Crock Pot Pulled Pork

This is a favorite at our house! I make it at least once a month. One thing I love about it is that once we've had dinner (and stopped picking at it, lol), I freeze the rest in single serving sizes and then I can just heat it in the microwave for lunch. Mmmm. My secret? Root beer!

1 (2 pound) pork roast, any cut

2 cans root beer (not diet)

around 18 oz honey barbecue sauce (or barbecue sauce of your choice)

8 hamburger buns, split and lightly toasted

salt

pepper

garlic salt

dried minced onions

1 envelope onion soup mix

1 clove garlic, minced

Montreal steak seasoning

worcestershire sauce

brown sugar (if desired)

I admit I don't measure much of anything in this recipe, so I will just try to do my best to describe this to you.

The night before you cook this, mix the onion soup mix, garlic, Montreal steak seasoning, and worcestershire sauce. Marinate the pork in this overnight.

Then the next morning, poke holes all over the roast with a fork, then rub the roast all over with salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Place in the crock pot.

Mix 1/2 cup of the barbecue sauce into the root beer and pour into the crock pot. Add a handful or two or dried minced onions. Then drizzle a little more barbecue sauce over the pork. Cover and let cook on low for 5 hours.

Turn the pork over, drizzle with some more sauce, and add another handful or two of onions. Cover, and cook on low for another 5 hours.

Remove the roast and let it cool slightly so you can shred it. Mix in the rest of the barbeque sauce, whatever juices left in the crock pot that you want, and a little more salt if needed. I like my barbecue sauce on the sweet side, so I add a loose handful of brown sugar or two. Drain the liquid you aren't using, and add the meat back to the crock pot to keep warm until you are ready to serve it on lightly toasted hamburger buns.

You won't see it in the picture, since it was taken of a sandwich I made for my lunch today from the leftovers. But, if you really want to take this over the top, slice an onion, and sautee it in some root beer and a handful or two of brown sugar until caramelized. Yummy!

I served this with corn on the cob, homemade baked french fries, and green salad.

Apple Spice Muffins

This is what we all (except Ethan who wanted another breakfast burrito) had for breakfast this morning with a banana and a glass of milk.

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup butter

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 T plus 1 1/2 tsp powdered milk

1/2 cup water

2 1/2 cups shredded apple

Topping:

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat the top and sides of muffin pans with cooking spray, or use liners. 

In a large bowl, cream together the applesauce, butter, brown sugar, vanilla and salt until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix together the flours, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir into the egg mixture. Reconstitute the powdered milk with 1/2 cup of water, and mix into the batter. Fold in apples. Scoop into muffin cups to fill about 3/4 full.

To make the crumble topping, in a small bowl, combine sugar, flours, cinnamon, and butter. If you are lucky enough to have one, use a pastry blender, otherwise use two butter knives to mix the crumble together until it looks like little peas. Sprinkle on top of the muffins

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes for jumbo muffins, and 25 for regular muffins. Remove from bans to cool.

This is a recipe that I found years ago and then modified to give it a little more flavor or color, make it healthier and make it cheaper. If you don't want to use applesauce, you can use a full 1/2 cup of butter. This was the first time I'd ever used the whole wheat flour in it. My family is used to eating whole wheat bread, but not used to eating whole wheat flour in other baked goods so I want to get them used to it slowly, so I substituted just part of the regular flour for whole wheat. You can do all all-purpose flour or all whole wheat flour. The 1/2 tsp of nutmeg was my own addition because I love nutmeg! We use powdered milk when cooking if a recipe calls for milk. We drink regular 1% milk because we can't stand the taste of powdered milk just to drink it. But then, we don't like the taste of skim milk either, which is what it's supposed to reconstitute to. But using powdered milk in oatmeal, muffins, and other recipes saves us a ton of money. As a family of five, we go through a lot of milk just by drinking it and pouring it over cereal alone! The original recipe only calls for 2 cups of apples, peeled, cored, and sliced. I wanted more apple flavor than that so I upped it to 2 1/2 cups. Then one day when I was making these I got lazy and decided just shredding them would be a lot faster and easier (this was my pre-apple slicer days). So, I left the skins on, and shredded away. I liked it a lot better and continue to do it this way. By shredding them, you don't get big chunks of skin, but still enough to add some extra fiber. The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of walnuts, but they burn Corey's tongue, so we leave out the nuts. Sometimes we'll add pecans if we have them in the house since walnuts are the only nut Corey seems to have issues with.

Also, last night when I went to put in the brown sugar, I discovered that when I went to Target with Johnathan yesterday, I somehow didn't end up coming home with the brown sugar I had planned on buying since we were completely out. I checked my receipt and I must have put it down before getting up to the front to pay because it isn't on there. So, what do you do when you want brown sugar in a recipe but don't have it? You add 2 tablespoons of molasses to 1 cup of white sugar.