Crockpot: Ginger Barbeque Pork

Found a recipe for Root Beer Pork and adapted this from it.  I'm not a huge fan of root beer.

Ingredients:
1 pork loin (1-3 lbs)
3 tbsp (Mostly) Barbeque Spice Rub (recipe)
1 bottle of ginger beer*

Directions:
Put pork loin in the crockpot.  Sprinkle the top with the spice rub and press it in.  Pour bottle of ginger beer over the top of it.  Turn crockpot on low for at least 4 hours.

This is also good shredded and on buns as a sandwich.


*Ginger beer is a different animal than ginger ale being entirely more gingery and not as sweet.  You can usually find it in foreign food stores (being quite popular in Jamaica) or in your grocery store's health and foreign food aisles.  Please don't substitute ginger ale, it'll hurt my feelings.

Where's the love?

Ok, I just flipped through some of the info available on blogger's new editor, and I can see over 500 views (44 of which are for Hot Lava Cakes) and not a single comment from a soul.  Tell me, folks, what do you think?  Good?  Bad?  Needs just a little something?  I love to tweak, and I need your help to do so.

(Mostly)Barbeque Spice Rub

This spice rub is something I use to "kick it up a notch" with pre-made barbeque things and my own barbeque recipes.  Keep an eye out next week for the recipe I most commonly use it in or sprinkle it on top of the next barbeque sandwich you have.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp black pepper (freshly ground is better)
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried onions
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions:

Mix it all together.  Package whatever you're not using right away in an airtight container or ziplock with extra air squeezed out.

Happy Father's Day!

 Happy Father's Day to all the men in our lives! 

 Most particularly to my father, who taught me all the basics and a love of food (and fun, as you can tell)

And my Papa, who taught me to garden and love REAL vegetables

Pizza Crust for the Fluffies

There are two camps of pizza crust eaters: the crispies and the fluffies.  I'm a fluffy.  I like big, fluffy crusts with chewy centers and crispy outsides.  This is my favorite crust recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 1/4 tsp yeast (or 1 packet)
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Directions:
 In a small bowl (or measuring cup, if you're like me and hate extra dishes) mix together the warm water, brown sugar, and yeast.  In another, larger, bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups flour with salt.  As soon as the yeast blooms*, mix the olive oil into the water mixture, then dump everything in on top of the flour and salt.  Mix together as thoroughly as possible, adding more flour if necessary to get the dough to the point where it's thick enough (and not sticky) to knead.  Knead it for 5 minutes, adding more flour as necessary, then coat lightly with olive oil, drop back in the bowl, and cover with a towel or plate.  Let it sit for 1 hour.

 Preheat oven to 425.

VERY lightly oil only the bottom of your pizza pan.  Do not oil the lip of the pan.  Plop your pizza dough down in the middle of the pan and squish and push the dough towards the lip.  Here comes the reason I  told you not to oil the lip of the pan: if you've oiled everything, your dough is going to shrink back towards the middle as soon as you stop pushing it.  Therefore, you want to push the dough up over the lip and curl it slightly down on the sides of the pan so it will stick.  Jab at the parts of the crust that are touching the bottom of the pan with a fork a few times so steam can escape.  Bake for 5 minutes.

Add toppings and cook until cheese/crust/toppings achieve desired brown-ness (for me, about 12 minutes)

*Instead of being  merely murky, you'll see the water/sugar/yeast mixture start to have light "blobs" of color that push out from the center of the bowl.  Fun to watch.

Woops!

Sorry for the totally unintentional silence.  Those of you with day jobs will probably understand.

Starting today, going to once a week updates until I feel I can go back to two.