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Cheater's Pulled Pork
Originally uploaded by kerner

As I am getting closer to the big Birth Day, I am starting to think about things I can do to make my life easier once the little one has arrived. One of those things is preparing some meals in advance that I can pull out of the freezer and bake.

Another sanity-saver (even without a baby around) is making meals in the crockpot. I actually love it so much I have them in two different sizes. Since I think things cook better in the crockpot when they're almost completely submerged in liquid, the small one is nice to keep the portion size relatively small (since at the moment I'm only cooking for two).

Without further adieu, here is my original recipe for Cheater's Pulled Pork. I call it this because it's so easy - it's loosely based on a recipe from my mom, but considerably scaled back in terms of ingredients.

In your crockpot, stir to combine:
- 1 bottle of beer (pretty much anything works, but you might want to avoid the fruity stuff like raspberry or apricot beer)
- 4 shakes of BBQ rub/seasoning (substitute taco seasoning if you must)
- 2 shakes of thyme
- 1 4 oz. can of diced green chiles

Add a 1-2 lb. pork loin, fat trimmed off (as best you can), cut into pieces so it will be submerged in the liquid as much as possible. (I cut mine into 4 long strips.  It really doesn't matter because you're going to shred it when it's done anyway.) (You could double the seasonings and liquid ingredients to make a larger quantity of pork.)

(Usually I'm putting this together the night before so I stow the crock in my fridge)

Crucial next step once you're ready to cook: Take the crock out of the fridge and put it back in the crockpot. Don't forget to plug it in! (I find that leaving the cooking part of the crockpot sitting out on my counter is a good reminder... but I'm not going to lie and tell you I've never forgotten it before.)

Cook on low all day 6-9 hours. Remove meat from liquid, shred with 2 forks (it should pretty much just fall apart), and serve on toasted bread or buns with your favorite BBQ sauce.  (If you don't have a favorite, I recommend a sweet & spicy Kansas City-style sauce... not that I'm prejudiced or anything!)

Do you have any favorite freezer or crock-pot meals you'd like to share with a nesting mama-to-be?  Leave it in the comments!

That's a lot of fruit!
Originally uploaded by kerner

Chop, chop!
Originally uploaded by kerner

Jammin'
Originally uploaded by kerner

Sterilize, sterilize, sterilize
Originally uploaded by kerner

Finished jam
Originally uploaded by kerner

I did it!  I made 12 quarts (plus) of mixed summer berry preserves and canned it.  It was quite an undertaking. 

First of all, that much jam requires a gob of fruit.  Like, 6 packs of strawberries, 4 packs of blueberries, and 2 bags of cherries, plus one bag of frozen raspberries thrown in for good measure.  Luckily I caught them on sale.  I guess that's kind of the point of canning, isn't it, to get the fruit at its peak and at its best price?

(I only get a little bit of fruit each week with my farmshare, so yes I caved and bought non organic fruit from the evil Wal Mart empire.  I've never done this before and didn't feel like wasting $50 of fruit from the farmer's market.)

When I made the cherry jam, I didn't chop up the cherries at all after pitting them, and it was quite chunky.  To eliminate that this time around, I sent everything through the food processor for a few pulses. 

I cooked the jam in two batches because the canner I bought only holds 7 jars at a time.  Since I had 12 jars to work with, I split the fruit in half and did 6 and 6.  Apparently the key to good jam is to cook it as hot and fast as you can without burning it.  This is a lot easier said than done when you are making a huge batch.  I followed the recipe for cooking times even though it wasn't cooked down as much as I thought it would be.  I think that's what the pectin is for. 

I was raelly paranoid about getting everything super clean, and I'm still not sure I did it right.  But so far (a week later) the jars don't look moldy and the jam appears to have set up, so I think I'm in the clear.

Now that I've gotten a small taste of success, I have a whole list of other things I really want to try to can: peach halves, apple butter, maybe even tomatoes or the elusive tomato jelly?  I have delusions of a Christmas gift basket with canned goods from every month of the year. Thankfully, I know myself well enough to know that that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

The sample-giver lady sold me on the cherries right as I walked into the grocery store.  I must admit, I normally turn up my nose at the latest and greatest in engineered food product that the grocery store is passing out as samples, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this time it was just cherries!

But enough about the cherries, first I had to make dinner. Those of you who follow me on twitter might have heard about my unfortunate incident with the toaster oven tonight. In my defense, it has been acting up a bit lately - either over cooking or under cooking things. So, the first time I tried to toast some corn tortillas, they barely cooked at all. I left them in for another toast cycle... and as soon as I realized the kitchen was getting a bit smoky, one of the tortillas was on fire!  Luckily the fire was contained inside the oven.  I threw some baking soda into the toaster oven and quickly opened all the windows.

Despite my mishap (and yes, the toaster oven is literally TOAST now), dinner turned out fine (with some microwaved tortillas, thank you very much!) I was cleaning up afterwards and just felt like cooking some more. Maybe I was trying to redeem myself? Anyway, that big bag of cherries was just sitting there...


No-Recipe Cherry Jam
Originally uploaded by kerner

Aha! I should make cherry jam! Using an "un-cookbook" called Lost Arts, I determined that I could make it with just the fruit and a little bit of sugar. I pitted all the fruits, added about 1/4 c. of sugar, and - following the instructions in the book - started boiling the fruit. I didn't really understand how "boiling" was going to work since there was just a little bit of cherry juice in the pan. But as soon as the pan got hot, all the cherry juice started to come out of the fruit. The book said to cook it at a high temperature to preserve the color, and cook until it is the consistency you want.

Bubble, bubble
Originally uploaded by kerner

Easy enough, I just stirred and stirred until the juices reduced now to a sticky jelly. I probably could have pulverized the fruit a bit more before I started, but it will be... rustic. Yeah, that's it.

What could be sweeter?
Originally uploaded by kerner

I filled a glass jar with the jam and stuck it in the fridge - the rest we gobbled up with some yogurt. Mmmm.... wonderful. And I think it took all of 15 minutes.

Slurp!
Originally uploaded by kerner

(I may have licked the pan, it was so delicious)