Italian Pork With Pesto and Zucchini Noodles

This is a dish I thought of, as last week I bought a couple smaller pork roasts on sale, had the stuff for Jorge's Pesto, and Zucchinis are reasonably priced.  I am taking this to a potluck with one of my life group's tonight and saving some for my kids & I for dinner.

More pictures when I'm done with the dish.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 lbs Pork (on the leaner side) - a roast or boneless ribs would be good
• dried oregano
• dried basil
• dried rosemary
• dried thyme
• dried parsley flakes
• garlic powder
• sea salt
• ground pepper
• 2 large yellow or Vidalia onions (if you want sweeter, use Vidalia), sliced
• 6-10 cloves of garlic, minced
• grapeseed oil (or bacon fat)
• water
• Jorge's Pesto Sauce
• 4-6 zucchinis (or more) for the noodles

Directions:

• Carmelize onions in a little oil or bacon fat.  This brings out the sugars.  Set aside.

• Brown all sides of pork in bacon fat or oil, seasoning with sea salt & pepper.  If you can't do all sides, then at least the top & bottom.  I've found doing this helps make the meat taste even better, bringing out the flavors of the spices when it's cooking in the crockpot and the meat is even more tender & juicy.

• Put half the carmelized onions in the bottom of the crockpot.  Place pork on top of the onions.
• Combine all dried herbs & seasonings in a small bowl & mix.  Pour over pork and press in.  Top with minced garlic.  Then top with remaining cooked onions.

• Put water into the crockpot.  I only filled it to about half the height of the pork roasts.  I didn't want too much water, so if you're using boneless ribs, don't put so much water that it covers it, just maybe a little less.
• Cover crockpot and cook on HIGH for 1.5-2 hrs.  Reduce heat to LOW for another 3-4 hrs.  Part way through, you may want to see how the meat is doing and cut it or something.  You don't really want to take the lid off more than once or twice during cooking, as this causes it to mess with the cooking.
• At the end, the pork should be flakey and tender. 
• While the pork is cooking, you can make the pesto sauce and make the zucchinis into noodles.



Raw Zucchini Noodles (medium blade)

• If you desire, you can sautee the zucchini noodles lightly in either butter, bacon fat, grapeseed oil or coconut oil.  All those can handle high heat.  Olive oil does not handle high heat, and I try not to use this in high heat cooking.



Used a combination of yellow squash & zucchini sauteed in bacon grease

• Toss pork with pesto sauce & either cooked or raw zucchini noodles.



Just before tossing:  pesto, zucchini noodles cooked, Italian crockpot pork



The finished product - You can sprinkle with Romano or Parmesan