Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin

This is seriously amazing. Here's the original recipe (which I found on Pinterest, linked to HERE.). I, of course, changed it pretty drastically; I'll put my change-comments after the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 (2 pound) boneless pork tenderloin (or regular pork loin)
• 1 teaspoon ground sage
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup water

Glaze:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce

Directions:
Combine sage, salt, pepper and garlic. Rub over roast. Place in slow cooker with 1/2 cup water. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. About 1 hour before roast is done, combine ingredients for glaze in small sauce pan. Heat and stir until mixture thickens. Brush roast with glaze 2 or 3 times during the last hour of cooking. Serve with remaining glaze on the side.

~~~

Okay, the first major change was that we were doing this for 15 or so people. So, we took advantage of good pork butt prices at Sam's and got one of those huge packs that has 2 butts in it. It was... a lot heavier than the loin the recipe calls for (roughly 7x, I think). Because it was SO much heavier, I didn't measure the seasonings, and just threw some on until it looked approximately right. I believe I also chose to use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic.

That get's it ready to cook. At this point I realized I got it started too late, so I threw the butts into a roaster pan, put water in the bottom, and put it, covered, into a 400* oven. They stayed in for several hours, with the oven eventually being turned down to 350*. About an hour before dinner, we required the oven space for other dishes, so we pulled the pork out and left it covered. As we were getting everything on the table, we put the pork back into the oven to warm up; this time I left it uncovered.

At this point I realized that I'd forgotten to make the glaze, much less use it... So, I threw it together (increasing as needed, aka, a ton!), and we used it more like a gravy. It was DELICIOUS!

We ended up only eating one of the pork butts, so we sliced the other one up, and put it into a crock pot with some of the left-over glaze/gravy. It was still very delicious when we had it for lunch at church a couple days later!

Chocolate Coffee Sauce

• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 2/3 cups white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups strongly brewed coffee*
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine cocoa, sugar and coffee. Bring to a boil and let boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.


* The ratio of coffee grounds to water that I used was 2T of grounds per one cup of water, and it was a perfect strength.