Pork Barbacoa

I was recently at a farmer's market in Sonoma and got some pork neck. Neck meat is really great for stews, because of all the bones, and it is relatively inexpensive. I had some spicy barbacoa sauce that I had made previously and froze in an ice cube tray. This is a really simple and delicious dish in a slowcooker.







Ingredients
1/2 cup of spicy barbacoa sauce (about 4 cubes, if you freeze them)
1 cup of homemade lamb stock (you can use homemade rich dark chicken stock if you want to, about 8 cubes, if you freeze them)
Red wine, about 1 cup or so (day old wine works best, don't waste the good stuff)

1 or 2 lbs of Pork or Lamb neck (with bones)
1 tomato, chopped
5 cloves of garlic


Directions
Melt the barbacoa and lamb stock in a sauce pan.

Add the red wine to the sauce. Taste. If the barbacoa is too spicy and overpowering for you, add more lamb stock and red wine to get a flavor profile you like.

Once the stock and barbacoa has melted, transfer to the slowcooker.

Add the neck bones to the slowcooker. Add the tomatoes and garlic to the slowcooker.






























Cook for 4 hours on low heat. Check the meat after 4 hours. If should be falling off the bone. If not, let it cook for another hour.

Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with barley or farro and rustic bread.

Delicious!  

Root Beer Pulled Pork

Okay. I saw this pin on Pinterest for Root Beer Pulled Pork and I had to try it. It comes from another blog called Bubble Crumb.

This is a really simple recipe--put a chunk of pork in a crockpot, add a bottle of root beer and cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Shred the pork with a fork. Add desired amount of BBQ sauce and eat!

True to form, I screwed up the recipe! :).

I mixed the root beer and bbq sauce and added that directly to the pork and then cooked it. It still turned out delicious, but I wonder what it would have tasted like just cooked in the root beer....I guess I will have to try again.

I toasted the buns with butter on the ol' iron skillet! The next day, I had some Chinese steamed buns from Chinatown so I steamed the buns and had it with that....delicious!