Last weekend I had my family over for dinner and I wanted to make sure I prepared a delicious dinner that was both gluten free and atheistically pleasing. I am very much about the whole experience. The World Wide Web is a great place of new discoveries but it can also be a gigantic time suck potentially ending disastrously with a recipe someone else thought tasted good but really classifies as a tasteless horrible mess. A little dramatic, but who wants to spend the hours it takes to research a recipe, shop for the ingredients and prepare a meal that makes the taste buds frown with anticlimactic disappointment. Not me! Since my recent diagnosis with Celiac Disease I have lost many hours researching gluten free flours, recipes and tasty little treats promising I will not look back on my tragic wheat break up. Lack of web sites, blogs and advertisements there is not but how does one not spend their first offspring’s college tuition buying and tasting the hundreds of products only to spit out the deception marketed as a yummy treat? I generally run a wish list of 10 to 15 items at any given time during the month. Currently I wish for a Mac Book Pro to blog, a white iron rod bed with a shabby chic chandelier to hang above my non sleeping self. The recent addition to the wish list: a TRUTHFUL website with TRIED recipes that you don’t need an internship on The Iron Chef to cook. And because I usually have to have everything, would it be hard to have someone with discerning human taste buds to report on gluten free products? If there is one lesson I have learned in the life it’s if you want something done right you need to do it yourself. I want it, I will do it myself! Hence the birth of The Red Door Bakery. I have a red door on my house, original, I know.
The first recipe was a success and everyone loved it! One person commented, “this is restaurant quality food.” Hmm, I’m hoping that comment was meaning a high end restaurant and not Denny’s! Either way, seconds were had and I was pleased with my virgin gluten free voyage. So as promised here is the breakdown of what I really thought:
Cost: This was an expensive one. I had a few of the incidents but had to purchase most. It was around $75.00. Grrr, but it did serve 4 with a couple of left over meals the next day. Better.
Difficulty: Easy. I love slow cooking for the ease, toss indigents in and cover! Aggressive love! I actually went home during lunch and put it together so it would be done for my 7 pm dinner.
Tasty: Yes. The pomegranate and balsamic defiantly add a different taste so if you are cooking for a plain meat and potatoes personality they might not enjoy the sauce as much but everyone loved it and I will defiantly make again!
Recipe taken from glutenfreegoddes@blogspot.com (great blog!)
2 pounds boneless pork loin
Extra virgin olive oil, as needed
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large sweet onion, sliced
2 cups sliced Baby Bella mushrooms
A sprig of fresh rosemary
For the sauce:
1 8-oz. jar apricot jam- no sugar style
1 1/2 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup brandy or wine, optional
4-6 tablespoons organic light brown sugar, or honey, to taste
2 teaspoons dried Italian Herbs- oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mild curry
Turn on your slow cooker to low.
Place the pork loin into the slow cooker. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Throw in the garlic, onions and mushrooms. Toss in a sprig of rosemary.
Make your sauce:
Combine the apricot jam, pomegranate juice and balsamic vinegar. Stir in the brown sugar, herbs and spices, till smooth. Pour over the pork loin and mushrooms.
Cover and cook for about five hours. Test the internal temperature with a meat thermometer. It should read 145 degrees F. To be honest, I let the temperature get up to 160 degrees F. I wanted my first pork roast to be well done.
Take the roast out of the cooker, tent with a piece of foil, and allow it to rest for ten minutes.
Remove the sprig of rosemary and pour the sauce and mushrooms into a medium sauce pan; keep warm until serving. If the sauce is thin, thicken it with a slurry of tapioca or arrowroot (dissolve 1 tablespoon of either starch in two tablespoons cool water or liquid; then add it to the heated sauce; whisk until thickened).
Serves 4.
