So I've been doing some more cooking. Enjoy!! :-)
First item on the menu is BBQ pulled pork! First you get a 5 pound pork shoulder and slice up some onions. Then you pour 2 bottles of beer (I used Leinenkugel's honey weiss) into a 6-quart crock pot, add in most of the onion slices, stick the pork shoulder on top, and put the remaining onion slices on top of hte pork. Put a lid on the crock pot and cook that sucker for 8 hours on low.
After 8 hours, rip the pork to shreds. With your bare hands. Trust me, it's quicker than trying to chop it up with a knife. Throw it and the onions (sorry, no more use for the beer) into a ton of BBQ sauce. Use whatever BBQ sauce you want. I made my own like my dad used to make. I can't tell you how to make it because it's a secret. But, let me tell you, it's delicious!
I mixed it all and it ended up going in a smaller crock pot (4 quarts). It gets cooked on low for another 8 hours. Or 10 or 11 if you happen work until 4 or 5pm like I do and can't leave early just to go eat food. Here are the results:
This wine from Trader Joe's had a description of going well with BBQ. It was not lying! :-)
Next on the list is Saturday's breakfast! :-)
It's not very complicated. Fried eggs and pork sausage patties. I also diced a potato and fried it with olive oil with a tiny bit of garlic and salt. I also made toast. There was coffee too, but it didn't make it to the photo shoot.
Finally, we have tonight's dinner. Butternut squash ravioli and some tasty vegetables mixed together and roasted in the oven.
The ravioli came from the store. Looks like this:
It was certified vegan. But that's not how I roll so I chopped up some fresh sage, and added it to some melted butter. I could hear cows scream as I poured that butter into my cooked ravioli and mixed it in.
And, sticking with my butternut squash theme, I bought a butternut squash from the store and chopped it up. I also chopped up some zucchini, some mushrooms, and an onion. Mixed them together with some fresh sage and rosemary and a little olive oil. Then I roasted them on 425 for about 40 minutes. End results:
mix the veggies...
with the olive oil/rosemary/sage mixture...
cook it and add ravioli to get...
The wine used at this meal comes from this store. Someday I would like to go back and buy more.
Alright, folks. That completes another blog about how you wish you lived close enough for me to cook for you! :-P
Yes, I DO wish I lived close enough to try some of this great food! Especially that last dish. Me likey pasta.
You'll love this mac and cheese I made tonight! :-)
1 # Macaroni noodles, a rotisserie chicken (shredded), goat cheese, Parmesan, asiago, mozerrella, fresh rosemary and olive oil blended together, and heavy whipping cream!
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
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Wow.....You might have just made me hungry! Do you think you could send some of that through FedEx? :D
Wow, all the food looked great. But it is BBQ heresy to cook the pork that way. Anyone from Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma all away across the South to South Carolina which is the home of pulled pork was probably shocked that you would commit such sacrilege.
Damned Yankee! :-)
Pulled pork should be cooked in a smoker. It is OK to finish it as you described but the first few hours (until it reaches an internal tempurature of about 140) should be with smoke. The traditional wood is hickory but apple, pecan and some other hard woods are also good. Avoid Mesquite because it is good for grilling but too pungent for smoking. If you don't have a smoker, then a Weber Kettle works pretty well if you cook using the indirect method. You have to resist the urge to open the lid more than once in a 2 hour period. A southerner would leave the pork in the smoker until it was done. Some wrap it in an envelope of tinfoil so that it benefits from moist heat.
Regardless of how you cook it, the key to fall apart tender pork is low and slow. If you cook it too fast you drive the moisture out of the meat . A crock pot on low or an oven set at about 220 degrees is about right. It needs to reach an internal temperature of between 195 to 200 degrees which is well past done for pork but it has to get that hot to literally melt the collagen sinues that run through the shoulder. This transforms it from a tough cut of meat to fall apart tender.
There are two common cuts from the pork shoulder and both will work for pulled pork. The Butt (or Blade) Roast and the Picnic Roast. Despite its name, a pork Butt roast comes from the front shoulder. I like it a little better than the Picnic roast because it comes from higher up on the shoulder near the shoulder blade and has bigger muscles rather than lots of small ones found in the picnic roast which is lower down on the upper arm.
I don't have a smoker or I would have used it. :-( My brother took my dad's smoker that we used in Alaska.
But speaking of fall apart pork... I ended up using a slotted spoon to get most of it out of the crock pot. Because it literally fell apart into pieces as soon as I tried getting it out with a couple forks. And then it fell apart some more when I tried a spatula. And I didn't really have to worry about getting the fat off because it kind of slid right off ::enter crude prom dress joke here::
:-)
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
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