Barbeque Pulled Pork

I have a confession to make. I love to cook. I cook like crazy. I fill my fridge (and eventually my freezer) with more food than my son and I could ever eat. It makes me happy. But that's not my confession. My confession is this - I am a notorious recipe-follower. When people tell me I'm a great cook, I feel guilty, and I have to tell them - I'm really just quite good at following directions. But, about a year ago I started to venture, very tentatively, away from my recipes. First I just tweaked them a little bit, then a little bit more. Then I started combining them - I took ingredients I liked from one, techniques I liked from another, flavors I liked from another, and I kind of mushed them together into what usually (but not always!) turned out to be pretty good. With the exception of Aunt Jamie's tried and true cookie recipe, those are the recipes I've written down so far. There weren't many at first, but this summer, with little time on my hands, they've been coming together faster than I can post them.

Then, yesterday I finally did it. I didn't mean to at first. I was going to take a bottle of store-bought barbeque sauce and throw it in a dutch oven with a pork roast, then put it in an oven for a few hours for an easy meal. But, low and behold, I had no store-bought barbeque sauce. Granted, it would have been a lot quicker to run to the store and buy one, but once I got the idea in my head, there was no stopping me. I was going to come up with a recipe all by myself. No books, no internet searches, no Pinterest, just me and what bit of cooking sense I'd accumulated over the past five years or so (since I stopped nuking mini corn dogs and calling it dinner).

Why I chose barbeque, I don't know. I have made barbeque sauce from scratch (using a recipe) exactly four times. Every time, I thought it was either too vinegary, too sweet, or too ketchupy. So this was not my area of expertise. But, I figured I knew the basics - there should be some sweet, there should be some vinegar, ketchup should probably be the base (although next time, I might try going for tomato puree of some sort, I really would like to eliminate the high fructose corn syrup). And maybe something smoky? Out came the bacon, and there was no turning back from there.

In a large dutch oven, I sauteed bacon, half a yellow onion and half a red onion over medium low heat until the bacon was slightly browned and the bottom was coated with all sorts of nice, brown, crusty bits.. It's not important that the bacon get crispy here, we're going to be braising here, so it wouldn't stay crispy anyway, and with the moisture from the onions, you'd be waiting a long, long time.

 

Add four cloves of garlic and 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (I think next time, I'll use 1/4 tsp, which is reflected in the recipe below, but if you like it spicy stick with 1/2 tsp) and cook about 30 seconds. Then deglaze with half a cup of good, strong coffee. After I scraped all the fond up off the bottom, I dumped in the rest of the ingredients. I'll spare you all the details of all the adjustments I made after tasting it about a hundred times, but I think in the end I got just what I was going for.

Time to add the meat. I used a pork loin roast, because it's what I had. Pork shoulder would probably work better here, but I think whatever kind of meat you like would work - I'll probably try it with chicken or chuck roast next time. Add the meat and bring to a simmer, then put in a preheated oven at 275 degrees for 3-4 hours. I just kept testing the meat until it was falling apart. Remove the meat to a bowl and let cool until you can shred it. Meanwhile, return the dutch oven to the stovetop and reduce over medium heat until the sauce is thick and dark

When the sauce is nice and thick, fold it into the meat, then serve. I didn't have the ingredients for coleslaw on hand, but it would be the perfect accompaniment.

I thought it turned out pretty good for a first try. Now that I've broken the ice, I'm off to the kitchen to see what else I can dream up. It's like a whole new world! Here's the complete recipe:

Barbeque Pulled Pork

4 slices of bacon, diced

half a yellow onion, diced

half a red onion, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/2 cup brewed coffe

1 cup ketchup

1/4 cup molasses

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 Tb apple cider vinegar

2 Tb Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp chipotle pepper powder

1 Tb yellow mustard (trust me!)

4-5 lb pork (I used loin, but shoulder would probably be better), or whatever meat sounds good!

Preheat your oven to 275 degrees

1. Saute the bacon and onions in a large, heavy bottomed dutch oven over medium heat until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

2. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, along with about a 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, and saute, stirring constantly, until fragrant,  30-45 seconds

3. Deglaze with coffee, scraping up all the yummy bits from the bottom. Allow to bubble away until slightly reduced, about 2 minutes

4. Add the next seven ingredients (through mustard) and stir to combine.

5. Add the meat and bring to a boil, then cover and put in oven for 3-4 hours until the meat is extremely tender.

6. Remove the meat to a bowl and allow to cool slightly, then shred the meat with your hands or two forks.

7. Meanwhile, return the dutch oven to the stovetop and simmer over medium heat until it has reduced and thickened to desired consistency. This took me about 15 minutes, but the time may vary depending on how much liquid was released by the meat during braising.

8. Fold sauce into meat and enjoy!

The best cookies ever (seriously!)

Sleep was eluding me tonight, so I decided to bake up a batch of my favorite cookies. These are my go-to cookies for just about everything. They’re the perfect gift for kids’ teachers on the last day of school or snack day for your kids’ sports teams, if you can keep your kids out of them long enough to pack them up. I cannot take credit for these, the recipe came from my dear, dear friend Jamie, who lives way too far away for my liking, and baking these cookies always takes me back to sitting on her uber-comfy couch, drinking a glass of wine (or three) and flip-flopping between giggly girl talk and heartfelt, insightful conversation about the state of the world. I’m not sure where the original recipe came from, but that person goes on my list of people to thank along with whoever invented pasta, wine and cheese.

Ranger cookies are nothing fancy, but they're just downright yummy! Another bonus is that you can mix and match ingredients to replace the chocolate and peanut butter chips. I've never had a combination that didn't turn out delicious. A few of my favorites:
Dried cranberries and white chocolate chips
Pecans and dark chocolate chips (German chocolate cake, anyone?)
Sea salt and caramel candies

A couple of years ago, when I had leftover Halloween candy, I even chopped up Twix, Kit-Kats, Snickers, Milky Ways, MnM's and Mounds bars and mixed them into the batter. The fact that I do not gain 50 pounds that week is due only to excellent genetics, and nothing to do with self-control.

Now, let's get down to cooking these babies. The bowl to my mixer was otherwise engaged, so I made them by hand tonight. I can't remember the last time I creamed butter and sugar with a wooden spoon, but like most culinary endeavors, it was therapeutic to skip the shortcuts and put some elbow grease into it.

The recipe is much like your basic cookie dough, don't ask me why they turn out as good as they do, but there's magic in there somewhere..
Butter and sugar, mmmmmm....

Cream until well combined. (I was so distracted by the yumminess, I forgot an "after" shot...

And of course...

 
You can use 1 egg for chewier cookies or 2 eggs for a cakier cookie - I go for the chewier version every time.
Once you've got your egg and vanilla in,  just dump in the rest. You could mix the dry ingredients separately like in most dough and batter recipes, but this one's rustic to begin with and turns out great either way...

 
It might seem a little dry at first, but if you keep working it, it comes together. Using a stand mixer helps bring it together quicker, but a couple minutes of good stirring does the trick too.

Spoon large spoonfuls (or 1 1/2 inch cookie scoops) onto sheet pans lined in parchment.

Bake at 375 for 8 - 10 minutes. I like them almost raw in the middle, so I always opt for 8 minutes exactly, but you can adjust the cooking time to fit your tastes.

 
Try not to eat all of the cookies yourself. Save some for the kids' teachers. They deserve them.

Aunt Jamie's Ranger Cookies

Makes about two dozen

1/2 c butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar, packed
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt (leave out if you used salted butter)
1 c old fashioned oats
1 1/3 c coconut
1/2 c mini chocolate chips
1/2 c peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

1. Cream butter and sugars until well incorporated with a wooden spoon or in a mixer with paddle attachment.

2. Beat in egg and vanilla

3. Add remaining ingredients and mix until well combined

4. Spoon in heaping tablespoonfuls (I use a 1 1/2 in. ice cream scoop) onto ungreased (or parchment lined) cookie sheet.

5. Bake 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges, but still gooey in the middle.

Bacon Pancakes

In my family, we have two rules about pancakes: You can only eat pancakes with real maple syrup (warm, with butter mixed in) and pancakes must be accompanied by breakfast meat. When my son was younger, he used to laugh at me as I cut up my pancakes and sausage or bacon so that I had exactly enough of each so that every bite could contain a bite of pancake and a bite of meat. Of course, when he tried it himself, he stopped laughing. Now he won’t eat pancakes without breakfast meat either.

This morning he woke up with an idea: “mom, we should put bacon in our pancakes, then dip them in syrup.” So that’s just what we did.

I am currently attempting to remove over-processed food and refined sugars from our diet, so we made whole wheat pancakes. You can substitute your favorite pancake batter if desired.

This isn’t the fanciest, or maybe even the most original recipe I’ve ever made. But the fact that my kiddo came up with it and was so proud of his invention made it worth a post.

Let’s start with bacon. I always cook my bacon in the oven. It’s so much less messy than stovetop bacon, and it keeps the bacon from curling up, which is very helpful for this recipe.

Place 6 strips of bacon on a rack (I use cooling racks) over a sheet pan lined with foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes (check often!) until brown and crispy. Remove to a paper towel lined plate and cut each strip in half – kitchen shears work great. I don't have any pictures of this part, because I always get distracted by mmm... bacon and forget to take pictures!

Now for the pancakes:

(Mostly) Whole wheat pancakes

1 ½ C whole wheat flour

½  C all purpose flour

3 Tb brown sugar

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 Tb vegetable oil, melted butter, or melted coconut oil

1 ½ C buttermilk*

In a medium bowl, combine flours, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add wet ingredients and mix just until all dry ingredients are blended with the wet. A few lumps are fine – don’t overmix, it will make your pancakes tough.

*If you don’t have buttermilk, you can mix 1 Tb lemon juice, fill to 1 ½ C with milk, and let sit for 5 minutes. I usually do this because whenever I buy buttermilk, I use it once, then it ends up going bad before I can find another use for it!

Heat a non-stick skillet or griddle, then spoon the batter in strips about the same size as the strips of bacon. Lay one strip of bacon in each pancake, pressing it down softly into the batter. Spread a thin layer of batter over the top, just to cover the bacon. Flip and cook on the second side.

Heat about a cup of maple syrup with 2 tablespoons of butter until the butter melts. You can pour the syrup over the pancakes and eat with a fork, but we like to serve the syrup on a little bowl or cup on the side and “rip and dip" our pancakes.

Golf Night Corn Salad

This week it was team Herald's turn to make dinner for Women's league. With my golfing abilities, let's face it, this was probably my only opportunity to do something well on golf night :) For the past couple of years, I've been using this recipe for corn salad. It's a great recipe, my only problem with it was an aesthetic one - because the cilantro was blended into the dressing, it made the whole salad green, so you couldn't see the beautiful colors of the corn, tomatoes and avocado. So, I started playing around with it, and this is what I came up with.

I saw a great tip from Rachael Ray for cutting corn off the cob without making a huge mess - turn a small bowl upside-down inside a large bowl, set your corn on the small bowl, and cut. All (most) of your kernels end up in the big bowl instead of all over your kitchen. I find that cutting the cob in half so that you have a flat surface on one end to stand it up makes the process a little less dangerous :)

You could us the corn raw when it's in season, but I've never been a fan of raw corn and found that pan roasting brings out the sweetness, so I like to get a little bit of color on it:

Ok, enough rambling. Time for the recipe. I made a huge batch for golf night, so I cut the recipe in half here - It could probably be halved again and still be enough for a family of four, but leftovers are yummy :). All amounts can be adjusted to taste, but I tried to replicate the proportions I used last time as well as I could remember them.

Golf Night Corn Salad

• 1 Tb olive oil
• 1 Tb butter
• 6 ears of corn, cut off the cob
• 1/2 of a jalapeno pepper (adjust to taste - using 1/2 a pepper adds a little flavor but not much heat, so if you like it spicy, I'd go with a whole), finely minced.
• 3/4 canned or cooked black beans
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced (I like to make them about the same size as the corn kernels)
• 8 oz. cotija cheese (Queso fresco or buffalo mozzarella can be substituted for a milder flavor. Cotija's a little bit more like feta, which would also work but is a little stronger than cotija)
• Juice from 2 large limes
• 1/4 C fresh cilantro, chopped fine.
• 1/4 C olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 3 avocados, diced

1. Heat 1 Tb olive oil and butter over medium-high heat. Add the corn and 1/2 tsp salt, and saute until the corn has some color (see pic above), about 8-10 minutes.
2. Transfer corn to a large bowl and allow to cool.
3. Add pepper, beans, tomatoes, cheese, lime juice, cilantro and olive oil and mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 
4. Fold in avocado gently - I do this at the very end so it doesn't break up too much and turn into guacamole :)
5. Chill until ready to serve (at least an hour)