The Heart of the Home.

Today, I decided that every Sunday deserves a well cooked meal - including a REAL desert (not just ice cream or a chocolate bar)

Often times, well, ALL the time, I just whip something up. I call it time-to-raid-the-pantry dinner! My poor family eats happily because they don't know any better. BUT - I've been inspired. Jealous really...

Recently, a lovely gal by the name of Kristen, kept updating her FaceBook with mouth watering dishes that she would prepare for her family. Everyday I would log into FB and there it is - another yummy dish that Kristen would be creating. Things like: 

Gouda, gruyere, parmesan, mozzarella, shallots, 

kalamata olives and pepperoni pizza

 Citrus chiken tacos, chipotle gouda, cilantro lime sauce

amazing marinated grilled fish tacos 

Grilled steak with parm butter and balsamic glaze and Arugula. ♥

To top if off, she would post up pictures to go with most of the dishes!!! 

So what's a girl like me to do? I simply will not sit by and let all this yummyness pass me by! I went ahead and raided Epicurious.com and created me own masterpiece! Congratulate me now cuz it was perfect!

On the menu:

Pulled Pork Sandwhiches

Fresh baked corn bread

Arugula & spinach salad topped 

w/ goat cheese & sun dried tomatoes.

~AND~

a New York Cheese cake w/ warm mixed berry compote

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's what I did prior taking pictures:

I took about 7lbs of pork shoulder and sprinkled a bunch of cajun seasoning on it. Then I placed it in the crock pot with 1 bottle of Killian's Irish Red BEER & enough A&W rootbeer to cover most of the pork. I cooked this concoction for about 4.5 hours. I then took out the cooked pork and started to pull it apart.

OK ok! Here are the pics....

This is my pulling station. In the foreground, you have large chunks of pork

and then the pulled pork in the mid ground. The background is a container for 'unmentionables'. I think that is self explanatory.

Here is my crock pot - or as my 5 yr. old called it: my CRACK pot

After cooking the pork, I saved about 2 cups of the liquid and dumped the rest. Then, I rinsed out the crack pot cuz I'm just weird like that.

I placed the already pulled/shredded pork back into the clean crack pot.

That's the photo you see above :)

Somewhere in between crack potting and shredding,

I made a thing of corn bread. I used Trader Jose's corn bread in a box mix.

It never fails!

At some point, between crack potting, 

pulling and corn breading,

I prepped a salad. 

Ingredients: Arugula, baby red leaf, spinach, pea sprouts, sun dried tomatoes, bell peppers, olives, carrots and goat cheese.

And there ya have it folks. A dinner of champions!

The finish line - Cheesecake w/ berry compote.

This was truly a satisfying meal for me because I made it.

AND

everyone loved it. 

That, my dear, is what makes a kitchen the heart of the home.

It was SO good, it put my daughter

into a food coma. 

Here she is falling asleep at the table.

Bon Appetit!