pulled pork for a crowd

I learned how to cook something new!! A few weeks ago, I wanted to make "homemade BBQ" for our Tuesday night group. I needed to make enough to feed at least 25 people. I called my mother-in-law, the one who can cook anything, and said, "how do you cook pork in the crockpot to make BBQ?" I had already looked at numerous websites and had an idea of what I wanted to do. She told me something totally different!! I did it and it worked beautifully. I had purchased a couple of packages of pork roasts at costco. There were two in each package and they each looked a little like a giant pork tenderloin. Each piece of meat had a thin layer of fat on one side. She told me to put those pork roasts in my crockpot and cover them with water. Yes, I said cover them with water!! I also added some onions. Next time, I'm going to add a little more spice. I turned the crockpots on low and let the meat cook all night. Two or three times during the night, I awakened and thought to myself, "mmmm something smells yummy!!" When I got up the next morning, I removed the meat from the crockpota. During the night, all of that fat had cooked off the meat. My mother-in-law told me that is called "rendering the fat" . . .who knew? Obviously, I didn't!! I then placed the meat (with NO fat!!) into one of those giant disposable pans and I used two forks to "pull" the pork apart . . .once again, that is why it is called "pulled" pork. I love learning something new!! I added three different kinds of BBQ sauce - one for sweetness, one for spiciness and one just because I liked the label. I then placed the meat back into the crockpot. It took two crockpots to cook all that meat but it all fit nicely back into one crockpot. See?

Since it all fit into one crockpot, the other crockpot was available for the baked beans!! I put the liner from the crockpot with the meat in it into the refrigerator and left the beans cooking all day in the other one. When I got home from work, I put the liner of meat back into the crockpot and turned it on high. By the time the young adults arrived at six p.m., the meat had heated through. It was delicious!! The "recipe" was very easy but a little time consuming. It took me about an hour and a half to pull all that pork from four roasts.

This picture has nothing to do with the pulled pork and baked beans . . .except for the fact that I've been using these jars as centerpieces . . .a lot!! I've changed the ribbons three times to match the tablecloth and dropped some new candles down in the jar.

So . . .if you need to cook pulled pork for a crowd, this is a great way to do it!!