The sun is fighting with clouds this morning, and it feels a lot cooler and less humid; we may be able to free ourselves of the AC, but I think I’ll let the day progress just a bit before deciding.
I made this stew first when my sister was visiting, and everyone loved it. I made it again yesterday with a few adjustments, and it was even better, in my humble opinion.
I still used the slow cooker, but kept my eye on it, and only cooked the pork for about four hours before removing it and adding the peanut butter (I think this would have been a good move previously too, since the pork was on the edge of being overdone when we got home after 6 hours – still well under the recommended 8 hour cooking time).
I used a different cut of pork; instead of the boneless pork roast I used last month, I used about 4 chops from a seven blade roast that the kindly butcher at Dominicks had separated for me. I like the flavor meat ‘on the bone’ adds, it was easy to remove the bones before finishing the stew, and I had ended up with a nice mix of shredded and chunk pork.
I added an onion and changed the teriyaki sauce I used. The onion speaks for itself – I think it was a good call to add; the teriyaki switch was maybe a more personal call. I like a sweeter teriyaki and so have never really felt the love for Kikkoman, but I used it because that was what I had. This time, I had some Sweet Baby Ray’s Teriyaki that had been sitting in the back of the pantry. BINGO! The perfect hit of sweet with the (very) subtle bite of the crushed red pepper. It won’t replace Lawry’s Pineapple Teriyaki in Banzai Burgers (coming soon!), but will now be my standard for all our other teriyaki needs. I have also adjusted the sauce amounts to reflect doubling what the original recipe called for.
OK, director’s commentary done; on to the recipe redux:
INGREDIENTS
Stew:
•2 lb boned pork loin, cut into 4 pieces (or thick cut chops)
•2 cups red bell pepper slices
•1 onion, sliced
•1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
•4 tbsp rice or white wine vinegar
•2 tsp crushed red pepper
•4 garlic cloves, minced
•1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Toppings:
•Dry roast peanuts
•Limes
•Basil or cilantro
•Rice or Noodles
Place pork and next 5 ingredients (pork through garlic) in an electric slow cooker. Cover with lid, and cook on low-heat setting for 4 to 5 hours (if you have an older slow cooker, you may be able to do this for the 8 
hours originally called for, but I wouldn’t trust it in mine). Remove pork from slow cooker, and coarsely chop. Add peanut butter to liquid in slow cooker; stir well. Stir in pork.
Serve with rice (I used yellow rice because it’s my favorite and I like the color contrast) or noodles and top with dry roast peanuts and fresh basil or cilantro. Fresh lime wedges to squeeze over all are also a nice touch.