Friday Night Pigout

Pardon the pun, but that's what it was! After about 7 hours roasting @ 275 degrees our shoulder roast was falling apart fabulous! I had planned to serve our pulled pork a couple of different ways. Instead, I found at our dinner table, our daughter and her 6'1" boyfriend, our 13 year old and his friend Theo, our 9 year old, Bob and I - pork lovers all. Needless to say, the meat didn't last as long as I had hoped but it felt good to fill the bottomless pits of three teenage boys, if even for a short while.
I started the process at around 10:00am by trimming a small amount of fat from the 5-6-ish pound bone-in roast. I cut a fairly large piece of fat/connective tissue that ran down the middle and ended up with two good sized halves. The meat was fairly lean so I stopped there remembering Steve’s admonition about this being free range, leaner meat than we are used to. I made a mixture of 3 Tbl each paprika and salt, 1Tbl each garlic powder, brown sugar and dry mustard. 1 tsp each cumin and coriander. Rubbed it all over the meat ( I had some leftover spice mix that I saved for next time) and let it marinate for about an hour in the fridge. (You can marinate this longer, even overnight, if you think farther ahead than I do.) Cut up an onion and saute it in 2 Tbl olive oil for 5 minutes or so, just until it starts to get a little golden, then put the spice rubbed meat on top, put the lid on and into a 275 degree oven for 6 to 7 hours until the meat shreds easily and is falling off the bone. Cool, shred meat, discard bones, and serve.

I made some homemade barbecue sauce that is a modified Martha Stewart Cookbook recipe that we've been making for over 10 years. It's quick, easy and sooo tasty! Start with 3 T olive oil on med heat. Add 2 small or 1 giant onion and 2 ribs of celery chopped fairly fine and 2 lg cloves of garlic, minced. Saute until tender but not browned - about 5 min. Add 2 cups ketchup, 1/2 c red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 T. dijon or whole grain mustard, 1/4 c worcestershire sauce and cook over low heat for at least 10 minutes. We added some chipotle tabasco sauce this time and it was delicious! Smoky, and spicy but tolerable (for wimps like me;)

We served a PILE of shredded pork with the sauce on the side, some extra thinly shaved cabbage slaw, cilantro, avocado and limes...all piled on some fresh corn tortillas. Heaven. You could sub a fresh roll - ciabatta or sandwich roll - for the tortilla and it would be equally fabulous!