September 13, 213

It's Friday the 13th!  Any plans?  Many, many years ago we used to watch scary movies on Friday the 13th.  I don't even really like scary movies, and it was always my idea!  I suppose I just thought it was a fun thing to do to mark the day, but thankfully I grew out of that routine.  Tonight I think we are watching 42 for our traditional pizza/movie Friday night.  The big kids and I saw it, but Ryan hasn't, and it is definitely worth watching twice.

This week had little opportunity to try new recipes, but we did find one new keeper!  A friend of mine was looking for vegetarian slow cooker ideas, and though this certainly doesn't fit into the category, her request pushed me to find a new slow cooker recipe for this week.  Slow cooker teriyaki pork turned out delicious, and was ridiculously easy.  The hardest part was trimming the pork, and adjusting the time because I ended up with chunks of pork instead of one full roast I could easily cut in half.  So yes, it was easy!  I served it with brown rice, and everyone was a fan - even of the brown rice!  I have to admit, I usually use white rice when serving it with a meal, but decided that since the brown rice salad was such a hit last week, why not try plain brown rice.  And, surprise, surprise, everyone had a few helpings of the rice, and no one complained!  I think the kids liked it even better than white rice! The recipe suggested serving this pork with mashed potatoes, but given the teriayki spin to it I felt that rice made more sense.  I am glad I went that route, but you can serve this with mashed potatoes, or even egg noodles.  And when I had the leftover pork for lunch the next day, it was still fantastic.  If you had enough left over to reuse it in a meal, you could reinvent it as part of a filling for quesadillas.

I am still on the hunt for vegetarian slow cooker recipes...if you have a good one (or more than one) email me at monkeysinthekitchen@gmail.com

New Recipe
Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pork 

Slow Cooker Terayaki Pork

Ingredients
* 1 boneless pork roast (shoulder, butt, etc), 3-4 lbs
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/3 cup apple cider
* 1/3 cup soy sauce
* salt and pepper, freshly ground
* 2 tbsp cornstarch
* 3 tbsp cold water

Directions
1. Trim your pork to remove as much fat as possible.  Cut the roast in half, or in big chunks if that is how it works out when you trim it.
2. Rub the pork with the borwn sugar, then place in your slow cooker.
3. Pour the apple cider and soy sauce over the pork, then season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours (depending on size of roast and how you cut it).
4. Remove roast and cover to keep warm.  Strain the sauce, then return to the slow cooker.  Combine the corn starch and water until smooth, then add this to the sauce in the slow cooker.  Stir well, then cover and cook on high for 15 minutes or until thickened.
5. Slice or chunk the pork, serve with gravy.

Notes
We loved this.  So easy to throw together, and there is nothing better than the slow cooker doing all the work for dinner while you work or are out and about.  We served this with brown rice, but you could pair with potatoes or egg noodles as well.