8. Learn one new recipe and cook it once a week.

It's Tuesday evening and I still have 4 whole more days of "nothing" before school begins.  I got back from St. Lucia last Tuesday and have been enjoying the down time, especially after the chaotic days in July.

So, seeing as I have nothing to do (and I'm sure as hell not going to pre-study), I've been cooking up a storm.  I've visited several recipe sites and modified them to come up with my own little version of tonight's dish.

Crock Pot Pulled Pork Sandwiches (with baked beans and green beans)

(This has several parts - so bear with me)

1. The Pork

1 shoulder of pork (that's right, a whole shoulder - yes, it's big)

1 onion

4 cloves of garlic

Chop the onion and place half on the bottom of the crock pot.  Dice the garlic, place half at the bottom with the onion.  Add the pork.  Place other half of onion and garlic on top of pork.  Add about 1 cup of water to the crock pot.  Set on low for 9 - 12 hours, or on high for 4 - 6 hours. (The longer, the more tender)

When done, remove the pork from the crock pot on place on a cutting board.  It should be falling apart - this is how you know you did a good job.  The juice from the crock pot can be used for a gravy, but isn't necessary for this recipe.

Tear the pork in pieces using your hands, being careful to remove the fat and bones. Surprisingly the fat separates very easily from the warm pork. Careful, it's hot. Use a couple forks to tear the pork if you can't handle the heat. ;-)

Did I mention the gargantuan size of a pork shoulder??

Be sure to dip (several) pieces of torn pork into homemade barbecue sauce for quality taste assurance.

Replace the pork back into the empty crock pot.  Add the desired amount of barbecue sauce and allow it to simmer on low for another 4 - 6 hours.  Serve on buns or by itself.

2. Barbecue Sauce (makes about 4 cups)

8 cloves of garlic

2 tsp. of chili powder

4 cups of ketchup

1/4 cup of water

4 tsp. of worcestershire sauce

1 cup of brown sugar

3 tsp. of yellow mustard

4 tsp. of liquid smoke

Stir ingredients together in a sauce pan on med-low until bubbling.  Remove from heat and eat.  Yum!

I modified lots of recipes to get this one for barbecue sauce.  I found that by adding more or less of various ingredients, you can end up with completely different flavors.  So modify to your heart's desire.

3. Baked Beans

1 onion (chopped)

15 strips of cooked bacon

2 cans of baked beans

Saute onion and cooked bacon in olive oil until onion is soft and translucent.  Add cans of baked beans.  Stir, remove from heat, and place in oven-safe dish.  Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

4. Green Beans

Saute fresh green beans with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Basically, this took me like 2 days to cook.  But it was well worth it.  And now we have enough food to last us to my first exam in 3 1/2 weeks.

Oh yeah, and serve with beer.