Love at first sight

There is something I really want to share with you all. Because, between friends, you share these things. And it finally happened to me. I'm in love, there's no doubt about it. It took 32 years, but I finally experienced love at first sight. Well actually, when I'm thinking about it, I guess this has been a long time coming. It started on Pinterest. I had never heard of Crockpots before I started craving pulled pork. When I was browsing for recipes, I kept stumbling on this mysterious Crockpot thing. I had to look it up. Slow cooker. Yes, I had heard about them, seen them on the home shopping networks... And laughed at them. Warm food when you get home from work. How uncool, definitely something for middle aged spinsters, right? Ok, well, I guess I'm officially a middle aged spinster. But I don't care, yesterday I marched into John Lewis and got me one of those magic pots. And now that baby is purring away with a big hunk of meat inside... And the smell in my tiny little hole of an apartment has been tormenting me for hours. Definitely not a device for those wanting to lose weight. Because I've eaten everything I could get my hands on while sniffing the heavenly scents of onions, white wine, vinegar and meat. There is another hour left to go before my juicy and tender pulled pork is done bathing in it's hot bubbling jacuzzi, but I have to admit I have already sneaked a taste or two. And it sure is tender, it almost falls to pieces at the sight of a fork. I have pinned so many recipes to try out. I guess my diet will be slightly meat heavy the next few weeks months. Which should be better than chocolate heavy, which it has been for the last few weeks. And boy am I feeling it, I have gained so much fat I am having trouble moving around. I really have to go cold turkey on all goodies before I explode. Whoever says chocolate is not an addictive drug should be shot. 

To try to get my mind off goodies for a bit, let me just tell you about something else that has been occupying my thoughts lately. I went to BodyPump the other day, and it was not my usual instructor as I'm trying out another gym as I'm thinking about changing. Anyways, I have been doing Pump on and off for the last ten years or so, and even if I don't know all of the releases very well, I usually recognise the tracks when I hear them, at least I should know the music. However, this time we did a bicep track that I just couldn't place. And after class I really wanted to look it up, as I liked the song a lot. However, doing almost five minutes of bicep curls resulted in my brain blocking out every aspect of the song, all I could remember was the pain. So, I spent half a day going through old releases to find the track. It was kind of like that feeling when you have a song going on in your head, and you just can't get rid of it. Except this time I couldn't even remember which song it was! It was driving me crazy. Anyways, this is the song in case you were wondering. Been listening to it on repeat for half a day now. I think I have been musing about this previously, but it's so strange how some songs you would never think much of if you just heard them become absolutely spell-binding when you come across them when doing sports. I have a long list of my favourite Combat and Pump tracks which I use as my running playlist. There are a few tracks that always get me to pick up speed, no matter how tired I am, they just have that something that will keep you going. Such as this one, or this (my favourite Muay Thai ever, and my Combat instructor always delivers it with such amazing energy!!). And I really should go out for a run, haven't been since the one unlucky run I did during my holiday which ended up giving me a blister the size of a small continent on my right foot. I had blood smeared all over my foot, socks and absorbed into my running shoes. Goes without saying, those running shoes went to where running shoes go to die.

Well, talk about going off on a tangent. So back to the love of my life now. Porky loin, bubbling away for eight hours in white wine and vinegar. Actually, I would have loved to make traditional pulled pork, but all recipes I found had loads of sugar, both in the form of actual sugar as well as various barbecue sauces or soda and as I have ingested about ten years worth of sugar in the last few weeks, I came up with my own version of slow cooked pork.

My precious!!

First ever slow cooked pork loin (serves 5-6):
1.25 kg pork loin
salt, pepper, chilli flakes, dijon mustard
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup honey vinegar or cider vinegar (I used half and half)
1 tbsp agave syrup
three onions

The howto:
Rub the meat with salt, pepper, chilli and mustard. Place in crock pot, pour liquids and syrup on top, slice onions and place on top of pork. Cook on low for 8 hours. Remove pork, shred the meat. Not very hard to do as it almost fell apart by itself! Add the shredded meat back into the pot and mix with the juices and onions. Serve with baked sweet potatoes or in a sandwich with some mayo and mustard. Or like I did, in sweet peppers to keep it low carb. Which was pointless as I followed up the meal with chocolate. I'm hopeless, and I will repent. Some day. Maybe.

My big (c)hunk-o-meat

The verdict:
I realise me and the Crockpot are still in the honeymoon phase, so my review of this food might not be totally unbiased. But oh my how wonderful the pork turned out. Juicy and oh so tender. It's actually kind of funny that I have been craving pork for so long, as I actually don't even like pork in general. Well, apart from bacon. But bacon should be it's own food group anyways. I had a hard time stopping myself from snacking on the meat all through the evening, had to put most of it into the freezer. I have a feeling this is the start of something beautiful between me and my Crockpot. Talk about having inappropriate feelings towards inanimate objects.