Welcome to kidscoodinner.com, a website my sister and I started 5 years ago (read more about that a few posts below) For dinner tonight (Saturday), I wanted to cook a big piece of pork (pork shoulder) but it’s been really hot so I decided to cook it the day before in a slow cooker, let it sit overnight (so all the fat that cooks out hardens so its easier to remove).  Ingredients are simple: pork, of course; bunch of spices for the dry rub; ketchup, and apple cider vinegar.  You can also add your favorite barbecue sauce to the slow cooker, or just add at the end when you serving the pork.

First step is to make the dry rub: I combined: onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, oregano and salt and pepper. If you want it spicier, add cayenne.

Then you rub it over the pork.

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Into the slow cooker the pork goes, then mix the ketchup and apple cider vinegar together (should be about a cup of liquid) and add around the pork.  (I added a little barbecue sauce as well), and let cook on low for 8 hours.

Here’s what it looked like about 4 hours in:

Once it’s cooked for 8 hours, it should be very tender. Let it cool for a bit, then remove the pork from the pot, cut the strings keeping it together (discard strings!) and shred it with a fork. I put the shredded meat in a separate bowl and refrigerate it overnight.  I also refrigerated the slow cooker pot with the liquid in it (which had a lot of fat in it), overnight.

In the morning, there was over 1/4 inch of solidified orange fat on top of the cooking liquid.  It was actually fun to cut it off….but there was a lot of it.

Here’s the plate of fat I removed.

And here’s what the remaining sauce looked like:

I added back the shredded pork and warmed everything up for an hour or so before serving.

Mom made fresh rolls to go with the meat:

Delicious! And lots of leftovers.