This weeks local meal comes courtesy of one very non-local appliance, my rockin' Sanyo ECJ-D100S Rice Cooker. This little beauty not only cooks rice, grains and porridges of all sorts to perfection, it has a timer that can have said perfection ready right when you get home from work or up out of bed. It also doubles and triples as a steamer and slow cooker. To be honest, I prefer to steam things on the stove, but the slow cooker works great, and anything that does double duty saves me that much counter space!

I slow-cooked the pork, a meaty country-style rib, with some apple bbq sauce made by a local orchard, and a handful of green onions tossed in at the end. I served it on a bed of that Rhode Island polenta, with a side of sautéed onion and kale. The pork was tender and smoky, the thick bbq sauce forming a gooey coating over it and dripping into the creamy polenta. The kale was fresh and clean, mild-flavored and not at all bitter, the perfect counterpoint to the sweet and salty pork.

Ingredients:
BBQ Sauce from Bolton Orchard in Bolton, MA
Kale, young white onions, green onions from Red Fire Farms, Granby, MA
Gray's Rhode Island Cornmeal, from Gray's Grist Mill in Adamsville, RI
Pork shoulder country style ribs from Houde Family Farm, St. Johnsbury, VT