Slow Cooker Cider, Garlic, Rosemary Pork Roast with Spinach & Onion Garlic Gravy

For the pork...

2 pound Pork Loin (not tender loin, but the chunk that would be cut into pork chops)

12oz bottle of apple cider

6-8 whole garlic cloves

2 large spears of Rosemary

Salt & Pepper to taste

Pour cider in, put garlic cloves and rosemary in, then place roast on top of garlic and rosemary. My slow cooker has a temp probe (thermometer) and allows me to cook an item until the temp is perfect, then it turns itself to "Warm". I set it to 160, and let it do it's thing. When the internal temp was 160, it switched to "warm" and made a heavenly tender roast!

For the Spinach...

6 cups of frozen copped spinach, thawed and cooked in hot water. (Either microwave it or boil it on the stove. You're only heating it up because I don't know many people who would like to eat frozen spinach with their supper.)

For the gravy...

1 md white onion cut into petals

1 md red onion cut into petals 

Olive oil

Salt

2 T butter

2 T gluten free flour mix (I used brown rice)

All the cooking liquid left in the slow cooker (I had 2 cups worth)

Drizzle a little olive oil in pan, put all onion petals into pan, add salt (both for taste, and to bring out the moisture in the onions so they will brown and caramalize). Cook them on medium/low. This is important because you need to make sure you don't burn the onions. This is the longest part of the "standing at the stove" cooking. After they are soft and translucent (kinda starting to look like they could be almost clear, but not quite) use a slotted spoon and fish out the garlic cloves from the pork cooking liquid. I used the same slotted spoon, and the wooden spoon I had been stirring the onions with to smush the garlic. Let the onions and garlic continue to slowly cook and become a pretty soft brown.  Increase the heat to medium or medium high then add the 2 tablespoons of butter and let it melt in with the onions. Add the 2 tablespoons of brown rice flour and stir with a whisk to incorporate. It will turn into a paste that will coat each onion. Stir around a little for about a minute. Add the cooking liquid and stir. Once it starts to bubble, you can turn it way down and cover it if you need to.

To plate..

Bring out roast and slice into 1/2 inch slices.

Squeeze excess water from spinach

Place a spoonful of spinach in the center of the plate

Put your pork slice(s) on top of the spinach

Spoon your gravy on top of the pork slices

For the kids, I piled cut up pork on spinach for our son, then added ketchup.

For our daughter, it was just spinach and pork. With ketchup in the side.

Our son, however, ended up LOVING the gravy and the Mommy-Daddy plating, so he ended up eating a great deal from my plate. And he's 5.

My husband and I both added fresh cracked black pepper to our plates, as I've found that the kids eat more if I don't cook with pepper. Which is fine by us, because I love the flavor of fresh pepper on my food, and my husband loves hotter peppers. We have grinders of dried jalapeños, dried chipotle peppers, and your every day crushed red pepper flakes. He likes to pick and choose based on the dish and his mood. I'm a wimp, so I don't often partake in the spicy additives.

So here's the super supper from last night.  Hope you love it as much as we did. And, since it was done and cooked when Daddy came home, we sat right down, ate, then still had time to go for a bike ride after supper.