Cranberry Ginger Pork Roast

From:
http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/02/18/slow-cooker-freezer-recipes/

Ginger Cranberry Pork Roast

Serves: about 6 per bag

 

Guest recipe by Stephanie Brandt Cornais
*Note this recipe makes two complete meals/bags

Ingredients

• 2 pork roasts, left whole
• 12 ounce package fresh cranberries or 2 jars (cans have BPA in them) of whole cranberries
• 1 cup peeled and sliced (or minced) fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons rapadura sugar (or honey or maple syrup)
• 2 tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca (or some other thickening agent like whole-wheat flour or arrowroot powder)
• 

Instructions

1. Label 2 one-gallon freezer bags.
2. After chopping, evenly divide all ingredients into the two bags and lay flat in the freezer.
3. Day of cooking: Pull one bag from the freezer and lay it on the counter for several minutes to slightly thaw. Peel away the bag, dump the contents into your slow cooker along with ½ cup of filtered water, and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours, or until fully cooked. Remember each slow cooker is different, so the first time you make a recipe, really watch it closely so you don’t over or under cook the dish.
4. Serve with broccoli sautéed in butter. I cook frozen broccoli this way – no need to thaw, just dump frozen broccoli into a hot pan with hot butter and it is delicious.

----My own comments: Having made and eaten this meal this past week, I have to say again, as with other recipes I have used from Stephanie Cornais, this recipe seriously lacked in an edible flavor as written. (I just keep hoping that they will be good because they look and sound so healthy...!)  I admit I was suspicious as there are literally only 5 ingredients to this meal (and none of them contained sodium), so I tasted the "sauce"that came out of the crockpot.  It was queer, and that's the only way I can describe it.  I added both salt and sugar, probably a teaspoon of each, and this helped a lot-- so that I could actually put it in front of my family with any hopes of them eating it!  I did not serve this with the ginger pieces, as pictured above, as they are very strong.  My sauce also looked nothing like the one pictured above!  I think you'd need to stir and break up a lot of the berries first, and add a lot more tapioca or flour than the recipe calls for.  So, in short, if you don't expect it to look like the picture above,  add at least 1 tsp salt and 1-2 tsp sugar to the list of ingredients, you won't be as disappointed.   Oh, I also left it on lo all day-- from 9am to 5 pm-- and it was cooked well.

 Good luck!  And let me know what you do to this recipe to improve it, if anything.