Friday, November 2, 2012

Pork Crock Pot Meals

(formatting is not working...sorry!) My son is in kindergarten and is totally uninterested in cooking (although he used to enjoy helping me a lot.) My daughter is now a toddler and into everything so I can't spend tons of time preparing meals and any time spent cooking involves dozens of interruptions. I have been forced to prepare simple things which has been kind of relaxing since I am always trying to figure out how to cook the myriad of vegetables we receive in our CSA box. In the summer I got into the habit of cooking the same basic pattern of a meal every night, substituting different things for the different elements of the meal. The basic meal pattern was meat/pasta/eggs/etc. + vegetable + bread. We never ate the same combo more than once in a week, but I didn't have to think too hard about what we were going to eat every night. We also got into the habit of eating Pizza every Friday night (usually Domino's) which is quite a divergence from my conviction to eat responsibly (eating food that is raised ethically which is more healthy for us and the environment and follows the Christian mandate to live out the kingdom of God on earth), but also a much needed rest from the mayhem. Now that our winter CSA boxes are arriving, dinner takes a bit more planning (we still eat pizza once a week!). I can't come to the kitchen 30 min before we're going to eat and fry sausages and steam romanesco when I have carrots (Micah hates cooked carrots), potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, winter squash, parsnips, etc. The last two Fridays I have taken to making a crockpot meal. As always I am trying to eat responsibly, but many crockpot cookbooks call for canned soup (yuck!) so how to do it? In Quebec, if a person had the time to go to several different stores in a week (which I used to do before Junia became a toddler) that person could buy meat from a butcher or local farm, produce from a little produce store or one of the year-round markets, bread from a little bakery, and visit the local organic mini-mart as well as the organic food co-op. However, I am currently limited to my CSA box and going to IGA once a week. The food in Quebec is VERY expensive. Many people actually drive to the U.S. to go grocery shopping, a habit that I refuse to do on general principal because it violates my conviction to eat locally and reduce green house gas emissions, but I must admit that I am tempted by the lower prices of gas and beer and am convinced that we would save money in the long run, but I still refuse... The cost of food is a serious issue, even in our family context, where we had already decided to spend more money on higher quality food, viewing the extra cost as an offering to God because we believe that factory farms are sinful and do not want to support those farming practices or the unhealthy food produced and sold by them. But, in Quebec, organic is simply out of reach. For the rest of the food, it is very difficult to find out what the actual farming practices are because a lot of the available information is in French. However, many of the traditional brands do not put high fructose corn syrup in their products (Hellman's Mayo, Heinz Ketchup, etc.). In terms of fresh meat, cheese, produce, here is what I know: - I have heard that the cows here are raised without hormones so we buy Quebec milk. And actually it is MUCH higher quality than U.S. milk from cows raised without hormones. If you leave it out by accident, it will curdle...gross, but more natural than remaining homogenous. I buy Quebec cheese and yogurt as well. In fact, the Yoplait Yogurt Tubes here do not have high fructose corn syrup and they are made in Quebec. I never thought I would buy such a thing, but I do. The favorite flavor in this house is persimmon-lemon. Compare that to cotton candy flavored Yoplait Yogurt Tubes in the U.S.. Actually don't, just take my word for it that cotton candy yogurt is disgusting and disgraceful on so many levels it would take another blog post to describe it and since I've already completely diverged on this one, I'm not going to go there. ;-) - I have also heard that the regulations regarding how many chickens can be raised per square foot on a farm are more strict here so I can actually eat the non-organic chicken from IGA without getting sick (regular grocery store chicken in the U.S. makes me physically sick...gross...). - Also, herbicides are banned in Quebec so when I do have to buy produce at the grocery store I try to buy aliments du Quebec (food from Quebec), which Quebecers are quite proud of so the signs indicating these items are large and numerous. In fact, you find the "Aliments du Quebec" signs all over IGA in every section, great for eating locally. - And for bread I always buy Kosher from the bakery section because it has the least number of ingredients and nothing I don't already have in my pantry. So! Pork Crock Pot Meals! I have gotten a pork roast from the butcher these last two Thursdays. The pork is raised in Quebec so I assume the regulations are better than in the U.S. for space, feed, etc., although I haven't asked. It's definitely a step down from the forest-fed pork we ate in Charlottesville and from a local Quebec farm here, but several steps up from the regular grocery story pork in the U.S.. The butcher will marinate for you if you ask (a super bonus since I hate touching raw meat!) so last week I got a maple rub and this week I got honey dijon. I let the roasts sit in the fridge overnight and put them in the crock pot on Friday morning with a bunch of veggies from our organic CSA. This is very simple. Besides chopping veggies there is no other prep. Then Junia and I play tea party in our pajamas until lunch! The recipes are simple and fabulous. Here they are! Maple Rub Pork Crock Pot Meal 1 pork roast with the IGA maple rub on it (the butchers will do it if you ask them) 2 medium onions 2 cloves garlic, minced 3-4 potatoes, chopped 1 winter squash, peeled and chopped 2 sprigs rosemary Put pork in crock pot. Cover with remaining ingredients, putting the rosemary sprigs on top. Cook on low 8 hours. Honey Dijon Rub Pork Crock Pot Meal 1 pork roast with the IGA honey dijon rub on it (the butchers will do it for you) 1.5 pounds of shredded cabbage 2 medium onions, sliced 2 garlic cloves minced 3 potatoes, chopped, 2 tart apples, peeled and chopped in big chunks 2/3 cup dry white wine Put pork in crock pot. Cover with remaining ingredients, pouring the white wine over everything. Cook on low 8 hours.