Recipe: Pork and Veggies

Wade was oddly quiet when he was eating tonight. He made some comment about eating orange chicken. I told him that he wasn't eating orange chicken. It was pork and veggies. . . "Ohhhhh. I thought it was kind of weird orange chicken." Yes, yes, it is weird orange chicken. Because it's pork and veggies. There's not a single drop of orange anything in it.

"So, how do you like it now that you know it's not supposed to be orange chicken?"

"I like it. . . I never said it was bad."

"It's bad orange chicken."

"Well, yes, it was bad orange chicken."

Glad we got that cleared up. Moving on. . .

I don't work on Thursdays, so I've been smelling the pork and veggies cook all day. The smell made me think of restaurant arroz con pollo. I couldn't WAIT to dig in!

I found the pork and veggies recipe on Love My Nest, which I found via Pinterest.

Pork and Veggies

1 pound pork roast, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, sliced
4 carrots, sliced 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce 1.5 T apple cider vinegar
1 t salt
2 tsp worcestershire sauce

Combine ingredients in a large ziptop bag, freeze. Thaw contents of bag and place in a slow cooker. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serve over hot rice.

Review

This recipe had the most veggies (YAY!), but required the most chopping. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I did a lot of wedging and didn't worry about unformity or anything like that. Apparently, when I make freezer meals, my OCD goes right out the window. Thank goodness. For ease, I used baby carrots and pre-sliced mushrooms. If you want to save a little money, you could definitely go with regular carrots and whole mushrooms. I also added zucchini. Yum.

I took out the bag last night and threw it on a tray to thaw in our extra fridge, just in case it leaked. However, that was unnecessary, as the tray was clean this morning. It was a little more frozen than I thought it'd be, but I was going to be home all day, so I figured it didn't matter. I threw it in the pot. Woohoo.

I cooked it on low for about eight hours and served with some leftover rice in the fridge.

Ratings

Ease of preparation: B+
Taste: A- (but an F as orange chicken)
Quantity: Again, we got two good-sized servings out of it and put away quite a bit in the fridge.
Notes: I don't recommend adding the zucchini. There's a reason that it wasn't included in the original recipe. Mushy, mushy, mushy. Chef Ramsey would yell at me and make me cry for that stroke of non-brilliance. While the other veggies were a little mushier than I wanted, they still tasted good. And the pork was de-lish. Bottom line: I liked it. As pork and veggies, not orange chicken. I'd definitely make it again.