Courageous Meals - 4

Garlic Crock Pot Pork 

w/ Sauteed Green Beans and Mushrooms, and Sweet Potato

 This meal was planned for a while ago, and we got to it on Sunday in typical fashion: a little unknown and slightly "winged" if you know what I mean.  Lindsey based the pork of a recipe, but it was still pretty personalized, so we just did not know what to expect.  Turned out awesome!  But make sure the windows are open or something, the smell will be strong enough to kill a few vampires.  Trust me though, it tastes so good.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound pork shoulder
• 1/2 white onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• Black pepper
• 3/4 cups red wine
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 heaping tbsp corn starch (for sauce, not required)
• 2 handful green beans
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 2 tbsp balsamic dressing

Start off by cutting your onion into long pieces, or just keep them in their natural circular form.  Then crush up all but one of the garlic cloves.  Take the one remaining clove, cut little slits around the pork and place small pieces of garlic into the slits and then rub a very thin layer of black pepper over the meat.  Load up half the onion into the crock pot, then place the meat in as well.  Pour 1 cup of water over it, then pour the wine and soy sauce over it as well.  Next add the crushed garlic over the meat, and the remaining onion.  Cover, turn on low, and go about your day.

About 4 hours later (give or take depending on your crock pot of course) grab the rest of the ingredients and get to work on them.  Rip the ends of the green beans off while heating up a pan on the stove over medium heat.  Then add about a tsp of extra virgin olive oil to the pan before dumping your green beans and mushrooms into it.  Mixing them around constantly, add your balsamic dressing (make sure to watch your arms as this will sizzle and spatter a bit).  Add small amounts of water if you feel as though anything is burning, but just keep the veggies moving about the pan for a good 10 minutes before plating them.

Remove the pork and onions from the crock pot, and dump the juice into a bowl.  Add the corn starch to the juice and stir for a minute or two.  Cut the pork up how you please, plate it next to the green beans, drizzle the sauce over it, pour a nice glass of water (or red wine if you please), and boom, there you go!

Lindsey and I added a small sweet potato to our meal as well.  We did this very quickly by forking a few holes in them and setting them in the microwave for about 8-10 minutes.  We added our soy butter and it was wonderful.  We had wanted to make sweet potato fries but completely forgot!  Do what you will of course.

Enjoy!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage