You can always tell summer time is coming around here because you can smell the outdoor grills in the late afternoon on the weekends. And it's no exception at our house. Only our weekends are on Tuesday and Wednesday. Generally, on Tuesday Mr. V grills burgers and brats and whatnot on the grill and I'm making baked fries and baked beans. One day soon we're going to have bbq chicken on the grill. There is something about outdoor grilling you cannot recreate on an inside grill. Those flame charred marks that you get on the outsides of your meat. Sometimes, those are the best parts. This is also the time of year that I crave bbq pulled pork. This is just something easy that I make at home. It's not fancy, or full of my own secret ingredients. I'll be honest, other than the seasoning that I do before hand, it's from a bottle. I know I should be shamed. I'm working on a bbq recipe. And when I get it JUST right, I'll start using it, but right now, it's just not RIGHT. So until then, I'll survive on the bottle types. So this past week I found a rather large boston butt on sale for for less than $1.50/lb. I thawed it out, rubbed it down with some crushed red peppers, salt, garlic powder, chili powder and pepper. Let it rest for about 20 minutes, then I put it in my crockpot. Left it there on high for about 7 hours. When I got back to it, it was falling off the bone. I used my huge grilling spatula and a fork to get it out and put it on this huge platter. Then after de-fatting it, I used two forks to shred the meat up. After shredding it, I added a little more chili powder and a touch of brown sugar, then I added the bottled bbq sauce. I let it set a little longer, then we made sandwiches and ate it. I have some in the fridge for leftovers at lunchtime, and I have a large bowl in the freezer for another day. Yay, for huge meat sales!
I do love summer time. I like how alive everything feels in the evening. Now if this summer stays calm and doesn't rain us out or get so blisteringly hot that you can't breathe.
What's your favourite thing about summer?
Back when we were living on the Gold Coast my favorite thing about summer was that it was in the winter. ;-) Since moving back to the States my favorite thing has to be the return of the animals, such as birds, squirrels, lizards...
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by the Simple Life blog. My wife (Mrs. Simpleton AKA Missy) does a lot of sewing. You might like her site, www.SalvagedThreads.com . If you go there be sure to say hi!
I miss Australia. I wish we could grow olives and "avos" here, but the climate just isn't right. But we wanted to be closer to family, so here we are - and loving it!
Your yankee friend,
Everett (aka Mr. Simpleton)