Crock-pot pork tenderlion with lentils and bacon

A while back Dinner a Love Story had a post on Monday Night dinners and had note about a coworker’s plan for dinner:Crockpot pork tenderloin with lentils and bacon

This morning, my coworker, who lives and dies by her Slow Cooker during the week, did this: She took one frozen pork tenderloin, an ummeasured bag of lentils (about a cup and a half as she sees it), 1 onion (chopped), 2 cloves garlic (whole, smashed), about 4 sprigs of thyme, 5-10 peppercorns, 1/2 cube of beef bouillon, 2 strips of bacon into her slow cooker. She added water about halfway up the pork and set on the 10-hour setting

Well, that sounded really good, so we made it. It turned out really yummy. It was good on its own, though it would have also done well on a bun or toast. It ended up kind of like carnitas, the lentils more or less disintegrated and the kids never knew they were there. Probably add a little more water as ours dried out in some parts though our crock-pot tends to run hot I think.

Pork Shoulder Ragu

This appeared on Dinner A Love Story, one of my favorite sources these days. The original recipe called for braising in a dutch oven for 3-4 hours. Given that we don’t own a dutch over (why do they cost so much!?!) and it is much easier to put stuff in the crock pot and go off to work and come home to a tasty meal, I adapted it for the crock pot…or more truthfully, I just followed the recipe, it didn’t need any adaptation! YUM!

All I did was brown the pork shoulder in a skillet first as directed. After putting the pork in the crock pot I put the red wine in the skillet to deglaze and get all the browned bits scraped up. Add that and everything else to the crock pot and cook on low for a while, I did 9 hours because that’s how long it was until dinner time!

Came out yummy! Thanks for the recipe.