Category Archives: Eating

Chomp it up.

Eating

'Cue up

There was a barbecue place just down the street from our old house that made the best pulled-pork sandwiches and fried pickles. I’m not planning to try to re-create the fried pickles anytime soon, but I missed the sandwiches too much not to try to make my own.

I found this recipe at Recipe Zaar a few months ago, and it’s become one of my favorites. There are only three ingredients involved, and it requires very little work on my part. And the end result is delicious.

Don’t be put off by the Diet Dr. Pepper — it doesn’t really flavor the roast at all, but it keeps it from drying out. The original recipe just calls for “cola” and “barbecue sauce.” You could use your favorite version of either.

The recipe makes quite a bit of barbecue. We took a batch over to my brother’s house last night for dinner, and we left three or four sandwiches-worth of barbecue with him. That was after we ate at least 8 sandwiches for dinner! The barbecue freezes very well, too, so this is a great recipe if you’re looking to stock your freezer.

Barbecue Pork Sandwiches
1 pork roast
2 cans Diet Dr. Pepper
16 oz. Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce

  • Cut all visible fat from roast. Place roast in Crockpot and pour in one can of Diet Dr. Pepper. Set Crockpot to low and cook for 12 hours.
  • Remove meat from Crockpot and skim visible fat from remaining liquid. Shred meat and return it to the Crockpot. Add half of your barbecue sauce, stir to combine and cook another five to six hours on low, checking periodically to make sure it isn’t getting too dry. Add more sauce and/or Diet Dr. Pepper as needed.
  • Serve on squishy buns with additional barbecue sauce, coleslaw, french fries pickles and painfully sweet tea.
    • Eating

    Z is for Zucchini

    Rockford made himself some Raisin Bran muffins last week, and Poppy devoured them, raisins and all. She’s still steadfastly anti-vegetable, so in an effort to sneak something green into her diet, I picked up some zucchini last weekend at the farmers market. And today, they became muffins.

    I used this recipe as my starting point. Most of the reviews said the bread was good, but on the oily side, so I substituted apple sauce for some of the oil. I also used honey and brown sugar in place of some of the white sugar and whole-wheat flour in addition to the all-purpose to try and avoid what one person said was a “generic sweetness” to the bread. I also added some chocolate, because that’s how I roll.

    Zucchini Muffins
    3 eggs
    1/2 cup apple sauce
    1/2 cup vegetable oil
    1 cup white sugar
    1/2 cup honey
    1/4 cup brown sugar
    2 medium zucchini, grated
    2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    1 cup whole-wheat flour
    3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
    1 teaspoon baking soda (I didn’t actually add this because someone had already packed it. My muffins were on the dense side little zucchini pucks.)
    1/4 teaspoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup chopped walnuts
    1/4 cup chocolate chips*

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a muffin pan. (I use a silicon muffin pan, so there’s no prep involved.)
  • In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in oil, apple sauce, honey and sugars. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt, chocolate and nuts; stir into the egg mixture. Divide batter into prepared pans.
  • Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until done.

    • *I used Baker’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Shavings, but I’m not sure they still make them. If you can find them, they work really well in breads.

    Eating

    A culinary mystery

    4 Comments

    I made Kung Pao Chicken for dinner tonight, and it was entirely flavorless. I rounded up the usual suspects, but I still can’t figure out what went wrong. I didn’t leave anything out, and I didn’t use the wrong amount of anything. The only difference was that I used chicken instead of shrimp. Surely that didn’t deflavor the sauce. Did it?

    I’m flummoxed. Does anyone know what might have happened?