Life.is.good. A pork shoulder recipe

So much to celebrate! Beth is engaged (yay!) Louise is back from Africa (yay!) Elisa is back from Aruba tonight (yay!) and the cat is out of the bag on a surprise with Cristina so I don't have to pretend to be good at secrets anymore (yay!). All the stars seem to have aligned with my loved ones and that makes me happy.

In not-so-yay! news, we put an offer on a house and should hear back any second on whether it's ours to keep or just another heartbreak. I have a feeling that they'll pass, but we're hoping for a miracle.

On to the recipe, which was indescribably good. There are no words. There is only a picture of a hunk of meat.



Pork shoulder was on sale the other day at Peapod. I didn't have any plans to use it, so I threw it in the freezer and forgot about it for a while. When I decided to cook it, it took about two full days to thaw. That's a lot of meat so it just needed some time. I popped it in around noon on Sunday, and let it cook all day until dinner time. Definitely a good recipe for lazy weekends when you're not planning on going out or if you're working from home during the week. Below is the loose recipe I followed. I'm sure a pepsi can or two thrown in would be amazing too. I'll try that next time.

* Pork shoulder
* Minced garlic
* Olive oil
* 1 small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
* 3 lemons' juices

- Preheat oven to 450*
- In a bowl or a jar, mixed together garlic, olive oil, and peppers (I was at the end of my minced garlic jar, so I used the remaining garlic and it's juices and threw the other ingredients into the jar, shook it up, and voila!)
- In a dutch oven, place the pork shoulder, fat side up
- Pour the marinade over the pork. Get all up in its bidness. Don't be shy. Really rub it in.
- Squeeze the lemon juice over the pork.
- Pop the pork in the oven, sans lid, and let it cook on high heat for 20 minutes.
- Drop the temp to 250*, put the lid on the dutch oven, and let it fly. I cooked it for about 5.5 hours and it was perfect. No peeking.

We shredded it up and ate tacos - corn tortillas, greek yogurt, pickled onions (recipe to follow). I can see this going in many different directions though. Put some bbq sauce on it and make pulled pork sandwiches. It made a crazy amount of pork, so either call your friends or be prepared for leftovers. Beth, stock up on eggs.