Tuesday, May 27, 2008

My husband loves it when I cook all "southern"

I introduced my husband to what I consider to be REAL BBQ. Recently, I've found a Weight Watchers recipe for Carolina Pork that makes for some killer pulled pork. I have made it twice now, this last time, prepping it ahead of time and freezing it so all I did was thaw it over the weekend and then plopped it into the crock pot this morning. Out of the two times, I preferred my first foray into this recipe a little more (I think I must have used more liquid then), but this time was good, too.





We had pulled pork sandwiches (on hamburger buns), paired with a cucumber, tomato, onion salad (tossed with red wine vinegar, garlic, and a dash of balsamic vinegar) and oven garlic fries. This menu was a hit with the entire family. Lance went back for seconds on the pulled pork sandwich. Morgan ate her entire sandwich and the salad and some of her fries (pretty good for her). And Bennett kept squealing every time he saw the salad because he loved it so much. Best of all, the whole meal was 7 WW points and was easy to make. I prepped the oven fries for baking and threw the salad together before Morgan's dance class. Yummers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seriously, no link to the recipe? What a tease. ;-)

Sounds like a great meal.

~~Jennie

Kim said...

Yeah, what Jenn said!

emily said...

I, too, would love the recipe.

Work in Progress said...

I didn't put a recipe out there because I just followed the a couple of Weight Watchers recipes "loosely" since I was doing mine in the crockpot and also don't typically stock molases. Here's the WW recipe (Pork Barbecue from Best of Weight Watchers Magazine Volume 1).

3 TBSP packed dark brown sugar
2 TBSP paprika
3/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin, trimmed of all visible fat
1 tsp vegetable oil
2/3 c. cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/4 c. ketchup
2 TBSP minced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
4 hamburger rolls


1. Preheat the oven to 450. Mix 1 TBSP brown sugar, the paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of the pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of hte salt, the cumin and chili powder in a small cup. Place the pork on a piece of wax paper. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the pork, patting the meat to help the spices adhere.
2. Heat a large nonstick killet over medium-high heat. Swirl in the oil, and then add the pork. Cook, turning occasionally, until well browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer the pork to a shallow roasting pan. Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the meat registers 160 degrees F, about 15 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, combine the remaining 2 TBSP brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon each pepper and salt, the vinegar, water, ketchup, onion, garlic and crushed red pepper in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat slightly and boild until reduced to 3/4 cup, about 15 minutes.
4. Thinly slice the pork. Toss the pork and 1.4 cup of the sauce in a large bowl. Serve on rolls with remaining sauce on the side.

Per serving (1 roll with 1 cup sliced pork): 411 Cal, 10g Fat, 3g Sat Fat, 101mg Chol, 808mg Sod, 39g Carb, 2 g Fib, 40g Prot, 89gmg Calc. POINTS: 9.

Now, here's what I did:
I followed the directions to the point where you pan sear the pork and then instead of roasting it, I put it in the crock pot. I also added more vinegar (used about a cup, I believe), and more ketchup (like maybe half a cup?) for the sauce and cooked the pork in it in the crock pot instead of cooking the sauce seperately.
I cooked in on low all day. You need to cook it at least 6 hours on low or 3 on high.

The time that I froze it, I just bagged up the seared pork and then bagged up the ingredients for the sauce (similar to what you would do at one of those prep kitchen places). I froze the stuff and then thawed it 1-2 days prior to cooking it. When I was ready to put it in the crockpot yesterday, I just plopped the meat and the sauce in and cooked on low all day.

When you are ready to eat, pull the pork from the crock pot and use a fork to "pull it" into pieces. We have eaten it plain before, but prefer it on a hamburger bun (the 2 POINT kind) with pickles! Drizzle the sauce over the top of the pork.

I used 3 oz of pork (4 POINTS) on a 2 POINT hamburger bun, added 1 POINT worth of oven fries and a 0 POINT salad for a 7 POINT meal.