As you know, it’s one of the most well-used small appliances in my kitchen. I’m not a g0-go-gadget sort of girl, but I do love my Crock Pot.
Shauna shares her Beef Bourguignon recipe, and Jaden shows us how to make Jambalaya.
Me, when the slow cooker is plugged in I have a hard time not making pulled pork.
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
1- 2 to 3 lb pork rib roast or shoulder, or two pork tenderloins (which are leaner)
salt & pepper
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped (no need to peel them – optional)
2 stalks celery, chopped (optional)
1 bottle dark beer, root beer or apple cider/juice
1 cup barbecue sauce (or to taste)
soft buns
creamy coleslaw, for serving with (optional)
Season the pork on all sides with salt and pepper. Set a skillet over medium-high heat, add a drizzle of oil and brown the meat on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside on a plate. Add the vegetables to the pan and cook for a few minutes, until starting to turn golden on the edges (if you don’t have time for this, you could stick them directly into the slow cooker, but caramelizing them a bit will add more flavour).
Put the vegetables in the bottom of the slow cooker, and top with the pork. Pour some of the beer into the skillet and swirl it around, scraping up any flavourful browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, and then pour it into the slow cooker. Pour the rest of the beer the pork and vegetables as well.
Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Remove the meat from the slow cooker and set it aside. Strain the vegetables and keep the sauce (alternatively, you could blend the lot in a blender or food processor for a thicker sauce), skim as much fat as possible from the surface and set aside. Put the meat back into the slow cooker and shred with a fork, discarding any chunks of fat you come across; moisten with the reserved liquid and add the barbecue sauce.
Set the slow cooker to warm to serve from; load onto soft buns and top with cole slaw if desired.
It’s no secret I love oatmeal. (Or maybe it is, since it’s Dinner with Julie, not Breakfast with Julie… hmmm… do I detect a spinoff?)
So I’m more than a little excited to be one of twelve food bloggers kicking off the “Awaken Your Senses” challenge, sponsored by Quaker Oats. Here’s how it works…
Twelve of us food bloggers have come together to share our favorite food memories, which were translated into breakfast by David Lawrence of Good Bite. He has come up with all kinds of new ways to accessorize your morning bowl of oatmeal. (Which works out well for me, since W often eats oatmeal for dinner.)
One of my favourite food memories is baking with my Grandma. She, as so many grandmas are or were, was a fantastic baker, flawless pastry-maker, and kept her old walk-in fridge (it was built into the hallway) filled with tins of butter tarts, Matrimonial slice (date squares) and Oatmeal Crisps – lacy oatmeal cookies spiked with ginger and chunky marmalade, for which she was famous.
But back to the challenge: it launches today! This very first round features myself and three of my favourite bloggers – Jaden of Steamy Kitchen, Catherine of Weelicious and Lisa of Homesick Texan. They are all elimination rounds – one of us will emerge triumphant (based on YOUR VOTES – no pressure), and every 2 weeks a new round of videos will be posted.
At the end of eight weeks the blogger’s video with the most votes wins, and $10,000 (US!) smackers will be donated to their charity!
Of course they are all fantastic and worthy charities, but I’d really love mine to win $10,000. I’m playing on behalf of Common Threads, an organization that teaches low-income children to cook to cook wholesome and affordable meals. As they put it, “we believe that through our hands-on cooking classes we can help prevent childhood obesity and reverse the trend of generations of non-cookers, while celebrating our cultural differences and the things people all over the world have in common. Through the simple process of preparing and sharing a nutritious meal, children who participate in our programs learn to connect with their bodies, their neighbors, and their world in bite-sized lessons.”
Come on, how could you not want to support that? So if you have a few seconds, I’d love it if you could visit the QuakerTalk Channel and vote for David’s “sweetheart swirl” (an homage to my Grandma’s marmalade cookies and Matrimonial slice), in support of Common Threads. Please? $10,000.00 could go a long way toward teaching kids a skill that will last a lifetime, and be passed on to future generations.
I’m having so much fun with the Good Bite crew – here I am with Matt and Deb; our challenge was to come up with dinner for the family for $10 or less. Cooking from scratch, it’s easier than you might think! (Mine is an easy lentil curry.)
We interrupt our regularly scheduled dinner program to announce that Good Bite has gone LIVE! Yes, finally, the Big Secret Project is not a secret anymore. And phew – what a relief, after two months of not being able to talk about it! I’m terrible at keeping secrets. (Just kidding – you can totally tell me stuff. Please do.)
So here’s the gist – I nearly hit the floor when the DECA producers, the ones who brought us Momversation, called in April (from LA) and asked if I would be interested in being a part of this new online cooking conversation, putting me alongside the likes of David Lebovitz, Matt Armendariz of Matt Bites, Deb from Smitten Kitchen, Elise from Simply Recipes, Shauna and Danny from Gluten Free Girl, Diane and Todd from White on Rice Couple, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, Jeanne Kelley from her self-named Kitchen, Catherine McCord from Weelicious, and…. me. I’m still pinching myself, sitting here at my desk in pink flannel PJ pants, as I write this.
Billed as “top food bloggers, fresh ideas – making cooking fun and easy”, Good Bite features weekly conversations and shows you new recipes that are demoed by Good Bite’s in-house chef. We are all given a topic and told, like Mike Meyers in Coffee Talk, to talk amongst ourselves. We all then go off and chat about our ideas using portable HD cameras in our own kitchens. How much fun is that?
Did I mention the “top food bloggers” part?
And I’m pretty sure I said on the phone that um… this is Julie? Julie Van Rosendaal? And when it became evident they were confident they had reached the right person, I went with it. Still, I am getting near-constant flashbacks to junior high school when I finally managed to sit at the right table for lunch with the cool kids but fully expected to be bumped unceremoniously off the end at any moment, spilling fries and gravy all over my Benetton rugby shirt.
Above is my very first segment, done with Elise and Shauna, on the very appropriate topic of lazy meals. (I never realized how much I hate my ears.) I can’t wait to do my next, and to bring the camera to Tofino this summer. (I think if regular cameras add 10 pounds, HD cameras add 30…)
