Slow Cooker BBQ

I love the flavor of a good smoked BBQ but don't have the supplies or the time to spend properly smoking meat. I came up with this recipe after much experimentation. It doesn't exactly replicate the flavor of a well-done smoked BBQ as it lacks the acrid bite of true smoke, but it's close enough that I've fooled people at dinner parties in the past. This has rapidly become the most requested item at any potluck I go too.

Ingredients:
1 Boston Butt Pork Roast (7-8 lbs)
2 bottles of liquid smoke
1 12 oz. bottle of hot sauce (I use Frank's Red Hot Original but any sauce will work)
1 tbsp. Sriracha Chili Sauce
1 small can of tomato paste
2 tbsp. worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp coarse ground black pepper

Directions:
Combine 1/2 bottle of liquid smoke and 1 tbsp. of worcestershire sauce in a bowl.
Place into a meat injection syringe and inject the mixture into various places on the roast.
Coat the outside of the roast with salt and pepper.
Wrap the roast tightly in aluminum foil and place into a crock pot.
Cook on low temperature for 10 hours.
Remove the roast from the crock pot and drain any juice in the bottom of the crock into a bowl. Reserve this juice for later.
Unwrap the roast and allow to cool for 1 hour.

Shred the roast with fingers or a fork, removing the bone. This can be thrown away or saved for soup stock.
In a large bowl, combine the remainder of the liquid smoke, hot sauce, can of tomato paste, 1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce, and the dark brown sugar.
Stir together and gradually add reserved juices from the roast until the mixture takes on the thickness of a light gravy.
Taste the mixture. If it is too spicy or too vinegary for your taste, add another tbsp of brown sugar.
Combine the shredded meat and the sauce mixture, stirring well to coat all meat with the sauce.
Place the mixture back into the crock pot and cook on low for another 10 hours. Stir the mixture every couple of hours. If it gets to thin, pull out some of the excess liquid. If it starts to dry out, add a couple of tbsp. of the reserved liquid and stir.
Serve on hamburger buns.

The Remains of the (St. Patrick's) Day

One of the unintended consequences of my group of friends' potluck dinners like the one described in the previous post is that we usually have a lot of leftovers. Most of the leftovers go home with people or to work with Ash and me for lunch. Sometimes, however, my leftovers aren't dishes but ingredients. At those times, for the sake of my poor stuffed refrigerator, I have to channel my inner Iron Chef and use what's before me to make something good.

This week, I had the following items to work with:

Boston Butt pork that I didn't cube up for the Irish Stew
Some whole mushrooms
Some of the blue cheese stuffing mixture from the Stuffed Mushrooms recipe (you can find that recipe over at Jal's Kitchen, link to the right).

With those ingredients, I decided that a roast was the way to go. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 lb. of Boston Butt Pork
16 oz. whole raw mushrooms, washed and patted dry
2 tbsp. of Blue Cheese Stuffing
1/2 C. light rum
Kosher Salt
Freshly Ground Pepper
1 tbsp. lemon juice

Start out by pre-heating your oven to 400 degrees.
Place a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat on your stove top.
While the skillet is heating up, liberally sprinkle kosher salt and freshly ground pepper onto both sides of the meat.
When the skillet is very hot, add the meat fat-side down and cook for 2 minutes to give it a good sear. Flip the meat over and sear the other side as well.
Once you've finished your sear, spread the blue cheese mixture on top of the pork.
Add the mushrooms to the skillet and sprinkle the lemon juice over the whole thing.
Place into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. Take the skillet out of the oven and place back onto medium-high heat on the stove top.
Take the roast out of the skillet and place on a cutting board. Allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting.
Leaving the mushrooms in the skillet, pour in the rum and use a wooden spoon to deglaze the skillet.
Continue to cook, stirring often, until the liquid thickens enough to coat the mushrooms.

That's it. A great leftover dinner that no one would know was leftovers unless they were told.