Meat + Dutch Oven: A Long Term Vision Is Realized

a Mark post

I had a dream, that one day we would take a piece of meat, and cook it in the cast-iron dutch oven.

That's it. And, full disclosure, we have done that before. However, this craving for meat to be cooked in the dutch oven could not be denied, and I finally talked Wendy into the idea. Of course, she made it a more complete thought than my primordial "meat in pot... make good", and so we decided on a pulled pork sandwich from Simply Recipes.

What appealed to us about this particular recipe is that we make a sauce for the meat to marinate overnight, which later mixes with the juices of the meat while it cooks and becomes the sauce for the final product. And the vision played out as I expected: we simply put the meat in the dutch oven with the marinade over night, pulled it out the next day and cooked it on the stove eye, removed the meat to pull it, then added it back to the pot after letting the sauce reduce.

Pull that meat!


Add it back to the reduced sauce.

We served the BBQ on those little Hawaiian rolls, like sliders. We also made some great collard greens and mustard slaw.


A complete plate.


Gnocci thinks she wants some.


Seasoning for the greens.


Greens close up.

Condiments, Cookies, & Cats

We thoroughly cleaned out our fridge a couple of weeks ago. That is, we threw out the squirt bottle of caramel ice cream topping we moved from Murfreesboro with three years ago...that is to say it was a thorough cleaning. The fridge is so clean that every time I open it, I holler out, "Mark, we got a show fridge."

I like grocery lists because I think they're succinct little character sketches. I've recently seen a few folks posting pictures of their fridges in a similar sort of spirit.

When I look at this photo I realize just how much I've cut back on the recreational mustard collection I strove to cultivate. Ah me...getting old already.


Highlights include Pea Soup (to be discussed at a later date), homemade chicken broth, Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper (sweet chemicals needed for survival), several tubs of TJ's hummus/dips, and some homemade cookies and Parmesan crisps chillin' in sleeves of parchment paper.

The cookies were for my niece, Kelley, as we weren't able to attend her 11th B-day party. They were a lovely recipe from Dorie Greenspan: Coconut-Lime Shortbread.

I opted for pistachios.

& obligatory cat shots:

Xena = a Nautilus


You can't really tell in this picture, but she's hugged up to a catnip filled cat cigar. Mark kinda staged this, I think. This is his cat/squirrel, after all.