Category Archives: Winter

Atlanta, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Winter

My First Crock-Pot Pork Shoulder

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Years ago I bought a crock pot with ideas of all the wonderful recipes I would create. Well I pulled it out a couple of weeks ago and have used it once with solid results. With the thunder snow accumulation projections up to 7 inches in Atlanta I wanted to cook up my first pork shoulder. I grew up in Macon GA and my best friend’s family owned a BBQ restaurant. I won’t go into all of the details, just visit Fincher’s BBQ on Houston Avenue, you’ll figure it out. Anyway I have a problem where things don’t get done because I’m waiting on them to be perfect. I know Jake isn’t going to give me his recipe, and I love Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce, so I decided to go for it.

I went to Sprouts and picked up a pork shoulder. The recipe I found on Chowhound was pretty simple, apply a rub, add chicken broth, and cook for 9 hours in the crock pot.

 

I turned on the Crock-Pot at midnight, excited to see what would become of it by morning. At 4:30 I was awoken to “what in the world is going on in the kitchen?” It was the dankest smell in the world, like a wet blanket of pork belly filling every crevice in our house. I got up and decided to move the crock-pot to the garage for the second 4.5 hours. Once it was done I took it outside to see how it turned out.

The first thing you will notice outside is that there is zero snow. Nope, nada, just the remnants of the freezing rain and sleet that we got throughout the night. Ben called it the ultimate disappointment. We move on… Just as the recipe read, the pork  was literally falling off of the bone. It was perfect!

We ended up getting out of town and heading up to Cartersville, GA to visit with family and get our hands on some snow. That worked out just fine since I had 4 lbs of pulled pork. On the stove I combined the pulled pork and Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce, mixed up some cole slaw, and we were in business with some BBQ sandwiches.

pork-shoulder-1

pork-shoulder-2

My favorite way to enjoy BBQ.

I hope to try out some different recipes, and will most likely do it next time on the Big Green Egg. Stick around and see how it turns out.

 

Carson Matthews

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Christmas, Winter

Family Gingerbread House Day

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This weekend the kids wanted to build Gingerbread Houses, so we stocked up on Goldfish and lots of icing and candy.  Unfortunately Martha and I ate most of the candy, so we stocked up again the next day and got to work.  The building went into the night and even the next morning, but the results were fantastic.  Henry’s house has a detached garage, swimming pool with spa, and even a Seattle Space Needle replica.  Here are some pictures:

See the rest of the photos from the Gingerbread House build here: http://carsonmatthews.smugmug.com/Holidays/Christmas/27224612_C5mSvj 

Weekly Photo Challenge, Winter

Weekly Photo Challenge Week 51: Stillness

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On the next to last week of 2011, our subject in the weekly photo challenge is Stillness.  My idea was to focus on the tripod, something I have with me all the time and use on a regular basis.  In this shot my shutter speed was 1/10th of a second, an ideal shot to take using a tripod, but it was my subject…so I held my breath, released my breath…not sure which one was better but I think I prefer taking shots after I let my breath out.  Anyway, here is my photo of my trusty tripod:

ISO 400
170 mm
f/5.6
1/10 second

Christmas, Weekly Photo Challenge, Winter

Weekly Photo Challenge Week 49 Fantasy

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The Elf on the Shelf is a tremendous power in our house. The kids run around every morning trying to find him hidden around the house. During the day they leave him chocolate only to find empty wrappers when they return from school. They tell him about their days and what they want from Santa, and totally trust that each night he delivers their message to the North Pole.

50mm
ISO 800
F/5.0
1/6 second