Cranberry Dijon Pork Roast

This recipe comes from one of my favorite magazines - Simple and Delicious that is from Taste of Home. These recipes don't use tons of ingredients and are fairly straightforward and just plain good! I had all the ingredients ready and then realized at 3pm that this was a slow cooker recipe...duh....How in the world did I not realize that or did I just forget that fact? More than likely, I just forgot that along with everything else these days!!! Anyhow I will post the slow cooker recipe along with what I did since I'm sure both are very similar. I didn't care much for the gravy and think what I would do next time is add a can of beef or pork gravy to what is already in the pan. It was just too sweet for me. I found that the drippings used VERY sparingly were delicious over the the pork and on the mashed potatoes I also served with it. The pork was extremely moist. I used the leftover in a Chinese dish that I will also post this week. This dish went a long way as far as servings were concerned and enjoyed by all of us.

Well my son did not need to wait long for his snow day.....we had a sheet of us greeting us this morning and the schools have shut down for the day. That's okay. I had a long weekend down in Richmond. My son brought a friend along when we went to our house down there for 3 days and I am "kidded out." Know what I mean? We may go out bowling later if things thaw out a bit and he asked if he could bring another friend along. No!!!! It's a word I don't use often but I'm done. Just him and I....that's all I can take right now!

1 boneless pork loin roast (3 lbs)

2 Tbsp butter

1 envelop golden onion soup mix

1 can (14 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce

2 tsp Dijon mustard

(Slow cooker version) In a large skillet, brown roast in butter on all sides. Transfer to a 5 qt slow cooker; sprinkle with soup mix. Add cranberry sauce to skillet, stirring to loosen browned bits from pan. Pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours or until meat is tender. Remove roast to a serving platter; keep warm. Strain cooking juices and stir in mustard. Slice roast; serve with sauce.

My Version: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place roast in glass pyrex pan. Sprinkle roast with onion soup mix and pour 1 cup water over roast. Cover roast with cranberry sauce. Bake in oven for 1 1/2 - 2 hours or until it registers that it is done according to meat thermometer. (Keep basting every 1/2 hour and add more water if necessary.) Remove roast when done and let it sit for at least 15 minutes before carving. At this point you can add mustard to your gravy but I would recommend tasting the gravy prior to that and then only adding a little mustard to some of the gravy that you can remove and put into a small cup. See if you like how it tastes with the mustard. I didn't care much for it after I added the mustard. I liked it better without the mustard. You can also add beef or pork gravy at this point from a can also.