Tag Archives: BBQ

Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches-SRC Post!

Posted on by

20

It’s that time again!

Time for a little bit of the Secret Recipe Club (SRC), if you aren’t familiar with the whole SRC family and concept, you can read and find out more about it over here. Long story short, it’s a super fun group of bloggers with a cool idea that helps us get to know more bloggers and expand each other’s blogs.

This month I was assigned to get to know Erin over at The Spiffy Cookie. I just can NOT get enough of the adorable name and the cute little cookies all over her blog!!! She is currently working towards her PhD in Biomedical Science (woooeeeeeee! That sounds super impressive!!!) and her favorite food group is dessert which is awesome because mine totally is too!! If your favorite food group is not dessert…then I don’t know how you like qualify for being human. Anyways, she also dislikes mushrooms. I am the SAME way. They are just freaky and are a fungus and just not meant to go in my mouth.

With a blog name like The Spiffy Cookie I felt slightly obligated to make a cookie recipe. And I was THISCLOSE to making her Lunch Lady Peanut Butter Cookies, but then I just could not tear myself away from her intriguing Root Beer Pulled Pork. It was a close race but I ended up going with the pork.

You should stop by her post and see her outrageous root beer bottle collection, it is MONSTROUS!!!

You should also make this pulled pork. It is super duper yummy, flavorful, easy, and tender. I put all the meat and root beer in the crock pot in the morning, had it on for 6 hours while I was at work, got home drained it and added the BBQ sauce and put it on the warm setting, worked out, then came home and ate myself a scrumptious pulled pork sandwich. This recipe is perfect for any busy person who wants a delicious, home cooked meal!! :)

Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches

(from The Spiffy Cookie)

2lb. pork tenderloin (pork shoulder or butt can also be used)

12 oz. can of root beer

18 oz. bottle of barbecue sauce

8 hamburger buns or french bread

  1. Place the pork tenderloin in a slow cooker and pour the can of root beer over the meat. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or until pork shreds easily with a fork.
  2. After pork has cooked, drain and discard the root beer. Shred the pork (I used 2 forks to do this) and place it back in the slow cooker. Pour the barbecue sauce over the pork and stir to combine. Serve immediately or keep warm in slow cooker until ready to serve. Serve on hamburger buns or with french bread.



Random Fact of the Day: The State of Florida is bigger than England.
Related articles

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

Posted on by

2

Remember that BBQ chicken grilled cheese sandwich that I made before? I pretty much wanted to marry that baby. It was a miraculous creation, if I do say so myself.

Anyhow, I made almost the same thing except quesadilla style! I LOVE quesadillas, just about as much as I love grilled cheese. If you think about it, I guess quesadillas are pretty much the tortilla version of a grilled cheese. Enough of this thinking nonsense, though!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Let’s make quesadillas! Super, super easy! I love making quesadillas and this was super simple, pretty much the same steps to make the bbq grilled cheese sandwich, except with a tortilla.

Oh, and did you see that up there!?! A slideshow! I’m feeling pretty fancy and techie right now :D Those pictures basically show you the steps to making these quesadillas, but as usual, I will give you all the directions below!

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

(for one quesadilla, makes 3 small triangles-serves one!)

1/4 cup caramelized onions

1/2 cup chicken, cooked

1/4 cup BBQ sauce, separate

2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, grated

2 Tablespoons bacon bits (optional)

butter or oil

tortilla

  1. In a small bowl, combine caramelized onions, cooked chicken, and 2 Tablespoons of BBQ sauce until thoroughly mixed and combined. Set aside.
  2. Heat pan with about a tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. When hot and butter is melted, place tortilla in pan. Flip tortilla every 30-45 seconds, until large bubbles start to form.
  3. Turn down the heat to low. Spread remaining BBQ sauce on tortilla in thin layer across entire tortilla. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over BBQ sauce. Drop caramelized onions and chicken on ONE HALF of the tortilla (this is important that you just put this on one half, or else you will have chicken and onions everywhere). Sprinkle mozzarella cheese and bacon bits (if using) over entire tortilla.
  4. With the heat on as low as possible, place a lid over on top for about 1 1/2 – 2 minutes, or until mozzarella is melty.
  5. Fold the tortilla, flipping the side that doesn’t have chicken on it over the side that does have the chicken and onions on it. Place on a plate, cut into triangles, and ENJOY! :D
NOTES:
  • this recipe is super flexible, use your own judgement on the amounts of stuff you like on here. I’m not a huge BBQ sauce person so I like to go light on mine-do as YOU like!
  • this would be super awesome with black beans, too! (for some reason I feel like baked beans could be kind of good on here, too weird??)
Random Fact of the Day: With the invention of the light bulb, Americans averaged 1.5 hours less sleep per night.
Related articles

BBQ Chicken Grilled Cheese

Posted on by

7

I have to tell ya…I’m not a big fan of saucy stuff.

I don’t like pasta drowning in marinara. Fettucini with Alfredo sauce almost always makes me feel sick to my stomach. A piece of chicken smothered in BBQ sauce makes me want to cry. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that it makes me want to cry.

I can be a total drama queen when I want to. There was a particular time that I remember where I threw a pretty big fuss over a sandwich I got at a restaurant. This was a couple years ago…I’m actually kind of embarrassed to even think about this, but what the heck. I’ll tell you anyways.

So my parents and I went down to U of I to visit my sister for the day and we had a nice time as we always do. I love going down to the campus and feeling like I’m some big bad college kid. Anyways, we decided on going to the Barbecue joint that was in the area that was supposedly pretty good. The place had a very southern atmosphere and I really liked how it felt in there! It took me a bit to decide what I wanted to order and I finally picked the shredded BBQ chicken sandwich. We got to see them on the other side of the counter as they assembled our meals and I watched the girl pick out a nice fluffy bun, plop some chicken on top, and then it happened. I wanted to scream. My eyes literally started to water. I know, I’m weird. She took a big ‘ol ladle and poured barbecue sauce all over. Everywhere. I decided that I would just suck it up and take the sauce sandwich. I didn’t want to throw a fit. I’m a high schooler, I should be able to handle these things right?

Wrong.

I took a couple bites out of the sandwich when we sat down, but I just couldn’t do it. The bun was totally ruined (to me it was). It felt and tasted soggy from the monstrous amount of sauce. It felt like I was eating a sandwich of bread soaked in sauce with a teeny bit of chicken. Now, I told you I am definitely capable of being a drama queen. So my mom noticed I was having troubles getting myself to eat the sandwich. So we went up there, got another sandwich and this time I was SURE I ordered it with sauce on the side.

I don’t even know how I became like this. I mean when I was really little, I would take the bottle of Ranch dressing and just pour and pour and pour that stuff on my salads at dinner. It was usually Ranch soup with some lettuce. Thinking about it totally gives me the gags now, but back then it was just the norm for me. Funny how people’s palates change.

Anyways, I made this version of a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s kind of a hybrid of a grilled cheese and a panini. What’s going in here is some chicken that has been drizzled, yes just barely covered, with BBQ sauce. I still totally embrace BBQ sauce, but I’m more of a dipper than a smotherer. Then there’s some parmesan and mozzarella cheese, with a little bit of sautéed onion. It’s almost like my BBQ chicken pizza in sandwich form! This is probably my absolute favorite sandwich I have ever made. I can totally see myself making this on a weekly basis. It takes hardly any time to prepare and most of the ingredients are usually hanging around the house.

BBQ Chicken Grilled Cheese

2 slices of bread (I used whole wheat)

about 1/4 cup chicken, cooked and cut into bite size pieces*

about 3 Tablespoons barbecue sauce

about 1/4 of an onion, sautéed*

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

about 1 1/2-2 Tablespoons butter or oil

1 Tablespoon of bacon bits, optional

  1. Place cooked, cut up chicken in a small bowl and combine with barbecue sauce and sautéed onion. Set aside.
  2. Heat up skillet (if you have a panini press I recommend using that because it will save you a little mess because the chicken pieces can make flipping the sandwich a bit of a challenge) on stove on about medium heat. Butter one side of each piece of bread. Place one piece of bread, buttered side down, on hot skillet. Turn heat down to low-medium. Place parmesan cheese on bread. Spoon chicken mixture on top of parmesan cheese. If you’re in a meaty kind of mood, throw in your bacon bits. Add mozzarella cheese. Top with final piece of bread, buttered side facing up and away from chicken and cheese. Turn the heat back up to about medium.
  3. About 2 minutes after the first piece of bread was laid down, or until the cheese starts melting a little bit, flip the sandwich over. Cook for an additional 2 minutes or until desired doneness (<– apparently that IS a word). Keep flipping if you are not yet at your desired doneness. Enjoy!
* I cooked my chicken and sautéed the onions a day ahead to make preparation fast and easy.

Random Fact of the Day: Every cigarette smoked cuts at least five minutes of life on average, which is roughly the time it takes to smoke one cigarette.

Related articles

Santa ClausE and a Handy Spice Rub

Posted on by

7

I’d like to start this post out by saying that I really do have a tiny bit of like real intelligence in my brain. Like theres real stuff in there besides oxygen and what not… Anyways for some reason I have though for quite a while now that Santa’s last name is “Clause”. Clause, with an E. It just seems right to me, I don’t know why this has been engrained into my brain. It could be the Santa Clause movie that did it to me, I don’t know.

Well, I recently found out that Santa Clause is spelled with no E. Who knew?! Why would they spell it ClausE in the movie?!!?!!? Seriously..

Anyhow, I found this out on a test. At the end of a physics test I was taking about a week ago there was a question that said “make up your own question and answer it correctly for 2 extra credit points!”. So in my mind I was like “Yesss, I’m gonna make this supaaah easy and just not even make it have anything to do with physics!”. The question I came up with was, “what is Santa’s last name”…my answer? “Clause”. ClausE, ClausE, ClausE! Two extra credit points right out the window there.

Oh well…Now I know. If I didn’t learn anything this semester in physics, at least I learned how to properly spell Santa’s last name.

On a totally different note, I made this spice mix! It’s perfect for EVERYTHING! Except things like cookies and stuff, then it might not be so great. But hey, it’s perfect for chicken, ribs, oven baked fries, you name it!! Personally, I’m a big fan of dry rubs so that’s why this is great to have in my house and we are always using tons of seasoning for everything…especially these. Super simple ingredients that just really make a dish something special!

Spice Rub (Mix)

1/2 cup paprika

2 teaspoons onion powder

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 1/2 teaspoons ground red cayenne pepper

1 T. salt

3 teaspoons fresh ground pepper

2 1/2 T. brown sugar

2 1/2 T. white sugar

Mix all listed ingredients together in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Pour into jar or tupperware container and use as needed to season meats and other foods like oven baked fries (<–can you tell I keep hinting to MAKE THESE)

Random Fact of the Day: The average person tells 4 lies a day or 1460 a year; a total of 87,600 by the age of 60. And the most common lie is: I’m fine.

Related articles