Slow Cooker Braised Pork Shoulder with Catalan-Style Spinach

Before I tell y’all about the delicious dinner I worked on today, I need to address something.  I’ve had quite a few of y’all ask me to share the recipes of the food I am making.  I would LOVE to share the recipes from Against All Grain: Meals Made Simple, however, I will not.  It is a relatively new release and the information is not my intellectual property to post freely on the Internet.  I will be Danielle Walker’s self-appointed volunteer sales rep.   Seriously y’all, go buy this book.

That being said, I am happy to share any of my recipes with you once I get around to cooking my own stuff. [Teaser: I am working on a yummy cake recipe that should be ready this weekend or early next week.]  And I will be cooking some of Danielle Walker’s recipes she has publicly shared on Pinterest or her blog.  In those cases, I will attach the link for you to find the recipe online.

Now that this was cleared up, let’s get started.

Slow Cooker Braised Pork Shoulder with Catalan-Style Spinach

My house smells like fall! And Santa [aka Kathleen and Johnny] came early.  My first recipe tasted amazing, but I didn’t have a slow cooker so I ended up burning the bottom of one of my pots.  Rookie mistake!  So today I brought home the new love of my life: my very first All Clad Metalcrafters 4 qt. Electric Slow Cooker.  

(Isn’t she a beauty?)

If I am being honest, I am not really familiar with pork.  I do not cook with this meat often.  I do not have much variety in how I cook it.  Other than my dad’s killer baby back ribs recipe, I am pretty boring with “the other white meat.” So I was excited/apprehensive about using pork shoulder.  In the end, I was thrilled with the result. Chris even said, “Mmmm.  This is good.  It tastes like something from a nice restaurant.”

After everything was added to the slow cooker.

The thing I loved the most about this dish was the fact that I now have a new method of marinating and cooking pork.  I have always known about cooking pork in a crock pot with Coke or Dr. Pepper.  While this method always seems to be a crowd pleaser, I don’t enjoy eating it regularly because soda is nothing but sugar and chemicals.  I just do not like the idea of eating ingredients that are so unnatural.  To find this recipe, with such an interesting take on the marinade (which involved a little coconut oil and fennel seeds), was refreshing!  The meat was so tender is melted in your mouth with every bite.  It was salty, but not over salted (Note: you are left to your own discretion in the salting of the meat before you brown it).  But the salt of the pork dish and the sweetness of the Catalan-style spinach, with honeycrisp apples and raisins, go really well together.

The recipe is simple to follow and does not require any strange, new ingredients.  I did substitute bacon for pancetta because I forgot to buy pancetta and I really did not want to go back to the grocery store.  For those who don’t know, pancetta is an Italian bacon.  Unlike American bacon, pancetta is unsmoked and cured in salt and spices and dried for three months.  However, bacon and pancetta are frequently used interchangeably. 

Finished Product

Added bonus of this recipe: You make a ton! And the leftovers are used for tomorrow’s dinner: Pork Ragu with Butternut Squash.  Stay tuned!

-Kim