Last Night's Dinner #134: Apricot Brown Sugar Roast

This meal was inspired by a slow cook recipe I spotted over at Karina's Kitchen (awesome blog by the way). I don't have a slow cooker so I figured I could still make it work the old fashion way.


I pretty much followed the recipe as far as the ingredients were concerned. Although I didn't have pomegranate juice, so I just used a half carton of beef stock I had sitting in the fridge. It was so good and definitely holiday menu worthy. The brown sugar + apricot preserve combo is a perfect match to the natural sweetness of pork. And the balamic vinegar + spices - fresh rosemary sprigs, oregano, paprika, cinnamon and thyme cut the sweetness so it wasn't like you were having dessert for dinner. I'll definitely be making this one again.



I first browned the loin in olive oil then added the onions, garlic and rosemary midway to try and infuse the loin early on the process (didn't want to add the garlic too early on, because I didn't want to burn it).


I then added the mushrooms and cooked it for a few more minutes then added the stock to prevent the garlic from getting burned.


I Mixed the apricot preserve + spices + salt/pepper and balsamic and poured it over the meat. I also added some more of the preserve as a top coat.



Put the whole thing in the oven for about 2+ hours (300F) until the meat was super tender and can easily fall off using a fork.


I added the brown sugar one hour into it, I'm sure you could add the sugar when you add the apricot mix, but I don't know, I was hesitant because I wanted to taste the sweetness level and control it as much as possible.


It was so good served over rice - I'm sure it would also be good served along side Karen's favorite Butternut Orzo!!