Pulled Pork And Pork Rinds

Okay, so I'll just say right off the bat that this entry has *nothing* to do with pork rinds... Unless you're talking about what happens when me and the kids hork down the occasional mound of horribly unhealthy snack food. But I digress. So I just liked the way "pork rinds" sounded with the whole "pulled pork" thing.

Anyway.

So I made this pulled pork thing in the crockpot tonight, and it was really tasty. It's my own bizarre concoction (with some input from the hubby) which I made for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I will say that it was tastier the first time. I went a little overboard on the OJ and lemon juice this time, I think. And for anyone who knows me, you know that I don't do pork. Other than the 12 pounds of bacon that I daydream of snarfing in one sitting. And again... I digress. So pork is not usually my thing, but it was so tasty last time that I decided to try it again, this time going with the whole Miami/Cuban yumminess as a theme. We had black beans and rice, too. Mmmm.

I thought I'd share the recipe for any of my three friend out there who read this and might want to cook up some tasty pork in the near future. I will give the first version of the recipe, as you might not want the uber-lemony pork we had tonight.

Ingredients:

2-3 thick-cut pork loin chops, with most of the fat cut off
2/3 cup of OJ
1/3 cup of lemon/lime juice
LOTS of garlic powder (this translates to about 2 tablespoons, probably... Can you tell I don't do much measuring when I'm "creating"??)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 small or 1/2 large onion, diced small
1-2 large carrots, diced small
2-3 large celery stalks, diced small
2-3 cups chicken stock (or pork if you have it... I just use chicken, because WHERE IN THE WORLD does one get PORK stock??? And besides that, it all tastes the same eventually!)

Thickener:

1 tablespoon cream
1-2 teaspoons softened butter
1-2 teaspoons flour

Instructions:

Throw everything except the stuff for the thickener into the crockpot. Set on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours. Pull apart with a couple of forks until it's nice and shreddy. Mmmm.

Mix the cream, butter and flour together in a small bowl until it's a sort of creamy mushy looking consistency. Take a fork and scoop a decent dollop of it into the liquid of the pork and mix it around. Add in enough of the mixture to make the liquid have a gravy-like consistency.

Serve over rice or noodles or whatever. Yum!

So that's my post for the day. Have at it, brave crockpotters. :O)