Cook Once, Eat At Least Twice

Several weeks ago, our local grocery store had a ridiculously low price on pork products.  It was all 99 cents a pound, regardless of the cut you bought, so we picked up several pork shoulder roasts to put in the freezer, along with some pork steaks.  We love pork roasts, but don’t eat them nearly as often as we could, because I usually struggle with ideas for the leftovers.  There’s only so many things you can do with pork, and I guess I just don’t think outside the box much with pork.

But the other day I defrosted one of those shoulder roasts, and went back and forth on how I should prepare it.  I wanted it to be a slow-cooked affair, so I pulled out my Nesco Roaster- mine is a very small one, it holds a pork roast, pot roast, or chicken okay, but there’s not much room for anything else.  It’s really perfect for us and what we would need it for, actually.  I had the pork, I had the roaster, but what to do to it?

The first thing I did was to slice off some of the fat cap.  There was quite a bit, so I trimmed off any visible fat on top, knowing that there was plenty marbled throughout- as well as a small bone.  I rummaged through the fridge and freezer before deciding on an…alternative…treatment for the pork roast.

I grabbed a simple can of Coke, and a packet of Knorr Vegetable Soup Mix and went to work.  Well, I guess I wouldn’t really call it work.  I sprinkled the soup mix all over the roast, kind of rubbing it in, but mostly, just sprinkling the whole package in.  Then I popped the can of Coke and poured that over the whole thing.  I put the cover on, turned the dial to 325ºF and walked away.  About 2 hours later the house smelled fantastic, I opened the top and did some basting.  After that point, I basted about every 30 minutes or so.  Total, I cooked my roast for about 5 hours, until it was completely fall apart tender, but still moist.  After a rest, a portion of it was used for dinner, and the rest went in the fridge for another purpose (and then some!) which I will share tomorrow.  This was extremely easy, and you could get the same results using an oven and a foil-covered baking dish.  A crock-pot I’m not so sure of, maybe a good crock, because you need to be able to lift the top and dribble cooking juices over the top without losing too much heat from the cooking vessel.  Oh,as a side note, I did discard the cooking liquid.  I mean, look at the fat in my roast there, that had melted into the liquid, I just couldn’t use it as a gravy or anything like that.

I used a 6 pound roast, for a 3 or 4 pound roast, give it an hour less cooking time.  So easy and surprisingly, this was really flavorful. We had it with some simple carrots and noodles, and it was a great no-fuss dinner.