Crockpot BBQ pork

[kit]

I'll have to fake it with the barbecue sauce. Or maybe I'll just stick with the deli-type sandwiches. Regarding the roast itself, my technique works fine. Here's how I make it:

Rinse and dry an eye round roast. Rub olive oil all over it (sides, top and bottom) Wash your hands.

Generously apply fresh ground black pepper, salt, garlic powder (I use granulated garlic) and onion powder all over the top, sides and bottom. Most eye round roasts are close to the same size, so the baking time should be fairly universal. Preheat oven to 500 degrees (yes, 500 degrees). Put the roast on a rack on a foil-lined roasting pan and bake for 20 minutes. Then, reduce the temperature to 300 degrees and bake an additional 30* minutes. For medium rare, this is a total of 50 minutes. *Adjust the 30 minutes to achieve desired doneness.

Using a meat thermometer, check the internal temperature in the center of the roast. Here's a table for amounts of doneness:
120 F = rare
126 F = medium rare
134 F = medium
150 F = medium well
160 F = well done

This is important... when it comes out of the oven, make a loose tent with aluminum foil and leave for 20 minutes to rest. It's now ready to slice. Make sure to slice it ACROSS the grain, and as thin as possible for the most tender meat. This is as tasty as any sliced roast I've had from any deli. Good luck. Tell me how the roast turns out.

[Deleted]

Good Lord that is what I have been craving a nice rib roast or steak. Hope Price Chopper can lower the price; right now chicken is 40% off but I eat so much chicken I am growing a beak.

[Clipper]

Thanks Kit for the roast directions. I will try it that way. The rub sounds like it will impart wonderful flavor. Sorry about the lack of a good recipe for BBQ sauce. With so many great commercial sauces on the market, I simply have not been terribly interested in making my own. I have made my own a few times, usually more along the lines of a vinegar based sauce for chicken when we lived up there.

[kit]

I understand, Clipper. No biggie... barbeque isn't one of my favorites anyway. I just wanted to try something a little different.

I did, however, put together a dish last week that I call "Chicken Pomodoro" and it turned out to be a real keeper. I wrote down the recipe as I made it and will definitely make it again soon. It's reminiscent of something an Italian grandmother in east Utica would have made for the family back in the 1950s. Or something I'd have paid $18.95 for at Grimaldi's without a squawk.

[Clipper]

Sounds good Kit. $18.95 at Grimaldi's? Heck with the lack of good Italian restaurants here in the South, I would probably pay $18.95 for a quart of Grimaldi's used pasta water, and drink it like champagne. hahaha! Sad to think that Grimaldi's is no longer there. It was not one of my regular spots to eat, but they had a hot antipasto that was out of this world years ago, with clams, mussels, squid, mushrooms, eggplant and other vegetables, cooked with wine and olive oil.

I have never had chicken pomodoro. I had veal pomodoro years ago. It was like a veal snitzel. A pounded veal cutlet, with a light garlic, oil and cream tomato sauce. Is your chicken pomodoro similar? If so, I will be eager to try the recipe. I had the veal version a few times at the Savoy in Rome many years ago when I lived in Point Rock/Lee Center area. The sauce was a little bit like what modern day area restaurants use on riggies. Not heavy like a regular tomato sauce for spaghetti.

I am always tempted to try any light sauce offerings. I tend to lean more toward linguini with white clam sauce, or a scampi served over a pasta, rather than a heavy marinara and spaghetti. Don't get me wrong. I love almost ANY good Italian sauce and pasta dish, but prefer the lighter sauces, and a pasta dish just lightly sauced when I dine out.

It seems that one of the joys of our retirement days is that our culinary adventures have become one of the high spots in our days. I LOVE trying new dishes. We enjoy eating at home and experimenting with new recipes almost as much as dining out at a nice restaurant. I am fortunate that Kathy is such a wonderful cook and that she is usually up to trying something new, whether she cooks it or I do.

[kit]

Clipper, one of the things you, Kathy and I share is an interest in cooking, which is most likely what this thread is all about. I tend to skip over recipes whose ingredients are a can of a pre-made soup, or a bottle of pre-made sauce, or a pre-made seasoning packet, etc. I'd rather make my own, especially when I read the ingredients section of the label of the pre-made things. It's really scary to see what's in that can, bottle, packet or whatever. Do you remember the line from the old Anacin commercial, "Mother please, I'd rather do it myself." Me too.

My recipe would more accurately be called Chicken Pomodoro Freschi because I use fresh, chopped tomatoes, garlic and onion in a light cream sauce. A nice feature is the breading which adds a lot to the taste. It goes well with rice or pasta. I'll post the recipe in its own section of this thread.

[Clipper]

We also love to make our own sauces and such whenever we can, but we are not that intent on the purist leaning in cooking. We DO use some of the packets and prepared things. We find cooking can be a pleasurable activity to enjoy, and then there are days and times when cooking simply is a chore to be completed if we want to eat, haha.

When we have a busy day and have things to do, we often do something in the crock pot. While we love home made chili, seasoned and cooked from scratch using fresh spices, we also have found that there is a Firehouse Chili mix for the crock pot that we find quite good. We also use some of McCormick's seasoning packets for such things as an occasional pot roast, or a cooking bag packaged spice mix to cook pork chops or chicken in a roasting bag. One thing that we seldom use is a jarred spaghetti sauce. We keep some on hand for macaroni goulash, with ground beef, onions, peppers and mushrooms, but other than that, jar sauce is not something we like.

I have eaten enough bologna, salami, hot dogs and bacon to have consumed more than my share of nitrates, nitrites, sodium, and other chemical concoctions, so I don't get overly paranoid about the chemicals in food. I avoid some things, and try to keep a little watch of my sodium intake and cholesterol because of my blood pressure, but I am not opposed to using convenience foods when they serve the purpose at hand.

[chris]

Update..........I made some BBQ pork again and this time on low....no burn problems. All is good. Easy clean up.

[Clipper]

I did the same thing the other day with a 3 lb chuck roast of beef. It was equally as tasty as the pork butt. Glad you didn't burn yours onto the crock pot Chris. I thought I was going to have to loan you the homeowner sized sandblasting outfit I bought from Harbor Freight to use with my small compressor with the 12 gallon reservoir tank. It worked well on wrought iron porch posts, so it should be able to handle burnt on BBQ sauce in a crock pot, lol.

[chris]

Friday I made pasta e fagioli...white version. I have grown up on the red prefer the red after making the white but it was very good. Recipe I found from a blogger who is from Utica,NY (Iaonnne Family) Matter of fact went to school with one of them. Pasta e Fagioli.doc (20.5 KB)

I followed the recipe except added some oregano which I thought was the missing ingredient.

[Deleted]

chris is that kathy iaonnne. doesn't she live in broklyn

[Clipper]

An Italian guy at the base fire house used to make what he called "white pasta fagioli." To me it was more like a wedding soup but it was quite good. He used white beans (probably cannellini beans but no sure. It was in the 70's. I remember he used beef broth, diced and seeded tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and chunks of loose and uncased sausage. I am sure there was other stuff in it but I didn't pay much attention to it, other than to eat it. It was really good. Thanks for posting that recipe. I will certainly try it. I am a nut for pretty much ANY homemade soup like dish.

Once again I don't use Office, and don't care to download it so I guess I won't be reading your entire recipe. same old stuff about not downloading stuff I won't use often or stuff I have to buy. I already used my "FREE TRIAL." Is your recipe similar?

[kit]

"A rose by any other name..." The name 'Pasta Fagioli' is simply pasta and beans, and like tomato sauce there are almost as many variations in cooking it as there are people to enjoy it.

My ex-girlfriend gave me a cookbook many years ago that was written by the late comedian Dom Deluise. In it he gave his mother Vincenza's recipe for Pasta Fagioli. It looked simple - very simple - too simple in fact to be any good and I passed over it several times. But one day I decided to try it... and 'Oy Vey!' as they seldom say in Naples, Italy, it was great. As chef Mario Batali often reminds us, simplicity is the keynote of Italian cooking. Vincenza's recipe wasn't a fancy schmancy dish all jazzed-up the way mayonnaise faces like me tend to make, but the essence of pasta and beans like in the old country. Plain, simple and so delicious.

Vincenza's recipe is very similar to the one you posted, Chris, except that she used water instead of chicken stock, and plain tomato sauce instead of marinara. I guess to a real Italian (I'm not a real Italian, but I saw one once on TV) this is Pasta Fagioli, and any major additions will change the name to something else.

But this doesn't make much difference to anyone who appreciates good food, does it? However a dish is put together, and what is added or substituted, and its name, are irrelevant... if it tastes good and is satisfying, it's a winner.

Thanks for the recipe, Chris.

[Deleted]

Could someone copy and paste the pasta fagioli recipe I can't open that file.

[clarencebunsen]

INGREDIENTS:

2 cans of cannellini beans
2- 2/12 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of marinara sauce (chunky, not pureed)
2-3 cloves of garlic(pushed through a garlic press)
3 tablespoons of good olive oil
1/2 cup of Italian parsley (rough chopped)
1/2 pound of ditalini pasta (short tubes)
sea salt and cracked pepper to taste
hot pepper flakes (optional)

PREPARATION:

1.) Puree half of one can of cannellini beans (do not drain liquid) with one tablespoon of olive oil.

2.) In a large saucepan, on medium low heat, add the olive oil and garlic. Heat for a couple minutes and stir in the remaining 1 1/2 cans of cannellini beans. Stir thoroughly.

3.) Stir in the cannellini puree and add about 2 cups of chicken stock.

4.) Stir in the cup of the marinara sauce, then add the parsley.

5.) If you would like the pasta e fagioli soupier, just add more chicken stock.

6.) If you prefer a little heat, add chili pepper flakes.

7.) Serve with ditalini pasta. (don't add too much pasta, though. It should be loose enough to dunk crusty bread)

NOTE: suitable add-ins are are little bits of escarole, or chopped pepperoncini (pickled from the jar), and some people like pancetta, or pieces of prosciutto.

thebrooklynragazza.blogspot.com/2013/06/donnamaries-pasta-e-fagioli-utica-style.html#.UxndIM6wXIM