Slow Cooker Thai Pulled Pork

It's been a busy week! My sister was visiting Ottawa, my boyfriend is traveling, and I had a bit of a cold that was dragging me down. My sister loves to shop, so we did a lot of walking, plus I found some great deals. I bought $40 Firefly ski pants from Winners (it's Ottawa--never pass up inexpensive winter gear!), and GapFit workout pants on a sale rack for $20. If you haven't tried the Gap's fitness clothing line, I highly recommend it. I'm not a fan of Lululemon, I had one pair of those pants and they deteriorated in a year...I've had pairs of Under Armour and Nike running pants that have lasted 8 years and they are still going strong, even though I wear and wash them once per week. I haven't had any GapFit pants that long, but so far, they are good after a couple years, and the sale rack prices are reasonable. I am really hard on my clothes--I walk 3km every day in all sorts of weather to get to work, teach classes everyday, and wear them in between classes because I'm too lazy to change.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, but I was on my own for dinner. We had turkey dinner with my family a few weekends ago, so I decided instead to make a large batch of pork, rice and broccoli. This way, I'd have dinner plus lunches for the week. We made chicken breasts with a coconut milk marinade last week and they were amazing! I decided to go in a similar direction with the pork roast. Cooking meat in full fat coconut milk bastes the meat to make it very juicy and tender. Recently, the Heart & Stroke Foundation changed their position on the consumption of saturated fat. While it is not recommended to consume processed foods high in saturated fat, recent studies show that a whole foods diet that includes saturated fat (such as coconut, eggs and dairy), is not problematic like earlier research showed.

I don't recommend cooking broccoli in the slow cooker, it gets too soggy, so it is best to cook it separately in a wok, or roast it in the oven. You can use day old rice to prepare the rice like a fried rice, or you can cook it fresh.

Serves 6

Ingredients

1kg pork blade roast
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp chili-garlic sauce (or sriracha)
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
Black pepper, to taste

For the sides:
180g instant brown rice, cooked and cooled
3 heads broccoli
2 tsp sesame oil

Directions

Place the pork roast in the slow cooker pot. In a small bowl, combine the next 8 ingredients and whisk together. Pour over top of the pork. Cover and cook for 7-8 hours on low.

For the sides: Prepare the rice as directed on the packaging. Slice the broccoli into evenly sized pieces. Pour sesame oil into a wok and coat the pan. Set the heat to medium-high. Put the broccoli in and stir constantly, until broccoli is tender. Season with black pepper. If rice has been cooled, add rice to the wok and stir constantly to heat through. Remove from heat.

Shred the pork with two forks, then plate the rice and broccoli. Serve the pork on top of the rice and broccoli and add some of the sauce from the slow cooker.

Nutrition (pork only)

Calories 377
Fat 25.8g
Saturated fat 13.0g
Carbohydrates 9.0g
Fibre 1.0g
Sugars 5.9g
Protein 27.9g

With brown rice and broccoli:

Calories 520
Fat 28.3g
Saturated fat 13.4g
Carbohydrates 35.9g
Fibre 3.6g
Sugars 6.9g
Protein 31.9g