Fall Meal Plan #11

One pork roast, one pot of rice, four easy dinners, and a make-ahead pumpkin bread

This week’s plan is built around a slow cooker pork roast and a pot of rice that each show up twice. Sticky Asian pork kicks things off on an easy night, shrimp étouffée comes together in 30 minutes, and the leftover pork and rice turn into a veggie fried rice that might rival your favorite takeout. A creamy butternut squash pasta rounds out the week, and a make-ahead pumpkin bread is there for breakfasts and “just one more slice” moments. You’ll find the full grocery list and Walmart cart below, plus, of course, our notes on what to swap, skip, and prep ahead so you can make this work with whatever is in your fridge.

DINNER #1: Sticky Asian Pork | Total Time: 4 hours 45 minutes | Active Time: 15 minutes | Serves: 8
This sticky Asian pork is a fantastic weeknight meal that you can make in the slow cooker or pressure cooker and it takes very little effort. We love it because it has great flavor on its own, but then everyone can build their own plate to their preferences (read: kids can dip it in ketchup and adults can use all the veggies and sauces.) We love the slow cooker version since it’s mostly hands off, but if you prefer the stove or the pressure cooker, the directions are in the recipe. You’ll have a lot of pork, but that’s on purpose: we’re using the rest in the fried rice later!

Notes:
Spices: we left out the cinnamon stick and the star anise last time we made this because we didn’t have them, but it would be delicious if you happen to have it in your pantry. If you don’t keep Chinese Five Spice you could use one of these substitution suggestions, but it would also be fine to leave it out.
Serving: There are a lot of suggestions in the recipe for serving this. Use whatever sounds good to you, but don’t overdo it. We do like thickening the sauce from the pork, and we like serving with spicy mayo. Then we add whatever veggies we have on hand: shredded carrots, cucumber, red onion, green onion, etc. We don’t hunt for the Peking duck pancakes… a good thin tortilla works just fine.
Sauce ingredients: There wasn’t room for the chicken stock in the slow cooker, so we left it out, and there was plenty of liquid. Feel free to sub all light (regular) soy sauce in place of dark soy.
Save leftovers: Depending on how many people you are feeding, you will probably have about half of the pork leftover. Save whatever you have left (we like about 2 cups or so) for your fried rice.