Pulled Pork and BBQ Sauce

First off- props to my roommate Yogy for making this for dinner tonight. This is not an original recipe by any means. In fact, you can find tons of recipes for paleo pulled pork, and I have tried quite a few. This is by far the best I have come across. I've also had some successes and failures with all sorts of BBQ sauce recipes, and this one turned out great. So I'm just going to post links for the recipes...

Crock Pot Pulled Pork
BBQ Sauce

I ALWAYS eat pulled pork with coleslaw.  Back in the days when I would eat  a pulled pork sandwich, I would put the coleslaw right inside the sandwich. Here is a recipe(ish) of the coleslaw I made tonight. I say "ish" because I don't measure so you just have to taste it as you go along. It's also not quite paleo because I used sour cream as the base for the dressing. If you want to make it paleo, simply replace the sour cream with some homemade mayo.

1/4 head of cabbage (red or green),  core removed and shredded
2 carrots, grated
1 apple, grated

Dressing
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 of a yellow onion, grated
1-2 T apple cider vinegar
1-2 t hot sauce
salt
caraway seeds (optional)

I shredded the cabbage with a knife, but from time to time I use the food processor with the grater blade to shred and grate everything. Throw everything into a big bowl and in a separate bowl mix the sour cream and vinegar. Grate the onion into the bowl and add hot sauce and salt to your tastes. Caraway seeds are optional- I threw them in because I had them and don't use them for anything since I no longer make bread.

Chile Colorado

This can be made with pork or beef. As a matter of fact, I think this is the first time I've ever had it with pork. I adapted this recipe and it made enough for 3-4 people, next time I will definitely double the amount of meat so I can have some leftovers.

~2 lb pork roast, cut into 1" cubes

1 yellow onion, chopped

5 cloves of garlic

3 dried ancho chiles

2 dried guajillo chiles

2 cups chicken broth (homemade or reduced sodium!)

1 cup water

2 T preferred fat for cooking

Put pork, 1/2 the onion, and 2 cloves of garlic into a large pot/dutch oven. Add just enough water to cover the meat, and add ~ 1 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium low and simmer partially covered anywhere from 60-90 minutes. You want to cook it until the pork is tender enough to cut with a spoon.

While the pork is cooking, bring the chicken broth and water to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the dried chiles. Cover and let sit for 20-30 minutes until the chiles soften a bit. When they are cool enough to handle remove the stems and seeds. Don't worry if some of the seeds remain, these chiles are pretty mild. Put the chiles in a blender or food processor with their cooking liquid and a couple of pinches of salt and puree until smooth.

Once the pork is done I transfer it along with the cooking liquid to a bowl, and use the same pot to sautee the remaining 1/2 onion and 3 cloves of garlic (chopped) in your fat of choice. After a couple of minutes use a slotted spoon to add the pork back into the pot and cook for 5 minutes more. Then dump in the chile mixture and use the reserved pork cooking liquid to thin the sauce to whatever consistency you like. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Then eat!

I just had a bowl of this and a spinach salad for dinner. I imagine this could easily be made in a crock pot by making the chile mixture and pouring it over the pork, onion, and garlic; then adding enough water to completely cover the meat. Cook on high for 5 hours, or low for 8 hours. Seems like it would work!