The 'other white meat' - you know, the tough, chewy one

Before:

After:

Pork Adobo
Weight Watchers Simply Delicious Flexpoint Cookbook Copyright 2002

1 pound boneless center cut pork loin, trimmed of all visible fat, cut into 1.5 inch cubes
1 cup water
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce I had to use low-sodium teriyaki sauce
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small bay leaf
¼ teaspoon salt

1. Combine the pork, water, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaf, and salt in a medium saucepan. Let stand 30 minutes.

2. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the meat is very tender, about 1 hour. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

Makes 4 servings. 5 points per serving.

At Costco I can get pork loin for $1.99/lb but I have a devil of a time coming up with things to do with it. It has little flavor and is easily overcooked. It was not a good choice for this Pork Adobo recipe, although it is what the recipe called for. I should have known better.

Cooked as directed (with the exception of finding out I was out of soy sauce mid-recipe and having to substitute low-sodium teriyaki sauce), what resulted was basically boiled meat with meat scum floating on top. I just could not accept this so I filtered out the scum, thickened the liquid with a cornstarch slurry and mixed the pork and sauce with brown rice. The sauce didn't help flavor the rice much and it looked as bland as it tasted. Maybe white rice would have been better but all I had was brown rice, and this was a Weight Watchers recipe after all.

My plan was to have this ready for my husband to heat up the next night because I was going to be late. Thank God my plans changed and I was able to doctor up the pork and rice into a more enjoyable pork fried rice. I picked up some soy sauce and green onions on the way home and also added some eggs and a bit of sugar. It turned out to be very good.

This recipe was from the same book at the Cabbage Soup with Kielbasa. It's going back to the library but maybe someday I'll borrow it again. This recipe (in it's original form) was an abysmal failure but I still have hope for some of the others.