Smoked Pulled Pork

This past weekend Matt & I invited a bunch of friends over to celebrate the fact we'd finished landscaping our yard including a large new patio. Matt decided it was a good time to get out the smoker & throw on a bunch of pig. The star of the meal was the smoked pulled pork.

Really this is a simple dish to make & people just seem to love it. It does take quite a few hours to get the meat cooked through & pull apart tender but believe me its worth it. And really does this look like a ton of work?

The meat comes out juicy & tender with that smoky flavor penetrating every bite. Here's how we do it...

The day before you are planning on smoking your pork mix together your dry rub (You'll use this same rub to flavor the baked beans we'll talk about later this week).

Dry Pork Rub

1 c brown sugar
6 T kosher salt
3 T chili powder (we used a fantastic New Mexico blend)
1 T dry mustard
1 t onion powder
1 t ground black pepper
1/2 t cinnamon

Mix everything together well. Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 2 cups of rub (this was enough for two 3 pound pork shoulders, a large batch of beans & we still have some leftover)

Rub your pork shoulder or butt with the rub. Wrap in foil or plastic wrap & let sit in the fridge overnight.

On smoking day get the smoke going on your smoker or grill turned very low (about 225 - 250) with a smoker box. Put the pork on the grill. Let smoke for 6 -8 hours until the meat reaches 190 F & is pull apart tender. That may seem like a high temperature but you want to fat to turn to gelatin so the meat will fall apart. Take the beautiful blackened meat from the smoker.

Use forks or your fingers (if you can stand the heat) to shred meat. Serve with rolls, white bread or just on its own. We passed the pork with three flavors of Howling Wolf barbecue sauce. Matt preferred it plain on a roll just topped with a little coleslaw. Some people just like it all by itself eaten with their fingers.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Weekly Menu 7/12 - 7/17/10

No Farmers Market Finds this week as we didn't go to the market on Sunday. Our fridge is just too full of vegetables right now so we decided to skip this week. That is the flexibility we were looking for when we switch from a CSA to getting everything at the farmers market.

Our Smokapalooza was a big success on Saturday. Matt did such a great job with the smoked meats & I can't wait to share all the recipes with you this week. We'll start tomorrow with the star of the show, the pulled pork.

Our garden is growing like crazy right now & I had to share this funny heirloom I noticed yesterday, does anyone else see a face here?

On to Menu Planning Monday....

Crock Pot Gumbo - Using leftover smoked sausage

Salmon Cakes

Smoked Ribs with Crock Pot Baked Beans

Going out for Vietnamese

Stir-fry unless I come up with something else

We also got some fresh figs from the tree in my parents backyard to use so I'll be cooking up some figgy desserts.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Saturday Forecast - Smokey

We have been so crazy busy the last couple of weeks around Chez Good Appetite re-landscaping the yard plus having a new patio & stairs installed. It was a lot of hard work, & sweaty with the heat & humidity we've had, but it's all done & this weekend we'll celebrate with what we are calling Smokapalooza.
Here's some shots of our finished work....


But more importantly here's the menu for this weekend's festivities...
Smoked Pulled Pork
Homemade Smoked Sausage

(Matt & I made 10 feet of Polish sausage last night)
Homemade Mustards
Baked Beans (which I'll flavor with bacon & the same rub as the pork)
Cole Slaw (going to make my mom's classic version)
Buns & White Bread (gotta do the white bread with bbq)
Maple Bacon Ice Cream

We wish you all lived close enough to join us but since you can't we look forward to sharing a bunch of these recipes with you next week!

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Ice Cream Fail

Ok, I need some help from you ice cream experts out there.

You might remember two weeks ago Matt asked me to make some strawberry buttermilk ice cream with the fresh strawberries from the farmers market. As all our ice creams last year turned out really good I was pretty confident I could just adapted a recipe & make this one. I started with a recipe for vanilla ice cream them substituted some of the milk with buttermilk, the recipe still had cream & milk in it. I turned the milk mixture, sugar, eggs & strawberries into custard with a slow cook over the stove. I chilled it overnight & it tasted fabulous. The problem came with the churning. It never really got any firmer than a soft serve & melted really quickly. The worse thing was it was grainy with ice crystals, not smooth & creamy at all.

Any thoughts on what could have caused this? Could it be the reduced fat from using buttermilk? Could my custard not have been thick enough? Also I think I had slightly too much base for my mixer, could this be part of the issue?

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Matt's Chicken Salad

As I think I've mention a few hundred times, we love a roast chicken. It makes for a great meal right when it's cooked but then there are the leftovers to play with which means I get one of my favorite lunches, chicken salad.

Last week, we had some of that leftover chicken. I was busy moving a dump truck full of mulch that had been delivered to our front yard so asked Matt to make the chicken salad. Matt seems to have an innate sense when it comes to cooking. He almost never uses a recipe & often puts together strange combinations that end up tasting really good together. Take this salad for instance, I would have never thought to put cajun seasoning & kalamata olives together. What we ended up with was a salad that had a nice saltiness from the olives & a zing from the seasoning. It was so good I was sad there was only 4 servings. I'm so lucky to be married to this kind of cook.

Matt's Chicken Salad

2 c cooked chicken, shredded or chopped
1/8 c slivered almonds
1/4 c kalamata olives, chopped
1/4 c scallion, sliced
1/4 c mayo
1 t cajun seasoning

Mix everything together. Serve in a sandwich or on top of a bed of lettuce.

4 servings

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski