Super Tasty BBQ Sauce

It's been raining all week here. Hardly cause for alarm, but in LA it is perfectly reasonable to think this is the end of the world/cancel your plans/call in sick to work. Partially I think this is because it is gorgeous 360 days of the year, so it actually isn't totally insane to just avoid it when it's bad. And partially it's because this city clearly isn't exactly built to withstand much rain - even moderate downpours result in massive streams running down the sides of the streets. And, you know, mudslides and all that.

Luckily, the mullet is fine. No leaks (yet). And there's enough good weather each day to get the dog emptied out and possibly walked, although I think he and the cat do have some degree of cabin fever. I think this because they both stare at me, willing me to open the door, and then they run to it with glee, only to stop when they see it is wet outside and look unbelievably depressed and look at me like, 'Can't you do something about this, lady?'

This sucks.

Mommy. Fix it.

Regardless, the weather outside finally matches the mood of the Recipe Book. My next recipe was for Super Tasty BBQ Sauce from Shauna and her then-boyfriend, Rob (versus her now-husband, Bryan). This initially gave me pause as I figured I was going to have to figure out what to put said BBQ Sauce on, but then I noticed at the bottom of the recipe Shauna recommends using it for pulled pork.

So pulled pork it was, which is fun, since pulled pork was basically a mystery to me. I am a Yankee; BBQ to me was some hamburgers or maybe chicken on the grill. The pulled pork/ribs type of stuff I only encountered much later in life, mostly when traveling. Josh, however, spent a good portion of his youth (and adulthood for that matter) going to (and at one point working at) a BBQ joint called Hickory Park--an Ames institution where you can glut yourself on things like fried cheese balls (delicious), an endless choice of ice cream sundaes, and sandwiches with names like "The Saucy Southerner."

As you can imagine, he was more than a little excited when he discovered pulled pork was on the menu. It went a little something like this:

Me: I'm making pulled pork for dinner.
Josh: PULLED PORK?!!!?!?!!?

(an hour goes by)

Josh: I want pulled pork.

(another hour goes by)

Josh: Is it pulled pork time yet?

(another hour)

Josh: Do you think I can leave work early for my PULLED PORK?!

Okay, I might be exaggerating; he didn't try to leave work early. But nonetheless, he was excited enough that by the time he got home for dinner he was basically reduced to a two word vocabulary. I'll let you guess what those words were.

This guy loves himself some pulled pork

For my part, the pulled pork demystification process was lovely. First, I got to discover how to use the slow cooker, which I have never used before and was afraid of. Josh bought one a few years ago in order to craft some chili for a workplace competition (which, I am pleased to report, he won). Periodically he hauls it out for some concoction or another (i.e., more chili), but I am content to leave it moldering in the back of a hard-to-reach cabinet.

Shauna's recipe basically says 'throw a pork roast in the pot and cook it and then add the sauce.' I figured I'd search the internet for some more instruction just to be on the safe side. For example, What temperature do I set it at? Turns out the crock pot only has Hi and Low, but still. Is all day 4 hours or 8 hours or...? Also, Do I just throw it in alone?

The sauce is another recipe like Sweet & Sour Meatballs - it seems more like you're throwing together everything in your refrigerator maybe to make something gross to feed to someone as a joke than anything else. Just, 'Hey, it's in the shelf, and it's red. Let's do it!'

Josh's first impression was that it was a little too salty, which I will attribute to the ample amount of soy sauce that goes in there. I didn't think so, though. I though it tasted tangy and tasty and good, like BBQ sauce should. Is it that much better than just using regular store-bought BBQ sauce? I don't know. I'm not exactly a BBQ sauce connoisseur; I think it's all awesome. But I'll believe it's better. And Josh is already requesting his left overs for dinner, so...

Double, double, toil and... oh, is that pulled pork? Why didn't you say so before!

Shauna's Super Tasty BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup bottle taco sauce
1/2 cup bottle bbq sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's because, well, that's what we had)
1/2 cup light brown sugar (or regular brown sugar; I mean, I keep it in a canister, let's just be happy I have it at all)
6 tbsp lemon juice
3 garlic cloves - crushed
1 tsp garlic powder (really, after the cloves? wow. ok.)
1 tsp hot pepper sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dry mustard

Go to ghetto grocery, wondering things like, 'What the @#$ is taco sauce?' and 'Do I have enough ketchup/bbq sauce/etc. at home?' Get extra. Smart move.

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a sauce pan, whisking to blend. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Double the recipe (see below), which means you are carefully reminding yourself with every single ingredient you measure out that you must double it, all the while wondering which one you will forget to double. Answer: None. SURPRISE!

Also, 12 tbsp of lemon juice? There has to be a better measure than that. There is. It turns out it is 3/4 cup. Thank God.

Shauna note 1: We make a double batch of this recipe and use it to make pulled pork in the crock pot. All you do is buy a pork roast (about 4-8 lbs)* and put it in the crock pot and cook all day. Take out and shred and return to pot w/ sauce!

Shauna note 2: The pulled pork recipe is really incredibly easy to make and everyone loves it. It's better to let the pork cook with the sauce for another hour or two after returning shredded pork and sauce to the crock pot...

Google things like 'Pulled Pork Crock Pot Recipe,' and do a skim of the results, determining the following:

1. Indeed, you do not put the pork roast in dry. Recipes suggest a varying degree of other stuff, notably water. Put pork roast in with the crock pot filled 2/3s of the way with water.

2. Recipes suggest other things along with this, e.g., parsley, salt, etc. As Shauna's recipe doesn't suggest any seasoning for the pork itself, skip this, save for one thing: onions. Most recipes suggest an onion at the bottom and an onion at the top (chopped, natch). As you fear that is essential to the pork not burning on the bottom, chop up two onions--one for the pork's ass and one for the pork's hat--and chuck 'em in with it.**

3. It appears from the recipes you can either cook pork for 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high. This is nice as it sorts the Low/High quandary. This is not nice because between this info and re-reading Shauna's instructions, you are realizing you need to cook it for much longer than anticipated.

Decide you will do low for 8 hours, and then put the BBQ sauce and pork in the fridge overnight (separate, of course), and finish them off for the final 2 hour simmering together tomorrow night so you can eat at a normal time.

Tupperware up the sauce. Put pork in crock pot and go on with your life. At 9PM realize pork needs at least two more hours, so find crap to watch to keep you up late enough to not forget about it and give it the cooking it deserves.

Hit the kitchen around 11, planing on just putting the pork in the fridge for shredding at a decent hour (i.e., tmw) because you are not in the mood to tackle figuring out how to shred pork after a 2 hour movie on South American hermaphrodites. Dump roast, onions, and water into a giant strainer and discover to your surprise that the real magic of pulled pork isn't so much that it requires pulling; rather it quite gleefully hurls itself from the bone and falls into the perfect recognizable pulled pork type bits. So, take the next 30 seconds to finish the job for it. Thank you pork.

Go to bed. Get up. Go about next day, which is slightly slowed now that Josh knows he is having pulled pork for dinner. Throw pork and sauce into crock pot, which you are now an expert with, for the final go-round. Feed to a very happy husband.

*Four lbs. I mean, eight? Come on. This is just for Josh and me. Let's get real.

**Onion chopping method: Mike Milch's weird cutting, because you used the last of your lemons on the lemon juice part. Which is sad because that lemon juice is really the life saver of the onion chopping.