Slow cooker pulled pork on garlic toast

I made pulled pork in my slow cooker on Friday and it was the best thing I've cooked in my kitchen in a long while.

As per usual, I MacGuyvered a favourite recipe from my sister. I was feeling particularly saucy, so I figured I'd like to play around with what she's got to see what else I could do with it. 

(But then again, it's pulled pork. You don't want to mess with a good thing too much.)

Spoiler alert: when I do this with my cooking, I don't measure things. I measure in pinches and shakes. Consider yourself forewarned.

You'll need:

• Half of a spanish onion
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 pork tenderloin (You can also substitute with pork shoulder)
• 4 strips of bacon
• Your favourite smokey BBQ sauce (I used a mix of 3 parts Diana's Gourmet Western Smokehouse and 1 part Canadian Club Hickory Bold)
• 1 can of root beer
• 5 drops of liquid hickory smoke
• A few shakes of smoked paprika
• A few pinches of freshly ground black pepper
• A few shakes of sea salt
• Approximately 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• A pinch of cayenne pepper
• Your favourite buns (I used whole wheat kaisers)
• Freshly chopped garlic
• Mushrooms (if you like them)
• Your favourite cheese (I used Havarti but an old, strong cheddar would also be awesome)

1. Sautée chopped onions with butter; slice the bacon into small pieces and add it into the pan. Once it's started to brown, scrape the contents into the slow cooker; set it to medium. 
2. Add the pork tenderloin, ensuring that it's surrounded with onions and bacon. 
3. Add the BBQ sauce, root beer, hickory smoke, paprika, black pepper, salt, brown sugar, cayenne pepper into the slow cooker. Ensure that the pork is entirely covered (if it's not, add more BBQ sauce).
4. Let it cook for 4 hours on medium. You'll know it's done when the pork pulls apart easily with a fork.
5. Once you can pull the pork apart, drain almost all of the root beer from the cooker; add more BBQ sauce, salt, or pepper to taste. 

Once the pork is ready:  

1. Sautée mushrooms. 
2. Mix chopped garlic with butter and spread it on the buns; put them in the oven with the broiler on until golden brown.  
3. Pile on pulled pork.  
4. Stack with cheese, sautéed mushrooms, and enjoy. 

Bon appetit!

oh hi! monday is almost done!

Wonderful, wonderful weekend.

Kicked off with some strategizing around what exactly to do in lieu of our annual cranberry festival weekend, which was voted off of the island due to crappy weather. Instead, we hit up the oldie-but-goodie St Jacobs market for The Best Hummus and Baba Ghanouj Ever (so claims the dude selling it), and then Kirk and I celebrated the rest of Saturday with some Scrabble and wine.

We like to live on the edge.

All I've been able to focus on since then has been board games. We went thrifting the following day, with board games as the target of my mission and cassettes to play in The Last Car Ever With A Tape Deck as Kirk's. TLCEWATD currently has Harry Belafonte on high rotation. (Further proof of liking to live on the edge.)

Conclusions:

1. I'm shocked and appalled at the number of people who have seen fit to rid themselves of their old Real 2 Real and Color Me Badd tapes. Don't they count as classic yet?
2. The Best Hummus and Baba Ghanouj Ever is pretty good, but the title still belongs to that which is served at The Sultan's Tent. Flavour notes, I tell you. Flavour. Notes.
3. I have a hankering to visit Snakes & Lattes or a similarly board-gamish themed place. 
4. OR HOST A BOARD GAME PARTY. 

Sweet merciful crap, I think I just found my calling in life. 

A little meditation

Today is a day to just breathe, be still, and be deeply rooted.  

I had four days off last weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving, most of which was spend frenetically driving from one destination to the next, my mind calculating drive times and making lists and anticipating What’s Next On The Itinerary.  While I’m thankful for having a life full of people who I love deeply, it most certainly didn’t check off that “rest + rejuvenate” item on my checklist.

By mid-day today, I re-watched this video because I love it; it’s soothing and beautiful and the fact that I’d found it online reminds me of so many of the things that I love about the internet.  

My mind slowed and I was reminded of the goals that first started my journey to rearrange my life to fit my vision of where I pictured myself. After over a year and a half, a different job, a better mindspace, clearer direction, new neighbourhood, it’s nice to gauge how far you’ve come and then to return to those motivations that got you started in the first place.

I’m attempting to keep this post distinct from my ever-listmaking mindset. So with that, today is a day for serenity.

I’m closing my Facebook page so that I’m not constantly checking for updates and notifications; I’m closing Twitter for the same reasons.  I’m revisiting the inspirations that helped me make those steps to who I am today. Some of them have undergone metamorphosis while I wasn't looking, some of them have chosen other paths, some of them continue to inspire me on a daily basis.

Why are you doing the things that you're doing? Where did the passion begin; where has it brought you?

growing is forever

hello world.



this video helps me to take a deep breath in the midst of a busy day. i want to write down the words, fold them up and put them under my pillow, keep them in my wallet, revisit them throughout the day. i want them on the wall in my office, just to the left of my computer, to remind me.

beautiful.

  Growing is Forever from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

a sense of hunger for life - sabrina ward harrison

my continuing obsession with pinterest brought me across a new favourite artist today; sabrina ward harrison. her work is the love child of a bunch of my favourite things; mixed-media art, words, texture and photography, all thrown into one (or rather, several), awesome pieces. they're inspiring and whimsical, and i just can't stop looking at them.

big love.

and so tonight, as i'm walking home after an evening of thrifting adventures, coffee and a good few hours of walking in a spring evening, it occurs to me.

things are good.

even though my jeans fit tighter in the middle than i'd like them to; even though my hair doesn't look the way i wish it would; even though my apartment isn't set up the way i want it to be [and set up that way right now]; it's a process. not always a happy process, and life isn't the way i imagined it to be at this time last year, but it's good.

and tonight? i'm ok with that. big love to you, world.

painting by liz tran

beautiful, ugly, bookmarked, discovered

1. kal has been blogging lately about beautiful ugly truths. and i love them all. the bare-naked honesty of them. 
2. i've been wading through blogs and images and photos and falling in love with all that is the interwebs all over again. thanks, interwebs. you're kind of great sometimes. 
3. pinterest has been key with finding loads of awesomeness, and i'm always looking for more awesome stuff to bookmark and ogle. what is pinterest, you ask? marta wrote a better explanation than i could, so check it out (and all of her lovely boards, too, while you're at it!)

the wintery + the wonderful

much love + inspiration goes on in the bloggy world today while i continue my quest to get my act together.

some of my favourite new things: 

• kal continues to be an ever-flowing fountain of awesome baby names, and the one for her most recent lil one is no exception.
• i came across jennifer's photo blog via simple lovely, who is always a reliable source for pretty things
• this industrial loft via two ellie
• speaking of industrial, i want pretty much everything in this salvaged loft (via apartment therapy)

much love today. xo

(images from my iPhone; ice skating at harbourfront centre, toronto; morning sunshine last week on campus)

i'm gonna post this before i get sidetracked. again.

this is me

• in an attempt to kick start my (almost creaky) creative bones. it's been way too long and i need to get back in the game.
• i started a completely new job at the beginning of the month that requires me to get my artsy on. 
• this is an awesome, awesome thing.
• but it means that i've been effectively lurking blogs and handmade shops and slowly gathering my mental inspiration board together again. 

it looks something like this.

i need

• to make a game plan
• and a list
• both a grocery list, and a to-do list

project kick-off date: tonight.
excitement level: super high.

big love to the interwebs. thank you for being so chock-full of information.

xo