Pulled Pork with… Rootbeer!

A couple years ago, my roommates and I had a day in our schedules where we all got home rather late and pretty tired, and cooking was not something we were really up for that night.  We discovered the miracle of slow-cooking.  And I realized that I had very few slow-cooker recipes.  So I've slowly accumulated more of them, including this one, from Better Homes and Gardens, for pulled pork with a root-beer sauce.  (I LOVE ROOT-BEER!)

Root-beer-sauced Pulled Pork
2.5 lb pork roast
Steak seasoning
1 Tbsp cooking oil 
1 onion, cut into wedges
2 T minced garlic
3 C root-beer
1 C chili sauce (I used Thai Sweet Chili Sauce)
Hamburger buns (for serving)

Sprinkle the roast generously on all sides with the steak seasoning, pressing/rubbing to make sure it sticks.  In a skillet, heat the oil over high heat.  When the pan is screaming hot (or darn close to it), put in the roast and give it a good sear on all sides-- so it looks nice and brown all over; your slow-cooker shouldn't give it a nice crisp browning.  I recommend using tongs to hold the roast in place so you can sear the ends as well as the flat sides.

Place the roast in your slow-cooker, along with the onion, garlic, and 1 C root-beer.  Cover and cook for about 8 hours on the "low" setting.  I flipped mine partway through, to make sure that both halves of the roast got to sit in the root beer during the cooking.

Toward the end of the cooking time, make the sauce:  Combine the remaining 2 C root-beer and the chili sauce in a saucepan.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and slowly reduce the sauce.  It should continue to boil gently, and you should stir it to prevent burning.  It takes a while.  About 30 minutes by the original recipe's reckoning.  You want to end up with about 2 C of liquid, or just get it to a consistency that you like-- think of a barbecue sauce (just not a super-thick one).


When you're ready to eat, remove the meat from the slow-cooker.  Drain the liquid, but keep the onions.  Pull the meat apart.  It should be tender enough that this is an easy task.  Just grab a fork or two and start in on it.  The way I see it, you can either combine the pulled meat, onions, and sauce, or you can go ahead and layer them on you bun-- top the meat with some onion and sauce, and anything else you might like to add, such as lettuce or tomato.



I'm not much of a pork eater, generally, but pulled pork is frequently the exception.  This recipe is fantastically simple, and had lots of delicious flavor.  I ate it as sandwiches, by itself, and even made it into an omelette.  Yummy!

It can rhyme with "gone": Scone

I can only speak for myself, but I love a good scone.  I like their relatively dense but still flaky texture; it really sets them apart from other pastries.  I love them so much that I keep collecting recipes for them, even though I absolutely love the first recipe I ever made.  That's the recipe I'll be sharing today, because I haven't yet gone wrong with it.  I found it in one of those junior league cookbooks they compile for charity.  I've changed what gets added to these scones, but they're delicious with any number of add-ins.  I make them whenever I have cream that needs to be used up, and just knead in whatever I have on hand.  This time it was dried mangos and chocolate chips.  

Mango-Chocolate Chip Scones

2 C flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

6 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces

2 eggs

1/2 C cream

1/4 C chopped dried mango, soaked in rum

1/4 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425˚F.

Combine dry ingredients, and cut in butter (using either a pastry blender, your fingers, or a knife and fork) until the mixture resembles course crumbs.  In previous blogs, I've talked about how unhelpful I find this description.  What you want is a mixture that is NOT evenly mixed.  You don't want tons of huge clumps of butter, but you don't want it totally mixed in.  That's your flakey, buttery goodness.  

In a smaller bowl, beat the eggs and combine them with the cream, raisins, and chocolate chips.  Add this to the dry ingredients and stir just until a single ball of dough forms.  Dump onto a floured surface and knead 1 minute.  Shape into a round, about 1/8 inch thick, and then cut into 8 wedges.  (I use a pizza cutter.)

Place on a lightly grease or parchment-covered baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, until golden-brown.  

Seriously, I love this recipe.  It's delicious.  These scones go well with tea or a glass of milk, making them a wonderful snack or breakfast treat.  They freeze well, so you can make up a batch right before you go on vacation, using up the cream that won't last until you get back, and not have to worry about whether they'll be ok when you get back.

As for add-ins: the original recipe used raisins in orange liqueur, but I'm not a big fan of baked raisins.  I've used them, though, as well as cranberries, chocolate chips on their own, and once dried blueberries!  Oh, yum.  But the add-in is where you get to make the scones your own, so have fun, use what you like.