Pulled Pork Sandwiches

 

Pulled Pork Sandwiches
From Food.com 

 

My husband is a Man.  And as of 4 weeks ago, he's a Man with a CostCo card.  And on Labor Day weekend this resulted in me being a woman with 15 pounds of pork shoulder to deal with.  So naturally we whipped out our brand new, extra-large (thank God) crock pot and let it do most of the work for us.  We were able to cram about 9 pounds of meat into the thing, so you can expect the 6 remaining pounds currently in our freezer to make a blog appearance sooner or later.  Maybe later, since we're going to be eating leftover pulled pork for the next month.  (FYI, it makes a darn good breakfast sandwich meat!!)

 

Ingredients

• 2 onions, quartered
• 2 Tbsp light brown sugar, packed
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 4-6 lbs boneless pork shoulder
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• your favorite BBQ sauce
• buns
• coleslaw (optional)

Preparation

1. Place quartered onions on the bottom of the crock pot.
2. Combine brown sugar, paprika, salt and pepper.  Rub over the meat
3. Place meat on top of onions, in crock pot.
4. Combine vinegar, Worcestershire, red pepper, sugar, mustard, garlic powder, and cayenne.  Whisk to mix well.
5. Drizzle 1/2 of the vinegar mixture over the roast.  Refrigerate the remaining mixture.
6. Cook on low for 8-16 hours.  It really depends on your crock pot.  Ours is like a super turbo model or something, because we checked on it after 8 hours, and low and behold it was totally tender and cooked through (which resulted in a pork pulling frenzy at midnight...)
7. Remove meat from crock pot and allow to stand for 15 minutes or more.
8. Remove onions and finely chop.
9. Use to forks to pull meat apart.
10. Mix onions back into shredded meat, along with some of the juice from the crock pot, to moisten it.
11. Add just enough BBQ sauce to give it distinct BBQ flavor.  Provide additional sauce at the table or in the buffet line.
12. Serve on buns, topped with coleslaw!

Serves a bajillion people.  (Online recipe says 18-20).

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Labor Day BBQ

Labor Day BBQ tomorrow.  Preview of the meat situation...

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Lucy Goose

Lucy Goose, pining for our breakfast sandwiches

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Mix and Match Breakfast Sandwich

Mix and Match Breakfast Sandwich
From the Honeymoon Kitchen

First and foremost, I have to give a shout out to my FABULOUS new sister in law, Mary, for changing the entire course of Honeymoon Kitchen's future.  Ok, well maybe it's not that drastic, but it's pretty awesome.  She gave lent us her amazing Nikon digital SLR camera for use in the Honeymoon Kitchen!!  AND she's been showing us some nifty Tumblr tricks, so hopefully we'll have some cool new features pretty soon.  She's also our one-woman PR team, and thanks to her we've got a following of like 5 people.  Sure, they're all related to us, but still!

Now, back to the lovely mix and match breakfast sandwiches at hand.  We are those people who get up 6/7 mornings a week and make a real breakfast.  What can I say, I wake up hungry!  Sometimes we get creative, but most days we fall back on some sort of breakfast sandwich.  The beauty of this thing is its ability to clean out your fridge.  Today's version was pretty classic, with ham, egg, and cheese, but there are SO many alternatives out there.  Basically, if you've got it in your fridge, heat it, salt it, stack it, and you're golden!

Ingredients

• BREAD: Today we used sandwich rolls that doubled as sausage buns the night before.  Other great options include English muffins, baguettes, ciabatta, bagels, or just regular sandwich bread.
• EGGS: Our favorite is to fry them up over-easy.  However, in our morning haze we often break the yolk or just forget to pay attention and they end up over-medium or just scrambled.  It's all good.
• MEAT: You don't need meat, since eggs are pretty filling, but if you've got some on hand, go for it.  This morning we used deli ham, but bacon, other deli meats, and even crazier things like summer sausage have all made appearances.
• CHEESE: This one has provolone, but of course any cheese will do.  Don't be afraid to think outside the box with something like a goat cheese.
• VEGGIES: Today's version skipped this section of the ole' food pyramid.  However, we do often include any left over roasted veggies from the night before, such as asparagus, zucchini, peppers, and onions.
• SAUCES & CONDIMENTS: Our number one condiment is giardiniera.  We LOVE it.  A lot.  Other than that, John is a devoted honey mustard guy, and I like to add a light layer of fruit jam if the mood strikes me.

Preparation

1. Toast your bread product so that it can handle any condiments or soft cheeses you'll be spreading on it without tearing or becoming soggy.
2. Add condiments to bread.
3. Cook or heat your meat in a skillet.  Even deli meats - the get a little crispy on the edges and release some of their oils - it should only take a minute.  Remove meat and place on bottom half of bread.
4. Add a little cooking spray or oil to the skillet.  If your meat was something like bacon and gave off a lot of grease, you can skip this step.
5. If your veggies need to be cooked or reheated, you can do this in the skillet now.  Remove veggies and place on top of meat.
6. Add more cooking spray or oil to pan if needed, and cook your eggs however you like.
7. Place cheese on sandwich, followed by egg and top half of bread.  Squish everything together, helping the hot eggs to melt the cheese and allowing beautiful runny egg yolk to run out if you went with over-easy.
8. Eat immediately and enjoy being full all morning at work/school!

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Veal Scaloppine

 

Veal Scaloppine
From Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

 

Our love affair with Marcella Hazan continues.  We have been meaning to try our hand at some of the more expensive and exotic meat cuts, but didn't want to waste our money by screwing it up.  So we put our faith in good old Marcella and we weren't disappointed.

 

She never fails to make us feel so much more Italian than we really are.  Her veal recipe is super simple, but she puts HUGE emphasis on the quality and cut of the veal, which is really the only non-pantry ingredient in this recipe.  She states that the veal MUST be top round.  No other cut will do.  Go to a real butcher for this, if at all possible.  Then she discusses the preparation of the veal into the scaloppine cut.  If you go to a real butcher, it is likely they can do this for you if you ask.  Whenever I imagine asking butchers for extra stuff I conjure up the image of Ina Garten in her Hamptons foodie haunts asking her bestie butcher to cater to her every whim.  But as it turns out, regular Joes (or regular Johns...since it's my husband that actually ran this errand) can get special things from their butcher too.  So definitely ask, it can't hurt.  If they can't scaloppine it for you, or you don't trust them to do it right, Google or You Tube the right way to do it yourself.  Marcella didn't make it sound hard, but she did make it sound like it had to be done right.

 

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided
• 1 lb top round veal, scaloppine
• flour, spread on a plate
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup dry Marsala wine (seriously, find DRY! sweet won't work!)

Preparation

1. Place oil and 1 Tbsp butter in a cold skillet, and turn heat to medium high.
2. When fat is hot, dredge the scaloppine one by one in flour, dropping them in the pan as you go.  She makes it really clear that you should not dredge any of them in advance, or the flour will get moist and fail to create a crispy edge.  Also, don't allow any of them to overlap in the pan.  Do batches.
3. Each scaloppine should cook for approximately 30 seconds per side.  Adjust the cooking time based on thickness of the pieces (the thinner ones ended up being the tastiest, FYI).  As the pieces are finished, move them to a plate.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Once all scaloppine have been cooked, turn heat to high and add Marsala and remaining 1 Tbsp butter.  Be sure to scrape all the good bits off the bottom of the pan as you pour the wine in.
5. Cook sauce down until it looks, well, saucy.  This took us about 8 minutes.
6. Turn heat to low and return scaloppine to pan to mix with sauce and reheat a little.
7. Plate, serve, eat!!!

Serves 4.

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