Pork Casserole with Za'atar and Black Lemon

We made some more of the BaconSalt-Cheese Dinner Rolls (see the post below) for another fair, and had a few left over.  Amanda made a "spag-bog" for dinner last night, and spilt the rolls and made them as "Garlic Bread" - Oh! Garlic Rolls with a cheesey, baconey flavour - Totally Awesome!

 Now as for the Casserole . . . . . 

This is more of an "idea" than a complete recipe, as we didn't make a note any quantities when we were cooking it, but it worked out really good.

We had a small joint of pork in the freezer that really needed to be used, and no fixed plan for dinner that night, so decided to casserole the pork because (a frequent problem) all the family were in and out, with various commitments at different times - Amanda working an evening shift, I was out to my Buffalo Lodge, and young Alex comes home from school and half hour later heads off to football training!  The Slow Cooker appeared to be a good candidate for the meal - something I had never used until I married Amanda, and now I wonder how I ever existed without it!

The pork was diced into inch-by-inch chunks and seared in a pan, along with onions, the other vegetables lightly par-boiled (potatoes, carrots, swede - up to you what you include), and everything put into the slow cooker.  I thought that a little extra "kick" would be good, so added a fairly generous measure of Black Lemon Powder and a half a teaspoon of Za'atar Herbs (both available on our web-shop, Crazy4Flavour).

The Black Lemon is more traditionally used with Lamb, where it helps to reduce any excess fat, but we've used it with chicken and turkey before, to add a lovely tang, and the Zaatar is a herb/spice blend that you often find in Arabic bread cookery, but which adds a lovely aromatic finish to all sorts of meat and veg.

After bringing the whole thing to the boil in the slow cooker, thickened (and the Black Lemon and Za'atar added) it was then left to simmer for several hours, and then each of the family could ladle out what we wanted, when we were home.  The result was one of the tastiest casseroles I have come across.

The same idea would be good with lamb or chicken instead of pork, and it would be interesting to try it with beef too.  Experimentation on cooking often pays off with something new - Try it!