Coca Cola Pork Roast with Peas & Rice

Tonight I took part in the Food Network blog's Cooking Club Challenge. The directions are a bit vague, but from what I understand, this was supposed to go in a slow cooker overnight. I don't have one of these, so I made do with my French oven over the course of the evening, and ate a lot of Multigrain Vegetable Thins while I waited.

Here's the recipe, from the CCC blog:

Pork Loin Roast With Rice And Peas
Yield: 4

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
2 cloves garlic (or 2 teaspoons prepared garlic in a jar)
2 chopped onions
3 pounds lean pork loin roast
1 cup ketchup
3/4 cup brown or cane sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup raspberry vinegar
1/4 cup blueberry vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
1 cup apricot jam (or 1 cup dried apricot)
1 can of Coke (optional)

Rice
3 cups basmati rice
6 cups of water

Vegetables
2 cups frozen baby peas
2 tablespoons water


Directions
1. Heat butter in large stove-top frying pan at medium heat.
2. Add garlic and onions. Sauté until onions are translucent. Remove from heat.
3. Place pork loin in slow cooker.
4. Combine following ingredients in a bowl: ketchup, brown sugar and molasses.
5. Add cider vinegar, raspberry vinegar, blueberry vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce and apricot jam.
6. Add 1 can of Coke (optional)
7. Add sautéed onions to slow cooker.
8. In the morning return centre pot with cover to the outer crock and set on low heat.

Rice
1. At supper time combine rice and water in a microwave-safe pot or casserole. Cover and microwave rice at high for 10 minutes, then medium 10 minutes. (Reserve half of the cooked rice for lunches and Asian Stir Fry meal).

Peas
1. Place peas in stove-top pot with a small amount of water at high heat.
2. When it begins to boil, turn heat to low. Stir and heat through.

I've never made a pork roast and know nothing about different kinds of roasts. This was a rolled roast that I purchased from Gelderman Farms, trusted pig farmers of the Fraser Valley (they also farm blueberries, FYI), at the Winter Farmer's Market a little while ago. The roast was frozen so I defrosted it in the fridge overnight.


Here we see the coming together of ketchup, molasses and brown sugar.


Next, some CrAzY additions -- apple cider vinegar, raspberry vinegar, apricot jam and COCA COLA, to name a few.


Lump of pig in a giant syrupy soup, mixed with onions and garlic. The oven was set to 225°F, and I put this in at 6:45 pm, basting it every half hour or so.


When I started on the peas and rice, I removed about a cup of liquid from the roast and reduced it on the stovetop to thicken it up.


I took the roast out of the oven at 9:45 pm. I let the meat rest, covered on a rack, for about 5 minutes or so, and then carved it up and made that picture you see up there at the top. And then ate the picture.

Variations of note: I used canned peas instead of frozen. Green Giant "Sweetlets," to be precise. I only made a cup of rice. I added a bottle instead of a can of Coke. And I couldn't find blueberry vinegar, so I just doubled the raspberry vinegar.

Verdict: Pretty good. Quite sweet. Great falling-apart-texture. You don't need a slow cooker, you just need to be ok with eating really late.