming, really. Once I seared the chops, removed them, then cooked the onion, then the apples and re-inserted the pork in the 2 pans, I stuck them in the oven (covered with foil) and baked them for about 20-25 minutes, until the pork was not quite fork tender.

Pork chops have a habit of either being too chewy, or once they reach a point of tenderness, and you continue to cook them, well, they get dry and hard to eat.

Actually, I didn’t serve them in the little pans – my DH wanted me to, but the All-Clad ramekins are nonstick, and  using a knife might have gouged the nonstick surface. So I removed them to a plate. We had cabbage to go along with it (my recipe for sweet and sour cabbage) which was just very tasty with it. If I’d been better prepared I would have made some rice to put beside the pork because there was a lot of very tasty juices running all over the plate.

What’s GOOD: apples and pork are a perfect pair, like salt and pepper, meatloaf and potatoes; you know what I mean. This wasn’t an over-the-top kind of dish, but it was relatively healthy and had enough flavor for a satisfying dinner. If you have apples on hand, use almost any variety – just don’t use the types that fall apart when cooked (like Delicious). You want the apples to stay in their perfect slices. It was easy enough to make and while the pork cooks you can slap together the rest of your dinner.

What’s NOT: nothing really. Next time I might sprinkle just a bit of flour on the chops, which would help thicken the sauce a little bit – that would be nice, then you could drizzle the sauce on top.

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As a food blogger, it’s so fun when a company contacts me – gee, little old me – asking if they can send me some food product to try. No charge. No strings attached. Actually, Freida’s contacted me about Hatch green chiles, but almost as an afterthought, they threw in a box of finger limes.

Prior to this, I’d only read about finger limes. Before our trip to Australia 2 years ago, I thought I’d scour the food markets there (if I could) to find some. I wanted to taste them. (Alas, it was the wrong time of year for finger limes, so no, I didn’t see a one.)  The whole idea of the finger limes is so bizarre, in a way. Let’s backtrack . . . finger limes were developed in Australia. The limes are small, some pink, yellow, green and off white. When you cut them in half and squeeze them, the little balls of encapsulated lime juice roll out, almost like a roll of fluff. But they’re not fluff, they’re these little sacs of lime juice. Here you can see what they’re like.

The average finger lime, uncut, is about an inch long. I cut several in half and gently squeezed. As I was working , I cut several of the limes more lengthwise and tried to extract the little juicy gems. Hard to do, actually, but once I cut them in half crosswise, and did the squeeze technique, they came right out. I have yet to try these on a piece of fish – that will be the ultimate test, I think, with a bunch of these adorable things scattered on top of a sizzling hot swordfish steak. Some marketing type came up with the “caviar” name, but it’s actually very apt as the sacs kind of pop in your mouth.

The origin of the relish came from Southern Living. It is called a Peanut-Basil Relish. The basil is chopped up finely, then you add green onion tops (only), some fish sauce, garlic, sesame oil (a tiny amount) and olive oil. Serrano pepper was in the mixture, but I didn’t have one, so I substituted some chipotle chile. And then I got the idea about using the finger limes. Peanuts have a role in this – I kept them separate until I was ready to serve (because they absorb liquid easily). It took about 5 minutes to make the relish.

Meanwhile, I sprinkled about a teaspoon of light soy sauce on the pork chops, then a bit of olive oil and some Montreal pepper seasoning. Those went on the grill until the meat reached 150° and they were perfectly done. I spread the relish on top and we chowed down. It was delicious. I happen to have a bumper crop of basil at the moment and this made good use of it. The relish recipe suggested if you have left overs, to mix into pasta.

What’s GOOD: the relish is ever-so easy to make, and the chops were simple to season and grill. Loved the Asian flavors – they’re not overwhelming at all (either the soy sauce on the meat or the fish sauce in the relish) but gave it a piquant taste altogether. The relish would be delish on other things – it does need to be used right away, I think. The little bit that was left in the bowl when I got done was turning black, which is what basil does when it’s bruised and wet. I could have whizzed it up in the food processor and made a paste (with more oil, probably) but I liked it as a kind of rough relish.
What’s NOT: really nothing at all. Liked everything about it.

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For a couple of years we’ve been enjoying a single breakfast sausage most mornings. Trying to make it more healthy, but not giving up the pork aspect altogether, we’ve settled on a mixture of half ground pork and half ground turkey. Delish.

For the longest time we ate Costco’s all pork breakfast sausage, which comes from a distributor in San Diego. If you go outside of SoCal, you’ll find different branded sausage at Costco. I’ve been trying to find more healthy alternatives, though, and at first I tried making sausage patties with all ground turkey. We just didn’t get the flavor and texture we were looking for, so after going back to Costco’s sausage for some months I decided to give it another try. This time with the half and half mixture and more spices. I’ve been making this for about 3-4 months now, and we’re very happy with the results. One of these times I’m going to use slightly more turkey than pork.

The spice mixture started out as one from my friend Sue, who now lives in Colorado. Sue’s mild turkey breakfast sausage  had great flavor, so I went with her combination, but just used a bit more.

Here’s a little triptych at left of how I do it:

(1) all the meat goes into a big bowl

(2) the seasonings are sprinkled all over – do NOT just throw it into one little pile – it will never get mixed in well enough – trust me on this

(3) mix it up and separate those spices as much as possible

(4) use a cookie scoop (or a spoon) to make really large 2-tablespoon-sized balls, approximately, and roll them, then flatten carefully

(5) On a metal sheet lined with waxed paper (or foil) place the patties a hair’s breadth apart, stacking 2 layers with waxed paper in between layers

(6) place tray on a flat surface in the freezer and allow to freeze solidly for about 3-4 hours

(7) remove from freezer and gently pry the patties off the waxed paper and place in Ziploc freezer bags (the quart size will hold about 16 or so of them). Seal up and replace bags in the freezer.

Below is a photo of them during the freezing process. I balance the cookie sheet on several items in the freezer so they’re almost level – and not touching the top rack, obviously. Can you tell my freezer if pretty darned full? I make a double batch of these each time (2 pounds each of turkey and pork) and they keep just fine for a couple of months in the freezer.

When you’re ready to have some, remove the number you want from the freezer bag and slowly (on a low setting) microwave/defrost them for about a minute until they’re defrosted. Do not “cook” them in the microwave – once you actually start to cook them in a frying pan, they’ll cook unevenly if they were partially cooked in the microwave and will tend to dry out.

The only advice I have – don’t over cook them – if you make these you’ll learn how quickly these cook and to remove them just when they’re done. They go from tender and juicy to dry and firm (and not very tasty) in a jiffy.

What’s GOOD: we like everything about this combination. We feel a little bit healthier because we’ve cut out half the pork, but with some in it, it still has all the pork flavor I’m looking for. I really like the subtle mixture of spices – be sure to sprinkle the red chili flakes all over the bowl – they’re potently hot – I speak from the voice of experience here.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. It’s a bit of a nuisance to make, but you’ll have enough to last awhile. Or make a double batch like I do.

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A mustard and thyme rub on the pork gives it good flavor, and a short roast in the oven. But it’s the grape chutney – grape chutney, I ask? Really. Yes. Delicious. Easy.

It had been awhile since I’d been to a Phillis Carey cooking class (this was about a month ago) and after enjoying every single dish, once I got home I discovered that my friend Cherrie and I had already been to classes where she’d prepared 3 of the 5 things. First, it was the prosciutto and fresh mozzarella pizza topped with an arugula salad and pine nuts. It was fantastic! Then she made asparagus pesto on broiled lemon salmon. And lastly, Phillis, the queen of chicken breasts, made lemon-basil grilled chicken breasts with tomato, cucumber and basil beurre blanc. Cherrie and I do attend Phillis’ classes in more than one location, so perhaps that’s what we did – as Phillis tries not to repeat at any one class location. We’re going to need to read the menu synopsis more carefully for future classes!

But, she did make 2 things we’d not had before, this pork tenderloin and a lemon panna cotta which I’ll write up in a couple of days.

You might think chutney is a misnomer here, since most people only know quite sweet fruit-based chutneys. And this one has fruit, but no sugar at all. Yet chutney (a word derived from Sanskrit) refers to a family of condiments from South Asian cuisine that usually contain some mixture of spice(s), vegetable(s) and/or fruit(s). Chutneys may be either wet or dry, and can have a coarse to a fine texture (from Wikipedia). The first chutneys were from India (my first introduction to chutney was with a 21-boy curry and referred to Major Gray’s bottled chutney). From there I made my own a time or two, and prefer it to any prepared chutney.

So, THIS extremely simple chutney is just a combination of red and green seedless grapes, olive oil, red wine vinegar, some dried thyme, S&P. That’s it. That mixture is spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roasted for about 20 minutes – you want the grapes to shrivel, but not fall apart. You can also make these ahead.

The pork – easy – just rub with a mixture of Dijon, dried thyme and olive oil and roast for about 20-25 minutes. See, I told you it was easy.

What’s GOOD: the tender, juicy pork, and just one grape with each bite is just delicious. The grapes just barely pop in your mouth – not really – but just about. One pork tenderloin will usually feed 3 light eaters (the ones from Costco are quite large). If you happen to buy a lot of grapes, I’d suggest you make a double batch. For sure you’ll want more of the chutney – it would also be wonderful with fish or chicken.
What’s NOT: absolutely nothing at all.

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Another one of those “brown” photos. It’s so very hard to give brown colored food any eye appeal. All I can tell you is that this dish was absolutely sensational. The flavors – oh my goodness yes. I’ll be making this again and again. It would even be good enough for guests. What you see there is browned pork chunks (at top), sweet potatoes (bottom and far right), an organic purple carrot (right side, vertical) and fennel (left). And drizzled over the top is the lightly creamed Calvados and broth which was then topped with chopped chives. Thank goodness for chives!

Out of the freezer came our last package of Berkshire pork. It was pork chunks, and by the time I got into the kitchen to start dinner, it was after 4pm, so I needed to figure out something fast. What I didn’t know was what kind of pork it was – it was labeled pork stew meat, that’s all. It could have been trimmings from pork chops, pork shoulder, tenderloin bits, or pork loin. All needing different cooking times. But oh well, I just had to guess. With time of an essence, I knew I needed to do this in the pressure cooker, so the recipe below is done that way, but you can do this all without one – just cook the meat mixture on the stove until barely cooked through, and cook the vegetables until they’re tender. You can add the Calvados cream ingredients with everything in the pot.

You know about Calvados, right? It’s an apple brandy from the northern part of France. It’s still a brandy. I’ve had my bottle for about 15 years, and with this dish I emptied it. We never drink it – I use it exclusively for cooking. Time for a new one now. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Calvados is distilled from cider made from specially grown and selected apples, of which there are over 200 named varieties. It is not uncommon for a Calvados producer to use over 100 specific varieties of apples, which are either sweet (such as the Rouge Duret variety), tart (such as the Rambault variety), or bitter (such as the Mettais, Saint Martin, Frequin, and Binet Rouge varieties), the latter being inedible. The fruit is harvested (either by hand or mechanically) and pressed into a juice that is fermented into a dry cider. It is then distilled into eau de vie. After two years aging in oak casks, it can be sold as Calvados. The longer it is aged, the smoother the drink becomes. Usually the maturation goes on for several years.

Here’s what I did: I sprinkled the pork chunks with Herbes de Provence, then browned them until they were caramelized brown on several sides, not crowding the pieces. That took 2 batches. I removed the meat and poured out the fat that had accumulated in the pan. Meat went back in, then I added a 6-ounce (can) of pineapple juice, 1 1/2 cups of water, bay leaves, fresh thyme sprigs, salt and pepper, and Penzey’s soup base (I used pork, but chicken would be fine). I pressure cooked that for about 13 minutes. Cooled it under a cold running tap, and the pork was just perfectly cooked. I removed the meat (because I didn’t want to cook the meat any further – it was perfectly cooked), then I added all the vegetables and apples and those were pressure cooked for 4 minutes. The vegetables were perfectly cooked so I removed them also. With the liquid left in the pan I added the shallot and Dijon mustard and let that simmer for a few minutes until the shallot was cooked. Then I added the cream and heated it through, then in went the Calvados. I cooked that for 2-3 minutes just so it would boil-off the alcohol. Then I added the meat back in and let that simmer for 2-3 minutes so the meat would be piping hot. The veggies stayed hot, so those were divided amongst the wide soup bowls, then I spooned the meat equally between the bowls (there won’t be lots of meat per person – 2 pounds of pork doesn’t end up being all that much, surprisingly) and poured the Calvados cream over them equally as well. Chopped chives went on top and it was ready to serve.

What’s GOOD: Oh, just everything. The meat, the juices, the veggies, the apples and of course, the creamy Calvados sauce I drizzled over the top. You’ll be licking the bowl.
What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever. Unless you don’t like stew. Or meat, or you’re averse to a little bit of cream.

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Need a new idea for pork tenderloin? That pork tenderloin that is such a lean piece of meat which doesn’t have all that much flavor to start or to end with, but is redeemed if it’s baked to a deep pink and served with a nice sauce?

What you’ll need to make this pork dish is a whole lotta mushrooms. About a pound, give or take. One of the really interesting things Phillis Carey did during the class where this was prepared, was show us 2 piles of mushrooms – one was shiitake and one button. They were approximately equal size – the piles – but one weighed half as much as the other. If you’ve ever picked up shiitakes and considered their weight, well, they’re quite light. Since they’re so darned expensive it’s really helpful that you use half as much weight of them as the button mushrooms. The shiitakes not only add flavor, but a very different texture to this sauce, so do seek them out.

The pork tenderloin must be trimmed well – of any visible fat. Well, not every speck, but at least remove as much as possible. And most often the tenderloins have a layer of silverskin on one side and end which should be removed. Not only is it tough and not really edible, but it’s presence means the pork won’t pick up any particular flavoring. Even though you may brown it, that caramelization (Maillard effect) won’t be effective if silverskin is in the way. So do take the time with a small and very sharp paring knife and cut away that silverskin.

Once it’s trimmed and ready, put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Or use a Silpat if you have one. Once you put the tenderloin in the oven you’re about 25 minutes from being ready to slice and serve the meat, so have the sauce ingredients all prepped before you start. Don’t start cleaning mushrooms after you’ve put the meat in the oven, okay? And do have the rest of your dinner all ready to go – the pork will need to rest for a few minutes, but it will hold the heat and re-absorb all those good juices.

Meanwhile, whip up the sauce. Clean the mushrooms – I keep hearing some experts say that mushrooms don’t absorb much, if any, water if you wash them. Phillis absolutely says wipe them with a paper towel – her perspective is that all mushrooms we buy at grocery stores are raised in indoor beds anyway, so all we’re wiping off is the specialized (almost fake) soil. It’s not like dirt from your backyard. And she definitely feels that mushrooms absorb liquid because she watches how much longer it takes to cook out any fluid in them. So anyway, whichever way you clean them, slice them up. Melt butter, cook the mushrooms until all that liquid has evaporated, then add wine. Chicken broth is next, the little bit of cream (well, 1/2 cup!) and bourbon.

Bourbon – well – it has a kind of earthiness to the flavor – if you’re not a fan, use brandy instead. But this sauce was really nice with bourbon, I must say. Most of the liquor is added in during the cooking, but one more T. is added at the end to give a little jolt of extra flavor.

Once the pork is ready, slice on the diagonal – take a look at the grain of the pork – it sort of curves like wrapping around on the diagonal . . . you want to slice it across that grain if possible. Serve with the sauce.

What’s GOOD: how easy this meal is to put together – and it’s very worthy of a company dinner, but easy enough for a weeknight dinner too. Loved the sauce and the heft of it. Full of flavor.

What’s NOT: really nothing at all.

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Fried pork chops. Yes! They’re marinated in a buttermilk mixture, then dipped into panko crumbs, then fried ever-so-briefly in canola oil for 2-3 minutes per side and these are DONE!

I don’t fry meat very much. I don’t really fry chicken, although I did make that once and post about it here. I don’t fry fish at all. I don’t fry much of anything – sauté in a little oil, yes, but these are almost – but not quite – deep fried. What I had were thin-sliced pork chops, and didn’t really know what to do with them. Usually I have thick-sliced pork chops, but no, these were truly thin. I searched on the internet – I was sure I’d seen a recipe recently for thin pork chops, or watched some show about it, but couldn’t find a record of it. My online search for it didn’t result in much. Then I modified the search and found this recipe from The Hungry Mouse blog, which was just wonderful!

First the meat was trimmed of most visible fat – if you don’t, you’ll have all those edges with big bites of gloopy fat and that I didn’t want. The chops I had did have a thick edge of fat which I trimmed off almost completely. In a small plastic bag I combined an egg (I made half of the below recipe for 2 large, but thin pork chops), buttermilk, garlic powder, salt, black pepper. I did not have dried parsley, and fresh parsley would have burned, so I added in some dried sage instead. The meat was squished around with the marinade a bit and I let it sit for about 30 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, I’d prepared another plastic bag with nothing but 1/2 cup of panko crumbs in it. Once the rest of my dinner was ready – you DO want to have everything else ready before you start this because it comes together in a hurry – I heated canola oil (I didn’t have pure olive oil as recommended in the recipe) in a frying pan that was about 8 or 9 inches across. Big enough to hold the 2 pork chops with just a little bit of wiggle room. Just remember when you add oil to the pan, use less than you think, because the pork chops will displace the oil. The oil reached the top of the chops barely – not covered it – but just to the top edge, so I used too much.

Briefly drain – just by holding each chop out of the marinade – then one by one add them to the panko bag and hold the top tight while you toss the bag some. The panko will just perfectly cling to the egg-buttermilk marinade. As I finished that the chop went directly into the hot oil. The recipe said not to fry these unless the meat caused bubbling, so I did exactly as suggested – I dipped one edge of the chop into the oil – it bubbled nicely, so gently I slipped it into the oil. Then I repeated it for the second chop. I didn’t time it – 2-3 minutes per side is what it said. Very gently with Teflon-coated tongs I lifted up one corner of a chop to see if it was golden brown. Yup! Also very carefully, I lifted and turned each one. When you turn them over they’ll bubble up furiously, so it was time to turn down the heat. Way down, actually. I thought they were going to burn, but they didn’t. Another 2-3 minutes per side and they were done. I drained them very, very briefly on paper towels and served alongside some asparagus tossed with lemon juice and little butter, a green salad with veggies and a big honkin’ biscuit you read about a few days ago, Paradise Biscuits. Delish.

What’s GOOD: how quick they were to make. Nice flavoring, tender – amazing when you consider they only cooked 2-3 minutes per side. They might have been nice with some kind of sauce, but I didn’t have any, so they were served plain. If I’d had my druthers, I’d have served them with mashed potatoes and gravy, probably, but I almost never make that kind of meal!

What’s NOT: well, these probably aren’t all that healthy, but the experts say that if you do fry food, if the heat is kept consistently at a fairly high temp (over 375°) the meat and coating will absorb barely any of the oil. With the panko, I suppose it did take some, but believe it or not, these were not greasy.

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That’s the pork sirloin roast resting in my slow cooker. I hadn’t yet added the bed of beef broth and balsamic vinegar. Until recently I’d never even prepared a pork sirloin roast, but they’re available for a very reasonable price at Costco. One of these little puppies would serve a nice dinner for 4 or maybe 5.

When I opened my freezer door the other day, one of these roasts that I’d vacuum sealed just about fell off the shelf (uhm, can you tell my freezer is full?). I managed to grab it before it dented my hard wood floor! Fortunately, I’d recently read Kalyn Denny’s blog, Kalyn’s Kitchen for just this very roast (hers said sirloin tip – mine was just sirloin) done in the slow cooker. Perfect!

Her recipe is the epitome of easy. That’s what slow cookers are for, right? The pork is seasoned well, browned well, placed in the slow cooker and then you add beef broth and inexpensive balsamic vinegar. My slight changes included using a different herb and salt mixture. I added fresh rosemary sprigs, and lastly, later on, you add a bunch of thick-sliced onions to the slow cooker during the last 60-90 minutes. Kalyn had used red onions. I had sweet onions that needed to be used.

There’s the finished product. There is more pork underneath all those onions, and the brothy sauce is also moving around on the plate. It’s not a thickened gravy – just the broth, balsamic, the herbs and spices and whatever good pork flavor was picked up during the slow cooking. I garnished it with flat-leaf parsley and some fresh green onions.

The roast fell apart as soon as we started to slice it. No slicing here, just pull off some pieces and serve it with the tender and very tasty onions and a small ladle of the balsamic broth.

What’s GOOD: it’s all delicious. The onions are great – sweet, juicy. The pork is fork tender. Be careful not to over cook it or it will become dry. It depends on the size of the roast. If the roast is done, remove it and then finish cooking the onions until they’re totally limp and ready to eat. It’s such a simple recipe, too.
What’s NOT: nothing at all. A great recipe for a healthy and easy dinner.

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