Sunday, November 30, 2014

Pulled Pork and Thanksgiving Turkey




If you're going to cook, you may as well go all out!
We found the pork buts on sale and decided to smoke
and pull them while the weather was still on our side.
That meant smoking the butts while getting ready
 for Thanksgiving dinner at our house.  Fortunately,
my husband was off work and could tend to it, he
is the better cook anyway!

He smoked them for twelve hours outside, 
off the direct heat.  By bedtime he brought them
in and cooked another ten hours in the oven at
225 degrees.  I could smell them cooking all
night and even had a dream about being in
a restaurant!


By morning they were so tender that
they just fell apart.


We are going to package them in pound
portions in vacuum sealed bags so we have
plenty for the season.  It is so convenient
to be able to grab already cooked meat from
the freezer and make BBQ pork,
pork quesadillas or a pulled pork sandwich.


Additionally, he prepped many of the side
dishes for Thanksgiving:  Paula Seen sweet potato
recipe cooked in bourbon, heavily saged dressing, 
plus cream sauce for spinach.  I made
the green bean casserole and rolls before dinner.
We had pies for dessert and Volpi 
Sopressa salami with a cheese ball to snack
on while dinner was being prepared.
We have our meal in the evening but folks arrive 
around 2 PM or so leaving a lot of time
to visit around the breakfast bar while we
are putting things in the oven.


I used our own sage and rosemary
on the turkey which was about
25 pounds!  My daughter won it
from the church meat shoot!  We will
divide it up so everyone has some to take home.


My husband chose the wine, both reds,
which is not typically my choice but I 
loved the Fantini.  It may have been why
I neglected to open the jellied cranberry!!

Yes, the kind in the can.
The kind that has rings from the can molded into it,
which is what you used to use to measure slices.
It's our favorite!

I hope your holiday was wonderful.










8 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Looks GOOD!

Sunnybrook Farm said...

That looks absolutely wonderful, if we could only smell it!

Harry Flashman said...

That's pretty savory. We didn't do much for Thanksgiving this year, but we enjoyed the quiet time together. Watched some Hallmark Channel movies and just enjoyed the fire.

Jenn said...

I've discovered that giving the cranberry jelly a quick stir camouflages the rings and hides the fact that it came from a can :)

I love that you grow your own herbs, I've been thinking about trying it... everything looks delicious!

Patricia @ 9th and Denver said...

YUM!
"one for the books"
we did this one year. The first year my son decided to help his dad smoke the turkey.(he was about 14-15 yrs old)
We had smoked turkey and smoke javelina(wild hog) ... well, when it came time to get the hog out of the smoker,...with the mitts and fork, my son dropped it on the ground.
Oh! he was mad...
we washed it off and stuck it back inside the smoker for a bit and THEN! served it. We never told ALL the people...but a few of KNEW! well, the menu that year in the family holiday journal had a mysterious entry.
"ground hog" LOL!

To this day... we question any mystery meat, at family functions!!!

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Patricia- LOL! I love it, not only a javalina (I've seen photos) but a five second save! You all washed it, that is all it takes.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Swirl around the cranberry, what an idea, I'll have to remember that.

Powell River Books said...

I've been lucky that my sage, rosemary and thyme makes it through the winter in the garden. Only during one really hard winter did I lose the Rosemary. The rest of the plants have been growing since 2002. - Margy