From Our Kitchen: Me and Trisha

Me and Trisha Yearwood go way back.  There was a time in my life when I wanted to be cowgirl.  I loved going to the annual Crenshaw County Rodeo, and wanted a horse.  There is even photographic evidence of me in full on cowgirl gear "riding" around the yard with my stick pony. Hat and all.  Well, during this time I also had a mega-crush on Billy Ray Cyrus (I would have never broken his achy-breaky heart), and I watched a LOT of CMT (that's Country Music Television), especially the weekend morning countdowns.  My all-time favorite country song (I'd go so far as to say even to this day) was Trisha's "She's in Love with the Boy."  In case you've forgotten, please take a moment to reminisce:

  (my favorite line 2:53 through 3:23)

So, why all of this country music talk?  I had a pork loin that I thawed for a dinner this week, but I wasn't sure what to do with it (besides my go-to herb and bake).  Then I decided I wanted to throw it in the crock pot and have a magically ready dinner waiting for us when we returned from school/work, so I looked for recipes and immediately came across "Trisha Yearwood's Crock Pot Pork Loin."  I figured since Trisha didn't let me down back in 1995 she wouldn't let me down now.

Click HERE for my version of Trisha's Crock Pot Pork Loin
(which you can print if you'd like).

It was fall-apart tender, and I enjoyed the gravy it made from the cooking liquid.  Gravy is not something I cook very often, maybe because it's somewhat reserved for special meals like Thanksgiving, but it's so easy to whisk together (literally), especially at the end of this dish.  The pork would be delicious without the gravy, but it definitely adds to it. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 to 3 lbs of pork loin, I used a package from Sam's Club which contains two 1 - 1 1/2 lb loins, and this recipe turned out just fine!  I realize my picture is not all that beautiful.  The recipe suggested skimming out the bits of pork from the liquids before turning it into gravy, but I just omitted that step (for the lack of a proper strainer) and continued on. Tasted great, looks a little weird. (Pardon that.)

I believe I remember hearing that Trisha had a cookbook at some point in the recent past, but I never looked into it.  This dish was a success.  One I'll add to the books to throw into our meal "rotation."  So I may have to check out more of her recipes.  Often, southern cooking is full of lots of bad things, but this one is pretty decent - no salt or butter. Just a few ingredients to make the pork flavor shine.

Thanks Trisha!

I should also mention that I rarely use the crock pot for meals, even though I love coming home to a fully cooked dinner that's ready to eat! (As in, today when I opened the door the smell of yummy pork smacked me in the face and I was a bit overjoyed for a few seconds because I had kind of forgotten that I had prepped it this morning... which took all of five minutes or less!)  I know there are plenty of cookbooks out there just for crock-pot meals, but they give me the impression that throwing any meal into the crock pot turns out wonderfully delicious, and I just don't believe them.  Do you have any crock-pot favorites?  Share your recipe or a link to it in the comments section!