Heatwave Pineapple Pork

by Christa Upton
(South Dakota)

Heatwave Pineapple Pork from the Hot Pot Solar Cooker

Recipe 41 in the Solar Hot Pot

Heatwave Pineapple Pork

We are doing a double batch of this, in two separate Solar Hot Pots, to have planned-overs. (That’s when you PLAN to have leftovers. smile) Planning for a busy day this week when it’s going to be hard to cook, even indoors!

12:00 pm—1 T butter or oil: put in Solar Hot Pot, cover, set up facing the sun, set timer for 20 minutes.

Then prep:

1/2 a medium onion (chop finely)
2 cloves garlic (smash and mince)
dash chili powder (or more)

12:20 pm—onions & garlic & chili powder: add, cover, set timer for 40 minutes.

Then prep:

20 oz. pineapple chunks DRAIN; drink juice (smile)
2 T honey (drizzle over pineapple)
4 T apple cider vinegar (stir into pineapple)
1/4 t. salt (stir into pineapple)

1:00 pm—6 medium boneless pork chops, pineapple mixture: set chops in a single layer in Solar Hot Pot, pour pineapple mixture over, put baking rack in top to hold thermometer, and put thermometer in (touching food but not touching Hot Pot).

Cover, adjust to sun, set timer for 60 minutes.

Basically done except checking temperature and adjusting to sun!

2:00 pm—adjust to sun, set timer for 60 minutes.

3:00 pm—at this point, the food needs to be at least 150 degrees. If it is not, quickly bring to temp. and finish with a higher heat source.

If at least 150, adjust to sun and set timer for 60 minutes.

So in our case, I could have written “adjust to rain.” LOL Yes, we got clouds that came, stayed, and dropped some raindrops. (So much for 0% chance of rain today!) The sun did get the Pots up to temp. just before the clouds came, (and the temp held a little while), so we protected the Pots from the rain and watched the temp. At one point, we had sun rays to put the Pots back in and light raindrops at the same time! (That’s the hills—where we live—for ya!)

By 3:15, the sun came out to stay, and the Pots were up to 155 degrees by 3:30—yay!

4:00 pm—you can test the doneness of the pork at this point by inserting the thermometer into the thickest piece of meat. It should read at least 170 degrees.

Serve over noodles or rice.

I think maybe you can overcook pork, even “braising” in a liquid like this, but I am not sure. Obviously, we struggled a bit just to get ours done! But it worked, and the final result tempted us to supper with its tangy, sweet, meaty goodness. (smile) It needed more salt (IMHO), but otherwise good.

9 recipes left to go to meet my goal of 50 recipes in the Solar Hot Pot!