Slow Cooked Meals are amazing! The flavors all meld together, the house smells delicious, and the anticipation grows! When I first started to do crock pot cooking, mom was surprised because I hate when my foods touch. Now, to set the record straight – I love casseroles and slow cooked meals, but do not like if I have meat and potato and veggie and they are all touching (although I am getting better at this). But there is just something about a crock pot meal that is so comforting (filling in the winter and doesn’t heat up the whole house in the summer!) The only disadvantage to slow cooking is that you can’t always taste as you go since it needs to just go for so long – but you can always adjust your flavors a bit at the end (so if you are nervous: under-season & you can add a bit more later – but don’t be shy at the start!)

We really enjoy Pulled Pork (I LOVED the pulled pork that we got at Punkin Chunkin, it was made by some Delaware rib joint & we got these tokens for free lunch – pulled pork every time for me.) I look forward to the day that we have a huge grill and we can slow cook/roast the pork on the grill all day and then I can pull it and the outside will have that smokey char – yeah… good stuff. I usually make my pulled pork with a BBQ sauce and add lots of stuff to it, but I found a dry rub pork recipe recently that I tried (and Rich has brought me all of his spices since he obviously isn’t cooking much for himself anymore – so with his spice collection, I received his “Butt Rub“, which has since become a staple in our kitchen).

How To (“recipe”)

To start this out, the recipe called for rubbing up your pork then browning it before throwing it in the slow cooker – but I just didn’t feel like it. I am sure I might have gotten more of that grill type flavor that way, but this way was still awesome! Rub that baby up, throw a chopped onion & some water & vinegar in the crock pot and then Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho. When you get home it falls right off the bones (I used a Pork Loin Rib End this time since its what was on sale). Pull that pork (I took off some excess liquid before I pulled it & then separated some of the fat off), return to the slow cooker & then serve with a little bit of your favorite BBQ sauce (we like Jack Daniel’s Hickory Brown Sugar here) & dig in!

One last thought… as these days have you stuck in the house due to the weather – get inspired by something out there for your slow cooker, set it to go & enjoy the rest of your day doing other things (or with your oven free to bake up some sweets!)