Taking It Slow and Easy

I recently got back from Las Vegas.  After spending four days there away from my family and with so many distractions, I have come to realize that I'm definitely a family man.  It is fun to go out to eat, have buffet after buffet sitting in front of you and being able to stay out as late as you want but at the end of the day, it's nice to have someone greeting you at home each day, to say good morning to, to enjoy a good meal with and to just spend your life with.

So after a long and tiring trip and being extremely worn out, I decided to just go ahead and take a day off and enjoy being home.  I wanted to keep things light and easy without any fuss.  I had too many prepared meals and too many chefs on my plate the past few days (I know, it's a terrible problem right?) that I just felt in the mood to have a good home cooked meal. 

No other way around it, it was a day designed for a nice pulled pork plate.  If you didn't know, a good pulled pork, like living a good life, is easy to do but you just need to pay attention to the little details along the way and not take too many shortcuts.

I got up around 8 and pulled a nice hunk of pork shoulder out of the fridge.  You want it to be sitting out a little bit to get the meat slightly warmer so it would adhere more of the smoke flavor.  I then started off slowly cleaning the grill a bit, stacking the charcoal and wood chunks carefully in the smoker to get an even distribution of smoke all along the way and then lighting it.

Before

After that, it was scorning the fat cap of the meat to add bark which is where all the flavor comes from.  I seasoned the meat. Some like to add olive oil on the outside before putting on the salt rub but I think this is an unnecessary step.  I let the meat sit there seasoned for about 30 minutes while getting my smoker up to about 150 degrees.  Once I notice the smoke slowly billowing out of the grill, I place the meat on.  The thing with smoked meats is once the outside of the meat hits a certain temperature, it won't take any more smoke. So in order to get the most smoke taste in that amount of time, you want a decent amount of smoke to be developing in as low of a temperature as you can.  After about an hour of me keeping the grill at 175-200 depending on how good the show I am watching is at that time, I get the grill up to about 225 and let it sit there for another 3 hours.

Slicing about 1 inch groves into the fat cap.

Season heavily

After four hours on smoker with fat cap down

Placed in pan with fat cap up

After about 10 hours of total cook time. Extremely tender and moist.

After a total of four hours, I remove off the grill and stick the meat in a tin foil pan and tightly cover with tin foil.  You have two choices after that. You can put it back on the smoker and keep cooking it while having to check the temperature here and there or just sticking  it in the oven and cooking it.  I like just sticking it in the oven and cooking it. Remember, after a certain temp, it's not getting any smokier, so keeping a consistent temperature is more important at this stage.  I like to keep it in the oven for about 5 or 6 more hours at 300 degrees. And after 10 hours of total cooking, you get tender, easily pulled and moist meat. Not too much of a fuss and really only 45 minutes of real effort.  Slap some Bush's baked beans in the microwave, toast up some thick buttered bread and maybe a steam fresh bag of corn and you have yourself a meal fit for kings.  I don't understand why BBQ'ing  is so difficult to some. It does take time to cook but if you do it right, you don't have to do too much at all. Sounds much like life again doesn't it?  I guess there are just some people who like to complain. Me, I'd rather just sit around and eat a good meal with my kids.

Till next time friends, keep it simple, take it slow, and embrace the small details of your life. You'd live more satisfying when things get done.