Category: pork

Pork Shoulder with North Carolina-ish Barbecue Sauce

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Today we’re particularly ecstatic about batch cooking. The reason this pork shoulder recipe is so timely is that Heather gave birth to our son Otto early Sunday morning. Labor was relatively quick (about 7 hours) and mom and baby were healthy enough to leave the hospital early. We’re getting less sleep than normal, so having large amounts of pre-cooked food has been a life saver.

This pork shoulder is another iteration of cooking pork shoulder in the Instant Pot. Normally we submerge the shoulder in broth or water, and this time we decided to use just a small amount of water in the bottom. We ended up with a tender meat with a spicy, vinegar-based sauce. This isn’t a traditional North Carolina barbecue sauce, but we think you’ll like it all the same.

Also, at the bottom of the post you can catch a glimpse of our newest family member.

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Baked Bratwurst with Sauerkraut

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Bratwurst have been a family food since before I can remember. Growing up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, my father remembers being relegated to the basement with other children at the Stayer’s house for cocktail parties. You may not know the Stayers, but they named their family business, a butcher store, after the town they lived in—Johnsonville, Wisconsin. That small butcher shop, opened in 1945, is the same Johnsonville’s known nationally for their sausage offerings.

The standard midwest protocol for bratwurst is to grill it over charcoal and then simmer in a bath of beer, butter, and onion. We do this often, and you can check out our recipe here. Today’s recipe skips the grill and uses the oven, a healthy amount of sauerkraut, and a Granny Smith apple. Made in about an hour in the oven, it’s perfect for rainy days or any time you’d like to make bratwurst without as much active attention. Whether on the grill or in the oven, we love brats. Let us know in the comments how you like your bratwurst!

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Braised Cabbage with Pancetta

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This week we have a braised cabbage recipe that is inspired by our international travels. Cabbage is often served as a part of salads or fermented as sauerkraut, but we learned that braised cabbage is delicious—especially when cooked with a pork product (this time it’s pancetta).

We make cabbage salads on a regular basis, and have posted a few recipes in the past: Mediterranean Coleslaw, Tandy Cajun Cabbage Slaw, and Celery Seed Cabbage Slaw are three of our favorites. This week, we bring you a cabbage cooked with pancetta and carrots. We know you’ll enjoy it!

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Italian Pork Sausage Bake

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As spring draws closer, we are still experiencing cold weather with unexpected jaunts of warm weather. My case in point is that last Thursday it was over 60ºF and on Friday it snowed. With this kind of unpredictable weather, we wanted to have a hearty, filling meal for the week.

This Italian Pork Sausage Bake hits the nail on the head. We love the simplicity, and that this goes from start to plate in less than an hour. Also, Kite Hill’s plant-based ricotta cheese is a shoe-in for the real thing. That said, enjoy your high-quality dairy if you like! However you choose to have this meal, we know you will enjoy it.

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Instant Pot Pulled Pork Shoulder

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Pork shoulders are a great batch cooking option for protein. We’ve long been fans of pulled pork, and we even have a couple of different sauces for you to consider (option #1 and option #2). That said, good pulled pork hasn’t always been a quick process. Quite the contrary, it has been a half-day or more of slow stewing or roasting.

Now, with the magic of the Instant Pot (which, honestly, has always been around for years by way of pressure cooker), this can be done very quickly. We think you’ll love this preparation as well as how quickly it is assembled. Plus, you get to make a homemade rib rub, great for pork shoulder as well as ribs. You’ll thank us later.

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