North Carolina Pulled Pork

North Carolina Pulled Pork

Ingredients

1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 lbs pork butt roast
1 cup cider vinegar
1 1/3 cups water
5/8 cup ketchup
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 tablespoons liquid smoke

Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix paprika, brown sugar, celery salt, garlic salt, dry mustard, ground black pepper, onion powder, and salt. Rub spice mixture into the roast on all sides. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cider vingear, water, ketchup, brown sugar, salt, red pepper flakes, black pepper, white pepper and liquid smoke. Continue whisking until brown sugar and salt have dissolved. Place shredded pork and 1/2 to 3/4 of the vinegar sauce in a large crock pot, coat pork. Cook on high for 5 hours and low for 2. Reserve the rest of the sauce in refrigerator.

3. Once pork is done, shred and remove fat. Drain the fat from the sauce that was in the crock pot. Place shredded pork back in crock pot with rest of sauce and heat through.

**Can be served alone or with bbq sauce on top.

I made this for Jeremy and he loved it! It looks like a lot of work, but really it's pretty fast and pretty easy. Also, I only used 4 lbs of pork but I didn't cut the rest of the recipe in half and it worked out well. I did have a bit too much of the sauce, though, so you might try leaving the dry rub as is and then cutting the sauce down.

White Chicken Chili

I tried this because it uses dried beans and I'm always glad to have another recipe to use food storage items. And because Dad knows that when Carrie moves away we'll be eating crock pot dinners for the rest of our lives :D The sour cream and chopped avocado really made it yummy.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 cup dried great northern beans, sorted, rinsed
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons oregano
1/2 - 1 tsp. salt
1 (10 3/4-oz.) can condensed cream of chicken soup
5 cups hot water
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (Tabasco)
1 (4.5 oz.) can chopped green chile's
Sour cream, if desired
Chopped avocado, if desired

In 3 1/2 - 4-quart slow cooker, combine chicken, beans, onion, garlic, oregano, salt, soup and water; mix well. cover; cook on Low setting for 9-10 hours.
Just before serving , stir in cumin, hot pepper sauce and chile's into chili. If desired, serve with additional hot pepper sauce. Top with sour cream and chopped avocado.

You can use frozen chicken breasts, just cut up the meat before serving. Or you can use boneless chicken thigh's instead of the chicken breast.

Recipe from a 2004 Pillsbury magazine.

Peppermint Meltaways

Another late post. I made these at Christmas time and they were delish. But be careful....they'relight and tasty, and it's easy to just keep eating them. : )

Peppermint Meltaways

1 C. butter, softened
1/2 C. confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. cornstarch

Frosting:
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 C. confectioners' sugar
2 Tbsp milk
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
2 to 3 drops red food coloring, optional
1/2 C. crushed peppermint candies



Ina small bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the extract. Combine flour and cornstarch; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.
Shape into 1-inch balls. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. remove to wire racks to cool.
In a small bowl, beat butter until fluffy. Add the confectioners' sugar, milk, extract and food coloring, if using; beat until smooth. Spread over cooled cookies; sprinkle with crushed candies, gently pressing candies into frosting. Store in an airtight container.

Yield: 3-1/2 doz. cookies

From: Taste of Home Christmas Cookies & Candies cook booklet

"Healthified Creamed Corn

This recipe is tasty and easy. The recipe called for "fat free" half & half but I thought that sounded weird, and I couldn't find it anyway, so I guess mine wasn't as "healthified". : ) And I left out the green onions because I forgot to buy them, but Jeff was o.k. with that. ha ha.

"Healthified" Creamed Corn

1 C. water
2 bags (12 oz. each) frozen corn niblets
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped (1 cup)
4 oz Neufchatel (1/3 less fat cream cheese) cut into small cubes
1/4 C. half and half
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 medium green onions, sliced (2 Tablespoons)

In 3-quart saucepan, heat water to boiling. Add corn and bell pepper. Cover; reduce heat to medium. Cook 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender. Drain; return to saucepan.
Stir in all remaining ingredients except green onions. Cover; cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until heated and mixture is well blended. Spoon into serving dish; sprinkle with green onion.

From EatBetterAmerica.com

Toffee Dip with Apples

We had this at Enrichment night back in October and I've been meaning to post it. It's sooooo yummy.

Toffee Dip with Apples

3/4 C. packed brown sugar
1/2 C. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 (8 oz.) brick cream cheese or 1/3 less fat cream cheese
3/4 C. toffee bits
1 C. pineapple juice
6 Red Delicious apples cored and cut into wedges
6 Granny Smith apples cored and cut into wedges

Combine first four ingredients in a bowl, and beat with electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Add toffee bits, and mix well. Cover and chill. Combine juice and apples in a bowl; toss well. Drain apples, serve with dip. Makes 2 cups

Cookbook Correction - Black Bean Enchiladas

I've meant to post this correction for a long time to the Black Bean Enchilada recipe in our cookbook (pg. 49) so here it is.

The recipe says to use 2 cans of refried black beans (or regular refried beans). I've never seen refried black beans but I've also never used regular refried beans in these enchiladas and I meant to put 2 cans of "regular black beans" as the substitute. Make sense?

So, what I do is use 2 cans of regular black beans. I drain some of the liquid off, keeping some - just to reach the consistency you want. Then use a potato masher (or fork) to mash up some (not all) of the beans. And proceed with the rest of the recipe.

If you haven't tried these b/c you've been unable to find refried black beans or you've been scared of regular refried bean enchiladas - give them a try with the black beans. Super easy and deeelish!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Oh yum. This is sooooo good! If you don't like super rich chocolate things, then don't make this. It called for bittersweet chocolate, but I had semi-sweet on hand, so that's what I used. But I didn't have enough semi-sweet squares, so I used 6 squares and 1 12-oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and it worked fine. I'm sure you could substitute milk chocolate for this if you wanted to. It's very dense and very rich and very delicious. I made a raspberry sauce to drizzle over it, but I didn't like the sauce....I should've used Carrie's raspberry sauce from this blog. Anyway, this is decadent. If you have a chocolate craving, this will take care of it. : )
It would also be yumalicious served with strawberries and whipped cream. Oh. Yum.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

1/2 C. water
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 C. white sugar
18 (1 oz) squares semi-sweet chocolate
1 C. unsalted butter
6 eggs

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease one 10-inch round cake pan and set aside.
In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the water, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave, according to package directions. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot sugar-water. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Have a pan larger than the cake pan ready, put the cake pan in the larger pan and carefully fill the larger pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the pan.
Bake cake in the water bath at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan. To unmold, dip the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 10 seconds and invert onto a serving plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.

From allrecipes.com (Flourless Chocolate Cake I)