Thursday, August 23, 2012

Healthy Pulled Pork

Recently I have changed my eating habits and cutting out a lot things out of my diet including pork. Now I am a southern girl and I love pork but it is just way too unhealthy, well at least most cuts are. Unfortunately I am also on a budget and pork is one of the cheapest meats there is. So last week I do as I always do every Thursday. I pull up all the local store weekly ads on my computer, write down the best deals I see on meats and I come up with a menu and ideas on how to experiment. One of our local stores had Pork loin tips or pork tenderloins on sale buy one pkg. get 3 free. So of course I see free and the ideas begin in my head. I have used pork loin roast before usually one from Sam's Club that is already marinated in a one dish meal I create where I place the roast in a roasting pan, surround it with quartered red potatoes and top the potatoes with either baby carrots or fresh baby green beans (season with lemon pepper, garlic and basil. Use some chicken stock in the bottom of the pan and some fresh lemon juice. Bake at 375 until veggies are tender) However I have never bought the tenderloin or tips so I start researching different recipes and ideas online and I tried a few. One was mustard/panko crusted which wasn't bad and the other was in the slow cooker with a bulb of garlic minced and 1 cup of BBQ sauce which was not our favorite it just made me wish I has made pulled pork. The only problem with trying to use such a lean cut of meat that has been described as being just as lean as chicken breast, for pulled pork is there isn't any fat. Now that I'm getting healthy this is a good thing however I have always used a fattier piece of pork for pulled pork so I wasn't sure how this was going to work but I was going to try. This recipe that I came up with was AMAZING and to be honest it reminded me of the same recipe that I always made but I left feeling less guilty for pigging out on it! And even better that it is a crock pot recipe!!!
Enjoy!!




Healthy Pulled Pork

3-4 lbs pork tenderloin frozen solid (trust me)
3 capfulls of apple cider vinegar (I use bragg's)
2 tsp - 1 tbs smoked paprika
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1-2 cups BBQ sauce to taste ( love sweet baby ray's maple bbq sauce or sonny's sweet) 
2 tsp anchor chili seasoning (optional)

Place pork in slow cooker. Top with everything but the BBQ sauce. Cover and cook on low for 9 hrs. Remove pork from slow cooker onto a plate and with 2 forks shred the meat. In the slow cooker should only be a little juice no more than 1/4-1/2 cup otherwise remove the juice reserving about 1/4 cup of the juice. Place the meat back into the slow cooker and you can now add the barbecue sauce or wait and add it individually to your own sandwich. Serve on buns or without for an even healthier dinner! I enjoy mine in a bowl topped with freshly made coleslaw! Yumm!

Enjoy!!!
XOXO

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