pestosprouts

Q. How much alcohol can four people drink on a Saturday night?

A. Too much.

We finally had friends over on Saturday. Four respectable people, eating delicious food, holding enjoyable conversation and sipping a sophisticated glass of wine…… ha! It may have started like this but it ended with post it notes stuck to our heads, while I was stuffing cupcakes into both Dave and Parfo’s mouth to stop the arguing and drinking chugging a questionable drink (which I’m still not sure of despite clearly pouring it myself) and singing shouting along to pulp’s common people at 2am.

We need to entertain more. I think we need the practice.

This was however, was just the end of the night. At 6pm it really was quiet calm. Honest.

Let me tell you a few things about my friends. Katie is healthy. Very healthy. Awe inspiringly healthy, and extremely committed and incredibly dedicated at keeping up the hard work. So I was worried that I would be ruining all her hard work by feeding her up.

Dave and Parfo? They like meat. And bread.

So I decided to feed up the men and make a healthy (boozy) cocktail, get Katie drunk enough that she wouldn’t mind that I was destroying her diet. – turns out she’d pre-empted me and had Jillian Michael’s kick her arse before she came.

I made pulled pork, fennel and apple coleslaw and strawberry vodka thingies. The food was lovely and went down incredibly well. Everyone had second buns heaped high. Parf ate an enormous amount of coleslaw – despite not liking coleslaw, Katie licked BBQ sauce off her elbow and Dave stayed silent for 10 minutes while he ate. Result I think.

The only down side to the night? I forgot to take photos. Well no that’s not true I have photos of the leftover bits at the bottom of the pan and I have a photo of the meat marinating. But I still want to share the recipe with you.

The pulled pork was tender and the sauce was rich and morish. As well as this it is stupidly easy to make.

Pulled Pork and Apple and Fennel Slaw

Serves 8 – or four if you’re drunk and greedy

I used a recipe I found a while ago on the food network but it’s gone now. I altered it slightly and use my own marinade over night. I wanted to make it spicy so I added scotch bonnets, but there really wasn’t much heat there. I guess this was because of all the sweet stuff added. I cooked the pork in a basic BBQ sauce and then shredded it and made a fresh batch of sauce, added a few ladles of the cooking liquid (I was concerned it would be a bit fatty to use all the cooking liquid). You could use bought BBQ sauce if you like. Although I don’t like it so I can’t recommend one and you could use a bought coleslaw but just make sure it’s a good one.

Please don’t be put off by the exceedingly long list of ingredients, it really is very easy to make.

Marinade

Juice of half grapefruit

Juice of 1 lime

1 scotch bonnet chilli

1 red onion

2 cloves garlic

1 handful coriander

1tbsp rapeseed oil – or any other oil.

Pulled Pork

1.5k pork shoulder

½ white onion

½ cup /125ml tomato sauce

¼ cup/60ml cider vinegar

2tbsp dark brown sugar

2tbsp honey

1tbsp dark soy sauce

2 cloves garlic – crushed or finely chopped

1 tsp salt

1 scotch bonnet chilli – finely sliced

BBQ Sauce to serve

½ white onion

½ cup /125ml tomato sauce

¼ cup/60ml cider vinegar

2tbsp dark brown sugar

2tbsp honey

1tbsp dark soy sauce

2 cloves garlic – crushed or finely chopped

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp smoked paprika

½ scotch bonnet chilli – finely sliced – you could use normal chilli’s if the thought of scotch bonnet scares you.

 

Coleslaw

2 Carrots – grated (Dave was busy cleaning so I used the grated attachment on my bender)

1.2 bulb fennel – finely sliced

½ head of red cabbage – finely sliced

½ head white cabbage (you could just use 1 whole head of your favourite) – finely sliced

1 apple, thinly sliced into batons

Hand full coriander, finely chopped

Dressing

1/2cup light mayonnaise

2tbsp buttermilk

1tbsp Dijon mustard

1/2tsp fennel seeds

½ tsp celery salt

½ tsp salt

1tsp pepper

1tbsp honey

Extras

Buns

Optional extras

Mustard

Salsa

Marinade

Put chilli, garlic, coriander and onion in a blender and finely chop (or do this by hand). Add lime juice, grapefruit juice and oil and combine. Pour over pork and rub so it gets into all the meat. Cover and refrigerate over night. I put mine in a big freezer bag for ease.

Pork

Mix all BBQ sauce (1) ingredients together, whisk to create a smooth sauce.

Add Pork to your slow cooker, cover with BBQ sauce and cook on high for 5 hours, and then turn to low for another 3 hours.

When cooked remove from slow cooker, remove fat and shred with two forks, pulling against the grain of the meat.

In a separate pan, fry onion in a tbsp oil for two minutes and add the remaining BBQ sauce (2) ingredients to the pan, stir and bring to the boil, add two ladles (about 1/2cup – 125ml) of the cooking BBQ sauce to the serving sauce and cook for 5 minutes reducing the heat to medium so it’s just simmering, until rich, smoky, sweet and sticky. Add Shredded pork and stir to coat everything.

Coleslaw

Combine all veggies and coriander in a bowl, mix dressing ingredients in a separate bowl. If your using a mix of cabbages I wouldn’t mix them together until your about to serve because the purple cabbage has a tendency to run and make everything pink. Taste because you may need a little extra salt or pepper.

Serve with pork and coleslaw stuffed into hamburger buns.

Oh you want to know about the healthy cocktail?

Strawberries Vodka Thingies

Blend 100g frozen strawberries with juice of a lime, a tbsp sugar and about 3 shots of vodka (I have no idea how much I glugged in there). Split between two long glasses add a sprig of mint and top up with soda water.

 

Apologies. I imagine your pretty peeved that you’ve read this post and realised that there are no photo’s to show you anything really about the food. When I’ve looked through my camera it’s it important to everyone that nothing from that night is evidenced!