Barbecue

[filkertom]

I didn't make the Cook's Country Dutch-oven-pulled-pork-for-two yesterday. Not feeling well. Today, I made it. The work was the better part of an hour: trimming blade chops off the bone, cooking bacon so that everything else is sauteed in the bacon fat, browning a pound and a quarter of spice-rubbed pork. Read the recipe wrong; the rub wanted a teaspoon each of ground cumin and chili powder instead of a tablespoon. Final result: right at the absolute top of my range for handling spicy food. Fortunately, I had crackers and ice cream at hand.

Also fortunately, the pulled pork tastes amazing.

The barbecue sauce, which it braises in, is as flavorful as any I've ever had. The pork was fall-apart tender, and even with my taste buds screaming enough with the capsaicin already I had to make myself stop and only eat half the batch. The other half is currently in the fridge, where tomorrow it shall make friends with some corn muffins.

This is by far the most ambitious thing I've cooked completely by myself. I've made lots of chili and weeknight ground-beef spaghetti sauce. I've done a holiday party feast with crock pot chili, two meat loaves, and from-scratch green bean casserole, but Leslie was basically my sous-chef. I've made a knock-off of be bim bop a couple of times, but with help from Les (the first time) and Anne (the second). I made from-scratch tacos and fried the corn tortillas for the shells (if you have never done this, it's a revelation).

But never have I made barbecue from scratch. Certainly, I had only hoped it would taste as wonderful as it actually did.

And I've got more for tomorrow.

And how's your Sunday dinner?

Comments

[virtualvirtue.livejournal.com]

Husband grilled bratwurst and pork chops. Nummy! Our dog loves us so much. :-)

[virtualvirtue.livejournal.com]

And, what you had sounds YUMMY! Love bar-be-que...

[sveethot.livejournal.com]

My two squash Risotto was excellent, w/leftovers for later. Your BBQ sounds most excellent - mmm, chile!

[jss]

Some yummy leftover homemade lasagna (with extra meat sauce and cheese added at reheat-time), with a salad of marinated artichoke hearts. Sundae (chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and chocolate sauce) for dessert.

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

For me? Did NOT feel like cooking today. Been overcast and rainy today, so we stayed in and lazed away :). So I just had some good ol' hearty fare - leftover roast beef, roast potatoes and corn. Gotta love the basics :)

[naomi-de-plume.livejournal.com]

Slow simmered Sunday gravy here (tomato sauce). Cooked from around 10ish until 5, with meatballs and whole wheat pasta. A little bit healthier than grandma used to make, but just as yummy. Also in the oven all day: beef jerky for DragonCon. Which reminds me: is there anything you'd like brought to DragonCon, Tom? Cookies? Other treats?

[morvab.livejournal.com]

Well done you, Tom - a lot of work but sounds like it paid off. Did you use a commercial BBQ sauce or one you made?
For tonight just having leftover little samiches (which autocorrect wants to change to Semites!?) from a party we attended this afternoon, and a big salad of fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden with bocconcini and some olive oil and balsamic. Followed by leftover dainties from the party and a big fruit salad because I ran amok on local berries and stuff at the fruit market yesterday.
But we started out the day (late) with Alan making these wonderful very light pancakes (made with yogurt in the batter) with fresh tiny wild blueberries in them and fresh not so tiny raspberries on top. And maple syrup.
I am slug like but replete.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. America's Test Kitchen (the Cooks Illustrated and Cook's Country people) have a couple of great-sounding recipes for Sunday gravy -- simplified from the full-Italian-mama seven-meats version, but it still sounds excellent.

Cookies would be wonderful, thank you! What kind are you thinkin'?

[naomi-de-plume.livejournal.com]

Peanut-butter chocolate chip? Oatmeal Raisin? Snickerdoodle? Gingerbread? What would you like? I'm yours to command. :)

BTW, Do we need to bring cookies for Filk & Cookies?

Cook's Country's Indoor Pulled Pork For Two

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Noncommercial, straight from the recipe. Thus:

• Heat oven to 300°.
• Cut two or three pounds of pork chops off the bone and into 1-inch strips, pat dry w/paper towels, apply spice rub (1 tb. each paprika and dark brown sugar, 1 tsp. each chili powder, ground cumin, black pepper, 1/2 tsp. salt).
• Chop up two slices of bacon, cook in Dutch oven on stovetop until crisp; remove bacon with slotted spoon to paper-towel-lined plate.
• Brown pork in two batches, 3-4 min. on each side; remove to second plate.
• Cook a chopped onion in the Dutch oven until soft, about five minutes. Add 2 cloves minced or pressed garlic, cook for about half a minute. Stir in 3/4 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup cider vinegar, and 4-5 tb. dark brown sugar*; bring to a boil.
• Return bacon, browned pork, and any accumulated juices to Dutch oven; move Dutch oven to actual oven, and braise for about 90 minutes until the pork is fork-tender.
• Remove the pork to a bowl, and shred it (using two forks). Return it to the Dutch oven, stir with sauce to combine, and serve.

*The total dark brown sugar listed for the recipe is 1/4 cup, the first tb. of which goes into the spice rub.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Dunno about that -- talk to Robbie. Oatmeal raisin would be exquisite.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

That really sounds excellent!

I love adding extra cumin to dishes I make so your mistake sounds pretty darn tasty to me. :)

My dinner was made by my roommate: crock-pot spaghetti with chicken. And garlic bread. Mmmm...!

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Like I said, the flavor was incredible.

Dang. I've been having a craving for some seriously beefy spaghetti sauce, a heap o' pasta, and some fresh-made garlic bread myself. I've gotta try ATK's crock-pot Bolognese....

Re: Cook's Country's Indoor Pulled Pork For Two

[morvab.livejournal.com]

That was fast! Thanks much - I have saved it to try when the weather is a bit cooler as I try to avoid having the oven on for long periods in the heatwave. Even with A/C that seems a bit circular....
This looks excellent - a lot more work that the one I last used, which was slow cooker and did not require browning the pork first, which I know makes a big difference to the flavour. I will make it for my son, who is in culinary school, and see what he thinks!

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Yum!

Re: Cook's Country's Indoor Pulled Pork For Two

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask for the recipe. Thanks!

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

A while ago I saw an episode of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" with a good looking pulled pork recipe, so I bought a lot of pork parts at the cash & carry and made it. Very delicious. Had a lot of leftovers, which was the point of buying so much, so froze it all. After reading Tom's comment about making dutch oven pulled pork it stuck in my mind so I zapped the last of it using a cola BBQ sauce I made and made sammiches with a quick griddle bread.

And Tom, I've made ATK's crock-pot bolognese and it's terrific! It's also open to additions, like last time I made it I threw in a handful of chopped dried mushrooms and it came out great.

Re: Cook's Country's Indoor Pulled Pork For Two

[virtualvirtue.livejournal.com]

copying, pasting...saving for cooler weather. Sounds succulent. Wonder if I could do this with meatier ribs for rib tips....

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Chicken thighs marinated overnight in teriyaki sauce and cooked on the grill, watermelon, brown rice, and dirty macquechoux (corn, tomatoes, onions, garlic, green pepper, black beans, salt, black pepper, cayenne, and a couple of dollops of sour cream). It all came out really well. Gotta try that pulled pork, though--thanks for the recipe!

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I made my lunch for the week and had plenty of left over for dinner. Yesterday I whimsically decided to put in a shift at the food bank to see if the Saturday crowd was different than the weekday. A store donated a bunch of brussel sprouts in bags and no one was taking them. So I got to take one home. (What can I say, I like them sauteed.) This is a big multi-hour cooking process mostly because I go slow. I cook 2 cups of rice in my turkey broth plus spices. I add one pound of cooked turkey sausage (this week I found a special on ground chicken so I can have it later in the week). To that mix I add a bunch of cooked veggies and a drained can of green beans. The whole thing is mixed and I put it in a container and have 1/4 a day and treat myself to a restaurant meal once a week. I don't know what such a thing would be called, but it's pretty good and nutritious. It doesn't look all that appetizing but you get used to it.

I sauteed the brussel sprouts in some oil along with bean sprouts. I actually had to cook the veggies in 3 batches. The nappa cabbage alone was one and the third was celery and carrots.

Last night was the local sci-fi club's party. It was in a new spot who had a grill. So I bought some Italian sausages to share. I didn't get one, when they were ready I told everyone to go ahead and enjoy. I sort of figured there would be one left. But no, I made a bunch of people happy and that's more important.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

How do you do crock-pot spaghetti without overcooking the pasta?

One thing I like to do is wait until the supermarket has those frozen pre-cooked sausages on sale and slice them up into pseudo-meatballs.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the pulled pork was a resounding success :) it also sounds pretty good too.

As for me I just nuked a Boston Market beef steak and noodles dinner and had that. Didn't really feel like cooking anything else tonight.

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

y'know, I read that and thought "is it going to make it that long 'til D*C?", then I realized D*C is only TWO FRIGGIN WEEKS away! eeep! :)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Korean ribs from Trader Joe's, with risotto that used the ribs' juice from the plate while resting, and from the deglazed pan they were cooked in, for flavoring.

The ribs are a keeper, and so, too is the risotto technique.

Nom.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Recipes like that make me wish I didn't absolutely loathe cooking. (Tedious saga of family dysfunction cut for your protection.) Even if I didn't, all that using-the-hands stuff bloody well hurts. Steve doesn't mind it, but doesn't enjoy it either.

Diet frozen dinner with extra frozen veggies for me. OTOH, last night we dined at Famous Dave's, so my BBQ itch is nicely scratched for now.