Traveling Tuesdays...Hawaii!

Ok, I lied. I tried to stay up with the blog on schedule...but this past week was just too much fun with Mark in town. We played a lot of disc golf, showed him the local culture at High Noon Saloon, and even took him down to the Power and Light District on a last minute whim to Shark Bar on Friday night. Overall, we had some pretty epic times as usual and my sides were in constant stitches from laughing so much. Matt and Mark are pretty hilarious when they are together. Unfortunately though the time went by too fast as always and he left today to go back to work and will be leaving on a deployment soon. It was a lot of fun though and I'm glad we all were able to make some memories.

The dinner I made for this week's traveling day was extra awesome for having another person to enjoy it with because it definitely served a lot! And it was pretty darn versatile! It's supposed to mimic the Hawaiian pig roast. Except I'm not killing a pig...and I'm not cooking it in a hole in the ground!!! :) So here it is...

OVEN KALUA PORK
Serves 16 (I know right)

Ingredients

4 1/4 lbs pork butt roast, trimmed of fat
2 tablespoons or so of Hickory Liquid Smoke
3/4 teaspoon salt

Okay, so I seriously did not buy 4 1/2 pounds of pork. I believe it was about 3 pounds. And I forgot to trim it of fat. You definitely need to do this. I was able to get most out after the fact, but trimming it before would have been easier obviously. I also did not make this in the oven! The directions say to cook it in the oven for 5 hours at 275. Which I'm sure would have been fine, but talk about heating up the house. So in one of the comments on the recipe, the nice lady said to use a crock pot! Genius. So I followed her advice.

I cut off the net that was around the meat. Should have trimmed it at this stage. Didn't. Oops. Then I used a knife and poked a lot of holes in it...using a little ninja noise. Hiyah! I then salted it and put it in the Crock Pot and poured on the liquid smoke rubbing it in so that it got down into the meat. I washed my hands...which smelled of the liquid smoke the rest of the day...and then set the crock pot on LOW for 7 hours.

I love crock pots. Seriously. It does all the work for you! During the cooking time, I did move the meat around a bit so it wasn't in the same place for too long. When it was done...one word. Awesome. It was fall apart good. I took a lot of the fat that I could get off at this point and shredded the meat with a fork.

Now I said it was versatile because all I could think of after making this was shredded pork tacos or even a sandwich. It just looked so good. And tasted spectacular as well!! I made some rice and of course some salad. The calorie count of the meat was 234. Sweet! Right?

Had to get a picture in of the salad. I love salads. I love bunches of crunchy veggies. Anyway, the dinner was really good. And I think I'll be making it again, but maybe I'll make those tacos! :) Here's the link: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/oven-kalua-pork-10000001031669/

And you know what...I apologize. I lied yet again and I even pinkie swore. I didn't take any pictures this week of all the fun we had. I know. I'm really sorry. Maybe one day I'll get on the ball with that. :) This week coming up should be fun though. Matt is now officially done with all his classes. He graduates this Friday from CGSC which means it'll soon be time for the packers to be here and we'll be moving. We are planning on having fun until then though. Doing all the stuff we said we'd do, but we haven't yet. I think this week we may go chill by the pool a bit during the afternoons. We've been having a lot warmer weather! So it should be nice. Oh! And this week for our world travel day we're going back to England! Why? Because of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee of course!!!! :) Stay tuned! Until then take care and goodnight!