crock-pot pork roast, and bonus chili!

I was given a piece of pork loin roast rather unexpectedly on Sunday evening. It was still about half-frozen when I got it, so I let it sit in the fridge overnight to thaw. This morning, I fired up the crock pot and made a little spice rub for the meat out of paprika, cayenne, cumin, brown sugar, black pepper, oregano, salt, and a little garlic powder. I rubbed the meat with the mixture, then put it in the crock pot fat-side-up and added 1/2 a cup of water and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.

When I got home tonight, the smell in the house was amazing. It turned out that the liquid in the crock pot had all but boiled away, so next time I'll use more. I took the meat out and shredded it with forks. Well, I basically just helped it continue to fall apart, honestly...it's not like it took much effort to shred.

This is what it looked like:



The darker bits you see there are where the spice rub cooked onto the outside of the roast for hours and hours, and those bits in particular are spicy, slightly sweet, and crunchy / chewy. Oh, and FREAKING AMAZING. The rub created almost a bark akin to real barbecue, and it was super tasty.

After the meat was all shredded, I made a quick batch of chili by added the meat to 2 big cans of chopped tomatoes, a can of shelled beans, a can of white beans, and a little more apple cider vinegar. I let the chili simmer while I mixed up and baked a quick batch of corn muffins to go with it. The finished product looked like this:



Yum!