Tonight's Dinner: Slow Cooker Pork Roast

When I was growing up, one of our favorite dinners was a pork roast cooked in a slow cooker. Made with garlic, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and Italian sausage, it was a dinner that was tasty, but also tended to be high in fat from the roast (into which went the slivers of garlic) and the sausage.  At that time, no one really thought about the amount of fat we were consuming, even someone like myself, who was continually on a diet to try to shed the excess weight I was carrying. Still, it's a dinner that has the potential to be much healthier, with a few tweaks.

I selected a 1lb, 8oz (0.68 kg) roast for tonight's dinner, which I had trimmed of nearly all its visible fat after I had purchased it. Thinly slice 1 1/2 large green peppers (the only kind available during the winter, unfortunately) and 1 medium to large sized onion, putting them in the bottom of the slow cooker (vegetables cook better when on the bottom of a slow cooker). Add 1 large can of diced tomatoes -- no salt is great, as it will lower the sodium content of your meal, if you need to watch your sodium intake.  Add your roast, sprinkle with parsley, oregano, garlic powder (if you don't put garlic in your roast, which you're welcome to do; I don't because of garlic sensitivities in this house), and black pepper.  I like my pork spicy, so I generally add some red pepper flakes to give it a bit of spice.  This is also the time to add a little salt and/or some beef and chicken bullion powder, but remember to go easy on these if you're on a salt-restricted diet. Stir spices and tomatoes to spread spices through the pot.

For years, this is where I'd start the cooking.  We'd eliminated the sausage portion because of its high fat content.  Well, our local grocery store (Giant) started carrying a low-fat hot Italian turkey sausage that tasted even better than most of the pork Italian sausages we found in Pennsylvania, so now this pork creation tastes more like it did when I was a kid! I used 3 links (~10 ounces, or 283 grams), sautéing them in a pan coated with non-stick spray:

Yum, yum!! I added these, stirred to evenly distribute these through the meal. Cover the cooker, turn to high and....it's now cooking. 

As this stands, it's a fairly low carb meal. Tomatoes, onions, and peppers aren't very high in carbs, and of course, the meats have no carbs in them at all. Now all that's left to do is for the meal to cook.  It should be done by around 7:00 this evening.

Generally, I serve this over rice and pair it with a green salad, making it a very healthy meal. When dinner's done and I have it plated, I'll update this entry so you can see how it looks.  'Till then, good eating!

UPDATE, 8:22 PM EST:

Dinner is done and here's what it looks like:

Instead of rice, this goes well with noodles, too. No matter how you serve it, this dish has a lot of texture, aroma, and flavor. Now, I have to admit that this is not my plate; this has more than I normally eat. My serving is more like this:

This has 2/3 cup of noodles, ~ 3 ounces of meat, and an ounce or so of tomatoes and veggies. It's not a lot, but it does has enough to fill me up.

Again, good eating!!

Tonight's Dinner: Chicken and Wine Sauce

I know it's been a while, but while I was making dinner today, I decided to see how well my new camera takes food pictures. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the photos turned out! They are much better than my old camera. So, without further ado, here's tonight's dinner: Chicken and Wine Sauce.

The recipe comes from the cookbook, Diabetic Living: Our Best Diabetic Living Recipes.  It's one I've made before and I think it's quite good. A lower fat and carbohydrate-controlled version of a classic chicken stew, it's a great meal as the weather turns cooler. Here's a shot of the recipe:

As written, the recipe calls for skinned chicken thighs or drumsticks. While those are a great option for those on a budget, since I like ease, I used frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast tenderloins.  No skinning, no removing bones, just good eating later. Next, I substituted frozen, crinkle cut carrots for fresh carrots, since I didn't have fresh on-hand. It also cuts down on the work, since there's no cutting. Instead of 4 medium red potatoes, I used 2 large russet potatoes. Yes, I know there's a huge difference in the taste of red potatoes and russet potatoes, but from a personal standpoint, I can deal with the difference. Personally, I would say use your favorite potato. Remember that potatoes have approximately 15-18 grams of carbohydrates per 70 gram (~2.5 ounce) serving, so use that when you are calculating your carbs.

Now, while the recipe is called Chicken and wine sauce, unfortunately, I do not have dry white wine in the house. Extra chicken broth makes an easy substitute, though, and if you do not drink or do not happen to have wine available, adding an extra 1/2 cup of chicken broth is a simple way to ensure you have enough liquid in the pot while still having flavor. We also do not use fresh garlic in this house, as there are some who are sensitive to it, so instead of fresh garlic, I used 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder. During the summer, we grow our own parsley, both Italian flat leaf and regular curled parsley, so the parsley in this pot was REALLY fresh! Some thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper round out the seasonings. Here is the pot just before I turned it on to cook for the 4 hours:

After it's cooked and the gravy made, I'll take another picture and post it here. Look for an update soon!

UPDATE, 10:18 PM, 9/14/2013:

 Dinner is finished and consumed! After cooking for about 4 1/2 hours, I removed the vegetables and meat from the pot in order to make the gravy. It's a simple gravy, just 3 tablespoons of margarine and flour each plus the liquid from the pot. Melt the margarine, add the flour, cook for 1 minute and add the liquid, cook for 2 minutes. Easy, right? Well, check out this picture of the gravy:

Note the lumps. Equal parts margarine and flour with heat seem to clump up and when I added the liquid, the clumps remained. It took a lot of wisking to rid the gravy of the lumps. I should have simply melted the margarine, added that to the liquid, and then added the flour while wisking the gravy. Oh well, live and learn.

The vegetables and chicken turned out fine:

I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, so it was served like a stew. Put the vegetables on the plate, add the chicken, then put a small amount of gravy on top of both the chicken and veggies. Since I served myself only 70g of potatoes and 3 ounces of chicken, I was able to allow myself a small roll with light margarine.

So, if you make this, watch the gravy base. Not only can it easily burn, but if you aren't careful, you could end up with lumpy gravy. Also, make sure you evenly distribute the spices throughout the pot while cooking (should be a no-duh, but sometimes one can forget to stir the pot). Number of carbohydrates in the picture: 17 from roll, 16 from potatoes, ~ 6 from carrots, celery, and onions -- 39 total. Add 15 additional carbohydrate grams for dessert for a total of 54 grams and 3 units of insulin. Not bad for dinner!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the eating!