BBQ Pulled Beef Sandwiches

This recipe is definitely a crowd pleaser. Every time I make it for a crowd they always love it. So sit down relax and get ready to make some homemade BBQ sauce and some pulled beef sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 (5 pound) boneless beef chuck-eye roast, trimmed and cut into 4 pieces
• 4 slices bacon, chopped fine
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 ½ cups brewed coffee
• 1 ½ cups ketchup (I've ONLY used Trader Joe's Organic Ketchup, I've tried other Organic Ketchups, and they don't taste nearly as good, you've been warned)
• ¼  cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown mustard (I've used yellow mustard, works just the same)
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (I omit this...allergic, but I hear it gives it a great taste)
• Salt and pepper
• 10 sandwich rolls

Baby Fox, HAD to put his Dragon costume back on, and wanted to watch everything going on

Now onto the cooking part:

I didn't take pictures of the first parts, so let's just pretend that you know what I'm talking about.

1.  Place beef in slow-cooker insert.

 

 

2.  Cook bacon in large skillet over med-high heat until crisp, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to slow-cooker insert.

 

 

3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons fat from pan and cook onion in remaining bacon fat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chili powder and paprika and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in coffee, ketchup, sugar and 1 tablespoon mustard and simmer until reduced slightly, about 10 minutes.

 

 4. Add half of sauce to slow-cooker insert 

 

 

5.  Cover and cook on low until meat is tender, 9-10 hours (or cook on high for 5-6 hours).

 

   

6.  Refrigerate remaining half.

 

 

7.  After about 2 hours, this is what it will look like:

 

If after this amount of time, the meat is not fully submerged, shift the meat a bit so that everything is covered, or you can add a little more of the reserved sauce.

 

 

8.  Using slotted spoon, transfer meat to large bowl

 

 

 

cover with foil and set aside

 

 

 

9.  Transfer cooking liquid to large skillet,

 

skim fat, and simmer over med-high heat until reduce to about 1.5 cups, depending on how wide your pan is the time will vary, the pan below took about 15 minutes, if you use a sauce pan, with higher sides, can take up to 20-30 minutes.

I skim to a large bowl...

 

Mid-cooking:

 

 

Looks roughly like this when you're done:

 

 

 

10.  Off heat, stir in reserved sauce, remaining mustard, hot sauce, vinegar, and liquid smoke.

 

 

 

 

11.  Pull meat into large chunks, discarding any excess fat or gristle.

 

Will end up looking like this:

 

 

 

12.  Toss meat with 1 ½ cups sauce 

 

 

 

 let sit, covered, until meat has absorbed most of sauce, about 10 minutes.

 

Season with salt and pepper (although I've never had to do this).

 

Toast some rolls (we could only find small ones, so we sort of made sliders)

 

The finished product

 

 

Then you know, add some green stuff, so you aren't a total carnivore.

Enjoy!

A Fall Roast

So tonight I made a Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin. Actually I started making it last night, I made the marinade, but I cooked it tonight. I think it turned out fantastic, so I thought I would share. I got this recipe from All Recipes.com (but I couldn't find the recipe, I found it back in 2007). So here it is - retyped just for you guys.

Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:
1/2 cup apple juice concentrate
1/4 cup disjon mustard (I used regular because that's what I had on hand)
1/4 cup chopped fresh rosemary
8 garlic cloves
3/4 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
3 (1 pound pork tenderloin) - I used 1 3.5 pound roast I got from Costco

Directions:
1. In a bowl, combine the first five ingredients; mix well.

Set aside 1/3 cup; coer and refridgerate. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the pork and remaining marinade. Seal bag and turn to coat; refridgerate overnight.

2. Drain and discard marinade from meat. Place meat in a roasting pan (I didn't have one, so I just used a 9x13 casserole dish, worked just fine) coated with nonstick cooking spray.

Pour the reserved marinade on top.

Bake, uncovered, at 350°F for 40-45 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 160°F.

Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing

Serve with some great sides and enjoy! I paired it tonight with some rice and green beans, but to give your plate a little more color try some mashed sweet potatoes.

This is definitely a dish that will impress guests and is SUPER easy to make...really. I know, I always say that, but it's really true.

Mexican Pulled Pork (Carnitas)

Happy Friday everyone! TGIF! Here's the last recipe for the week, so enjoy!

This recipe is really easy too, okay it has a lot of steps, but it really isn't that hard, and it's SOOO good! Definitely a crowd pleaser. Without further ado:

Ingredients:

• 1 3.5-4 pound boneless pork butt, fat cap trimmed to 1/8 inch thick, cut into 2 inch chunks

• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 small onion, peeled and halved
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons juice from 1 lime
• 2 cups water
• 1 medium orange

Garnishes (suggestions)

• Tortillas
• Lime Wedges
• Mince white or red onion
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Thinly sliced radishes
• Sour cream
• Salsa
• Guacamole

Cooking Supplies You'll Need

• Large Dutch Oven
• Cookie Sheet with a cookie cooling rack that fits in it
• Slotted Spoon
• Spatula
• Knife
• Cutting Board
  

Advice: I will typically make a double batch, since you're going through all this trouble might as well make extra and freeze some. So I'll use about 7-8 pounds of meat. Then just double all of the other ingredients.

 Instructions:

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. 

1. Combine pork, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, cumin, onion, bay leaves, oregano, lime juice, and water in large Dutch oven (liquid should just barely cover meat). 

     2.  Juice orange into medium bowl and remove any seeds (you should have about 1/3 cup juice).
          Add juice and spent orange halves to pot. 

     3.  Bring mixture to simmer over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. 

     4.  Once simmering cover pot and transfer to oven;  

     5. Cook until meat is soft and falls apart when prodded with fork, about 2 hours (the recipe calls
         for 2 hours, I typically will do 3 hours, we find that it turns out a little bit better, but if you're
         pressed for time, 2 hours is good too), flipping pieces of meat once during cooking.

     6. Remove pot from oven and turn oven to broil. 

     7. Using slotted spoon, transfer pork to bowl; remove orange halves, onion, and bay leaves from
           cooking liquid and discard (do not skim fat from liquid).

     8. If you are making a double batch, I pour half the liquid into another pot and do this in two
          pots, makes for more sauce. Place pot over high heat (use caution, as handles will be very hot)
         and simmer liquid, stirring frequently, until thick and syrupy (heatsafe spatula should leave
         wide trail when dragged through glaze), 15 minutes or so. You should have about 1 cup reduced
         liquid. 

 

  10.  Using 2 forks, pull each piece of pork in half. Fold in reduced liquid; season with salt and

         pepper to taste. I don't pull each piece apart into 1 inch chunks, I personally don't like making

         tacos with such large pieces of meat, as you can see from the picture, some are in chunks and

        others are shredded, do what works for you.

   11.  Spread pork in even layer on wire rack set inside rimmed baking sheet or on broiler pan 

       (meat should cover almost entire surface of rack or broiler pan).

  

       See how the meat is sort of "shredded/chunks"?

   12.  Place baking sheet on lower-middle rack and broil  until top of meat is well browned and

          edges are slightly crisp, 5 to 8 minutes It looks burned but it tastes WAY better with a few

          extra crispy pieces. Using  wide spatula, flip pieces of meat and continue

 

      

       to broil until top is well browned and edges are slightly crisp, 5 to 8 minutes longer. 

See how easy that was?

13.  Serve immediately with warm tortillas and garnishes. We used flour tortillas because I'm allergic

       to corn, but this would be delicious with some corn tortillas.

Happy Weekend!  We're hanging out with friends, celebrating babies and eating lots of yummy food. Doing anything fun and exciting? Whatever it is, eat well and be happy, it's the weekend!

Chicken Salad Sandwich

I can't say that I've ever had a chicken salad sandwich, so quite frankly I have no idea what they taste like, but when I think shower food, I equate it to chicken salad sandwiches. I don't know, something about women sitting around eating salads and sandwiches comes to my mind first. I got this recipe from America's Test Kitchen. If you don't know what it is, google it, it will change your life. Okay maybe not really, but EVERY recipe I've made in this cookbook has come out fantastic. So without further ado:

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 2 Ribs of Celery, chopped fine
• 3/4 Cup Mayonnaise
• 2 Scallions, minced
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (people kept noting the slight lemon flavor and how much they liked it, I wouldn't skip this part)
• 2 Tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Side Note: The recipe does say that you can also add 2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon or basil

Directions:

1. Season t:e chicken with salt and pepper
2. Heat the oil in 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat until shimmering
3. Carefully add the chicken and cook until lightly golden brown on the first side, about 5 minutes
4. Flip the chicken over, cover and continue to cook until it is no longer pink in the center, about 5 minutes longer.
5. Transfer chicken to a plate and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes.
6. Cut the chilled chicken into 1/4-inch pieces and toss with the remaining ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Another side note: I baked the chicken, at 350 for about 15 minutes instead.

I doubled the recipe and then bought a package of croissants, cut them open, and then filled with chicken salad, then cut those in half, so that people didn't have to eat a whole sandwich. I just about used all of the chicken, minus maybe 1 or 2 sandwiches worth of salad.

And the result is: