Chili and Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin

We had this for dinner last night. It was really moist and yummy. It had a little bit of heat to it. For those families with young children, you might want to half the sambal oelek. The flavor was really good, and we all really liked it.

Chili and Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin

Http://crockpot365.blogspot.com

The Ingredients

serves 4 (can easily be doubled or tripled!)

 

2 pounds pork tenderloin, quartered

2 tablespoons all-natural maple syrup

1 tablespoon prepared chili pepper sauce (sambal oelek)

1 teaspoon five-spice powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 green onions, thinly sliced

 

Homemade "cheater" sambal oelek:

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon chopped garlic cloves (approximately 2 cloves)

1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

 

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. Put the pork into the insert, and add the maple syrup, chili sauce, five-spice powder, salt, and pepper. Stir well to disperse the spices. Toss in the green onions. Cover, and cook on low for 7 to 8 hours, or until the pork has reached desired tenderness.

 

The Verdict

 

This moist, sweet pork has a tiny bit of lingering heat from the chili pepper sauce. Pork tenderloin has a tendency to dry out, but cooking in the slow cooker really traps in valuable steam. If you find that your cooker releases a lot of steam while cooking, you can wrap the pork in a piece of aluminum foil to keep it nice and juicy.

Cream Cheese Chicken Taqitos

Had these for dinner last night. They were sooo good. I didn’t even dip them in anything. That says a lot. The recipe says that it makes 12, but I got 20. I might not have been quite so generous on the filling, but I wanted to be able to roll them. I thought they had plenty of filling. I used a generous, but not heaping serving size tablespoon. Next time I think I will double this so that I can put some of them in the freezer.

Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• salt + pepper
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ⅓ cup water
• ½ cup shredded colby or Mexican blend cheese
• 12 6 inch corn or flour tortillas
• optional: cilantro, salsa, sour cream, or other toppings as desired

Instructions

1. Mix chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper to taste, cream cheese, and water in a medium mixing bowl. (I put this in the microwave for 1 minute to make it easier to mix) Pour half of the mixture into your crockpot, place chicken in crockpot and pour remaining mixture over the chicken.
2. Cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
3. Minutes before serving, remove chicken from crock pot, shred with two forks, and return to slow cooker. Give it a stir. Cook about 15 minutes longer.
4. Preheat oven to 400. Here is a great trick to keep your corn tortilla from falling apart. Place 1 corn tortilla on a skillet, put about ⅛ cup cheese on the corn tortilla. Warm the tortilla until the cheese melts, remove tortilla from pan. Melting the cheese on the corn tortilla will keep it from falling apart in the next step.
5. Place about ¼ cup of the chicken mixture onto the middle of each corn tortilla that has the melted cheese on it or a flour tortilla.
6. Top with 1-2 tablespoons shredded cheese. Roll tightly and place in a single layer on a greased baking sheet. If using corn tortilla brushing some olive oil over them will help with browning and crisping.
7. Bake 10 minutes, until tortillas are slightly browned and shredded cheese is melted. Serve with desired toppings and sauces.

Recipe from http://lecremedelacrumb.com

Slow-Cooker Chinese Pork with Garlic Noodles

We had this for dinner last night.  My boys, 1 girlfriend and I really liked it.  My husband said it was okay.  It was really easy.  The pork had really good flavor, and then the sauce flavored the noodles.  This made tons.  For those of you that don’t have kids left at home, or are single, I recommend halving this recipe.  My husband and boys are not fond of cilantro, so I didn’t include that, and I forgot the peanuts, but we will do this again for sure.

Slow-Cooker Chinese Pork with Garlic Noodles

Prep Time 30 min

Total Time 4 hr 20 min

Servings 9

Ingredients

2 pork tenderloins (1 lb each), trimmed

1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

1 tablespoon tomato sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon grated gingerroot

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

2 packages (8 oz each) Chinese noodles

1 cup julienne carrots

¾ cup diagonally sliced green onions

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1/3 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

9 lime wedges

Directions

• 1 Spray 5-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Place pork in slow cooker. In small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce, the hoisin sauce, tomato sauce, sugar, gingerroot and garlic. Pour over pork.
• 2 Cover; cook on Low heat setting 3 hours 30 minutes. Remove pork from slow cooker to large bowl; let stand 10 minutes. Pour cooking liquid through strainer into separate bowl; cover to keep warm. Shred pork, using 2 forks; cover to keep warm.
• 3 Return cooking liquid to slow cooker; stir in remaining 3 tablespoons soy sauce, the vinegar and sesame oil. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 10 minutes.
• 4 Meanwhile, cook noodles as directed on package. Turn slow cooker off. Add carrots, onions, cilantro leaves, shredded pork and cooked noodles; toss to coat. Sprinkle individual servings with peanuts and chopped cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.

Note: I didn’t want to use my big crockpot, so I put the meat in my small one.  Cooked the noodles in my big metal pot and then transferred the meat/sauce to the noodle pot.

Crockpot Sweet and Sour Pork

I'm not a big fan of pineapple when it is warmed for some reason.  I had reservations about this recipe for that reason.  We all love sweet and sour, and it was a dump recipe so I decided to give it a try.  I have to admit that it was amazing.  We really liked it.  Not only that it made quite a bit when added with the rice.  Very inxexpsive recipe to feed the family.

Crockpot Sweet and Sour Pork

*2-3 pound lean pork roast
**1 cup granulated sugar (seems like a lot, but it mellows out)
½ cup white vinegar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons ketchup
20 ounce can crushed pineapple (drained)
.
Brown the pork roast on all sides and put it in your slow cooker. Mix everything else and bring it to a boil, then pour it over the meat.
.
Cook on low for 4-6 hours or until very tender (spoon the sauce over the meat every once in a while).

NOTES: 

*Walmart sells a small vacuum packed 2 pound pork roast that is perfect for this recipe. The package says "pork loin rib eye pork roast".

**Even though as noted the sugar mellows out, it was still a bit sweet for us.  Especially since you have sweet from the pineapple juice also.  I think next time I make it I am going to cut the sugar in half.  

Crockpot Hungarian Goulash

Quick and yummy.  If you have never had goulash before, it is kind of like a Hungarian chili.  Instead of meat and beans with chili powder it is meat, bacon and paprika.  Using the sweet paprika just gives it good flavor instead of heat.

Crockpot Hungarian Goulash

Ingredients

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 onions, sliced

4 slices bacon, cut in ¼ inch pieces

2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste

1 1/2 cups water

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until just starting to turn brown.  Add onions in oil until soft, stirring frequently. Remove bacon and onions and add to crockpot.
2. In a ziplock bag, combine paprika, 2 teaspoons salt and pepper. Coat beef cubes in spice mixture.  Add a little bit of oil and cook in onion pot until brown on all sides. Add to crockpot.  Pour  tomato paste, water, garlic and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt into skillet and cook for a couple of minutes trying to get any brown bits up.  Add sauce to crockpot.  Cook on low about 6-8 hours, or until meat is tender.
3. Serve over cooked noodles.  Garnish with sour cream.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I adore soup!  I have been looking for a good chicken tortilla for several years.  Playing around on Pintrest the other day and found a recipe for 8 can tortilla soup.  The ingredients looked interesting.  I made a pot last night with some leftover chicken.  It was soooo good.  To top it off, not only is it crockpot, it is a dump recipe.

Can Chicken Tortilla Soup

Author: Tiffany Ivanovsky

Recipe type: Soup

Ingredients

·         1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

·         1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

·         1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained

·         1 (15 oz) can sweet corn, drained

·         1 (12.5 oz) can chicken breast, drained

·         1 (10.75 oz) can cream of chicken soup

·         1 (10 oz) can green enchilada sauce

·         1 (14 oz) can chicken broth

·         1 (1 oz) packet taco seasoning

Instructions

1.     Open and pour all ingredients into a large stock pot or into your slow cooker and stir together. Cook on low heat for 2-3 hours. Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado and tortilla chips.

NOTE:  This also freezes well for lunch.