Pork in Barbecue-Wine Sauce

Sorry that there is no picture for this one; I made it this past weekend at my parent's house. Since Sunday was going to be a very hectic day I decided that slow cooker cooking would be the best way to go to get dinner started. I looked through their freezer and found some pork "steaks" and then went looking for a cooking liquid. One thing I've learned about slow cooking is that beef (beef with a good amount of fat on it) cooks well without much extra liquid but that pork needs a cooking liquid (otherwise its very dry and there is no flavor).

While looking the cabinets the only thing I could find that looked like it would work okay was barbecue sauce. I'm not a big fan of the sauce myself so I came up with a way to water it down and add more flavor (wine!). My original thought was to use a dry red wine but all that was available in the house were sweet whites and a semi-dry chardonnay. Since the chardonnay was the driest wine in the house and also the least expensive bottle I opted to use that. So into the slow cooker went a small can of tomato sauce, about 3/4 ths of a bottle of barbecue sauce, a half bottle of chardonnay, some salt, pepper, and cinnamon (it adds another hint of flavor) and a bit of water (maybe a half cup). I wisked that all together and put in the pork. The meat cooked for about 7 hours on low and when it was done it was nice and tender and full of flavor. It a slight barbecue taste and was slightly sweet. It was quite different than what we were used to.

Everyone liked it well and its something that I will keep to make again. I think next time I would rather use a dry red wine so maybe I will try that sometime soon. I'll be sure to post a picture next time too.