Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I haven't forgotten about you, blog, but I just moved and things have been a little hectic. I'm very excited about the upgrade in the size of my kitchen. From this size:

To this size:

And now that I'm finally settled in, I can't wait to cover all that extra space with flour, grease, oil, and whatever else I tend to throw all over the place.

Back to pulled pork ... This is probably the easiest dinner I've ever made, and it only has three ingredients. You can put the pork in the slow cooker before you leave for work, and when you get home, dinner is just about ready.

For a smaller pork shoulder (about 2-3 pounds), you only need 1 12oz bottle/can of root beer.  As you increase the weight, increase the amount of root beer, but you don't want to overflow the slow cooker, so even with a larger (4 - 5 pounds or so) pork shoulder, I would only pour in a maximum of about 18oz of root beer, or a bottle and a half.  However, if you have a much larger slow cooker than mine, by all means, throw in as much root beer as you want. This recipe is fairly foolproof.   

Note: I made the recipe first with a 2.5 pound pork shoulder - this made about 4-5 sandwiches.  The larger pork shoulder was 4.25 pounds, and made about 7-8 sandwiches. 

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 2.5 - 4.5 pound pork shoulder

12-16oz root beer

Pinch of salt

6-8oz barbecue sauce (amount of sauce depends on your preference). 

Sandwich buns

1. Place the pork shoulder in your slow cooker.  Pour root beer over the pork. Add a pinch of salt.  Set slow cooker temperature to low, and cook for a minimum of 6 hours, or to a maximum of 10-12 hours. 

2. When the shoulder is cooked, pour the pork/root beer mixture into a strainer and drain the root beer. Return pork to the slow cooker and pull the pork apart using two forks.

3. Mix in your favorite barbecue sauce and serve on buns. Top with coleslaw. 

Pork shoulder:

Cooker and drained: 

Pulled and barbecue sauced: 

 Delicious root beer:

Pork Loin/Chops with Cranberry Sauce

Holy crap, this recipe was delicious. And easy.  Meghan and I made this last week and then I made it again by myself a few days later.  I'm thinking it'll be a good recipe to make, yet again, for my mom's birthday this weekend.

The original recipe from Gourmet magazine tells you to make the pork chops with red swiss chard, but I'm going to focus on the pork chops with cranberry sauce here and let you decide what you'd like to make to go along with it.  Meghan and I used sauteed spinach with garlic instead, so it's pretty flexible. We also used pork loin instead of pork chops, and I think this was a good decision. I used pork chops the next time and there was way too much fat on it.

The recipe is for 4 servings, but if you're only cooking for 2, leave the sauce proportions as is because you'll have just enough sauce.  If you are cooking for 4, I'd suggest doubling the sauce.  The soury/sweetness of the cranberry sauce is so so good, you'll want more of it.

Ingredients

Pork (Loin or Chops)

4 (1 1/4 inch thick) pork loin pieces or pork chops
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Cranberry Sauce:

1 cup fresh cranberries
1/3 cup minced shallots (about 2 medium-large shallots)
1/2 cup dry red wine
3/4 chicken stock or broth
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme
2 tablespoons butter

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pat pork loin pieces dry and season with salt and pepper.

2. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until hot, but not smoking.  Brown pork in the pan, about 3-4 minutes per side.

3. Transfer pork to an oven safe dish (leave the remaining fat in the skillet) and roast in oven for about 9-12 minutes. 

4. Meanwhile, to make the sauce: Saute shallots in the skillet with the pork fat until golden brown.  Add wine, stirring it in with the shallots, and boil until the mixture is reduced by half.  Add the cranberries and stock and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries begin to burst (about 3-4 minutes, they will pop and look like they are split on one side). Stir in brown sugar and thyme and simmer until the cranberries all collapse.  Remove from heat and stir in butter until incorporated and season with salt and pepper.


These are the pork loins (from Eataly!) we used when Meghan and I made it:

The next time, I bought pork chops from The Meat Hook.  Their store is amazing, but this piece had too much fat on it for my taste. I probably should have asked for pork loin, but I didn't see any, and the original recipe does call for pork chops. It still worked, there was just less of it that I wanted to bite into.  

Simmering cranberries:

The second time around, I accidentally bought white wine instead of red.  It definitely still worked, but the red wine had given it a little more oomph and color.