pork-tagine_ready-to-eat

Yes, fine, I am officially tagine obsessed. I know. But what can I say? I am one of those people who really hates doing a lot of dishes. I like to cook with as little mess as possible and so I am highly attracted to one-pot dishes and the tagine is the king of one pot meals. I can’t really say enough about this cooking vessel – everything I have put into it has always come out amazingly tender and full of flavor. I mean just look at this bone – there is not a scrap of meat left on it, and I just pulled it right out.

pork-tagine_meat-falling-off-the-bone

Tagine cooking is perfect for the busy people and families. Since Roberto and I have been on a health kick this year, we are spending many evenings out exercising and so when we get home, we want something that is healthy and filling and delicious, AND QUICK that doesn’t require a lot of slaving over the stove – because some nights, I don’t have the energy to lift a spoon!

So with the tagine, I can put everything in it, cook it for an hour before we leave, and then turn it off while we are gone. Come home turn the stove back on, and by the time we are showered and ready to eat, the food is done! It is like a slow cooker, without the chord.

So this time I decided to do some pork in there, slow cooker style, to see if the tagine would be a good candidate for making pulled pork in the future. After this experiment, I would say it is. This stewed pork dish with beans was delicious and hearty. The meat literally just fell off the bone. Perfect after working out or on a cold evening to warm up.

I served this up with some awesome Bubbly Beer Bread by Zesty Cook

beer-bread_sliced

Again, I mixed the dry ingredients for the bread before we went to work out, and then added the beer when we got home and threw it in the oven with the tagine. I was a delicious and slightly sweet bread. Perfect with soups and stews.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 lbs pork country ribs

1 tsp of each:
cumin
coriander
paprika
New Mexico green chile powder

1 can of pinto beans
2 large carrots, cut up
1/2 of a huge sweet potato, cut up
1/2 a bottle of beer
bottom of a bottle of ketchup (poured beer in the bottle and shook it up to get the remaining ketchup out)
dollop of BBQ sauce
drizzle of pure maple syrup


METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Rub the pork with the spices, and place the pork in the bottom on the tagine. Add the beans, carrots and sweet potato, drizzle veggies with maple syrup and pour the beer, ketchup and BBQ sauce over top of everything. Cook for 2 hours, after one hour, stir contents and add more liquid – either more beer or water if it is getting dry.