Dinner Time!

Tonight we had a fun dinner. I did pulled pork in the crock pot, french fries, home made cole slaw and Ina Garten's Jalepeno Cheddar Corn Bread. Can I just say, the spicy corn bread was a great pairing with the cole slaw-- the perfect mix of hot and sweet!

As usual, I should have remembered to cut Ina's recipe in half because I have enough cornbread now to feed an army. For the corn bread you take three cups of flour, one cup of yellow corn meal, salt, sugar and baking powder together in one bowl. In a second bowl mix two cups of milk, three eggs (lightly beaten) and two sticks of butter, melted. Then you mix together the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Ina tells you not to over mix! Just get the lumps out. Then you add 2-3 jalepenos, diced up (I kept in the seeds for extra spice), three scallions (white and light green parts) and 2 cups of extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated.

Let the batter rest for 20 minutes and pre-heat the oven at 350. Pour into a greased pan (there was enough for one pan of cornbread and then a slew of mini-muffins. Add some extra grated cheese to the tops before baking and then bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

For the pulled pork, I used a pork shoulder and put it in the crock pot this morning with barbeque sauce, a bit of orange juice, olive oil and some sweet onion slices. I let it cook initially on high for a while and then after an hour or two I moved it to a lower setting. All in all the pork cooked in the crock pot for about 8 hours.

For the cole slaw, I used bagged red cabbage and bagged shredded cole slaw (with carrots). Then I mixed together a half a cup of mayo, 1/4 of a cup of sour cream, salt, pepper, white wine vinegar, 3/4 teaspoon of sugar. Once you mix together the sauce ingredients, pour it over the cabbage and shredded slaw and mix thoroughly. The Epicurious recipe has you setting it out, uncovered, at room temperature for 30 minutes to wilt. You can do this-- it comes out good, but tonight I just put it right in the fridge and then served it cold.

All in all, everything was tasty and it was a great summer meal!