I still have a ton of cherries left and am trying to find new and creative recipes for them. By looking at the amount of cherries I still have, you would never know that I have already used a bunch for both the cherry-chocolate brownie cookies AND for this recipe as well. But I will definitely find fun, delicious ways of using the rest of them before too long. If I can’t use them all up I will freeze whatever is left, which will give me a bit more time to do my homework and find more cherry recipes. But, I love a challenge, and it is a bit of challenge to use them all without making the same things twice in a row in a short period of time. So I say, bring it on! I WILL rise to the challenge!
Again, our temperatures are soaring, so I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible, or at least make things that will not heat up the kitchen too much. With that in mind, I brought out the slow cooker for this recipe, which helped reduce the kitchen heat considerably. I can thank my friend Rose for the inspiration for this delicious recipe. We will definitely be doing this one again; probably in the very near future too.
This is before cooking it nice and slow for about 4 1/2 hours, on a medium heat.
All my ingredients.
Before cooking, I patted the meat dry with a paper towel, then added salt and pepper to both sides and seared it in a HOT skillet with hot oil until it was browned on all sides. It took about 4 minutes per side.
Once the meat was browned, I added it to the slow cooker, on top of sliced onions. Then I added ginger and garlic all around.
To make my sauce, I halved and pitted my cherries and mixed them with jalapeno jelly, one jalapeno, diced fine, salt and pepper and honey, and added it on top of my pork. I also added some cilantro and about 1 cup of water to the mixture, to make sure there was enough liquid in the pan. I closed the lid and forgot about it for about 4 1/2 hours, until it was all done. Once everything had finished cooking, I added about 3 TBSP of cornstarch, mixed with some of the juice to thicken the sauce up. I brought it all to a boil, then reduced the heat and cooked it down for about 7 minutes. You can vary the cooking time depending on how thick you like your sauce.
I served the jalapeno-cherry pork loin with some of my leftover Southwestern potato salad, corn on the cob and cheese bread. Next time I will serve this over wild rice. The jalapeno-cherry sauce will go nicely with wild rice, but we had just had rice, and I still had quite a bit of potato salad I need to use. My wine choice was a cool crisp chardonnay, but a pinot noir or a lighter red would accompany the meal very well too.
Slow Cooked Jalapeno-Cherry Pork Loin
3-4 lbs pork loin, seared until brown on all sides
salt and pepper to taste
red or white onions or a combination of both, sliced to a medium thickness
2 TBSP garlic
2 TBSP ginger
2-3 cups of cherries, halved and pitted
1 small jar of jalapeno jelly
1 jalapeno, diced fine
1/2 cup honey
1 TBSP black pepper
cilantro
3 TBSP cornstarch mixed with some of the hot liquid
Sear your pork in a HOT skillet in hot oil. Then add on top of the onions, garlic and ginger. Mix all the wet ingredients together, then toss in the cherries. Cover with the sauce, and add a little water. Cook in the slow cooker at a medium temperature for about 4 1/2 hours, or until the meat is tender.
Once the meat is cooked, take some of the juice from the pan and add it to the cornstarch. Mix well, until all the lumps are dissolved and you have a milky liquid. Add this to the rest of the sauce and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and stir constantly until it reaches your desired thickness. I poured all the sauce into a saucepan and heated it up on the stove rather than try to reheat it in the slow cooker.
This sauce would also go well with ham or duck too.