It is no secret that I am not a fan of pork. Please do not try and feed me a pork chop. I don’t want to be ungrateful or rude, but I really don’t want to eat it. There is one exception to my nose-wrinkling (potentially unwarranted, I will admit) distaste for pork — barbecue pulled pork sandwiches. Mmm yummy.

I’d never made it myself before, but I’d heard that it was super simple in the crock pot. I was browsing Pinterest a couple of weeks ago when I saw a picture of 4 ingredients with the caption “Easiest and Best Pulled Pork Sandwiches Ever.” Alright, you got me. I was a little nervous because I’d never cooked pork before (see earlier note of dislike), but I needn’t have worried because it really was super simple. Even if you include my agonizing in the grocery store over what to buy. “The recipe said pork butt! Nothing here is labeled pork butt! Tenderloin? Shoulder roast? Boston something? WHAT DO I BUY?” Ahem. (I bought what was on sale, haha!)

I got my pork home, patted it down with Lawry’s seasoned salt and finagled it into my slightly-smaller-around-than-my-chunk-of-pork slow cooker. Poured some Diet Pepsi and BBQ sauce over the top and walked away. Several hours later, I came back and pulled the pork out to shred. The recipe suggested putting it back in the juices, which I did for a little while because I wasn’t ready to eat it yet, but that’s not really the way I like my pulled pork. I like mine extra saucy, not pulled from the juices with a little BBQ sauce poured on your sandwich. So when I was ready to eat, I removed it and kept only the tiniest bit of juices and instead mixed up the whole batch with some of the Sweet Baby Rays that was left. Served up on a kaiser bun with some potato salad on the side, delicious!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Source: Sweet and Savory Food

Pork butt
1 can Diet Pepsi
1/2 bottle Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce
Lawry’s Seasoning Salt

Generally coat pork butt with Lawry’s seasoning salt, don’t be afraid to cover it all! Place in crock pot and pour in soda and barbecue sauce. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours. If you have a larger piece of meat, it will probably take longer. After 4 hours or so, take two forks and shred the meat into bite size chunks. Let it sit in the juice to soak up all that flavor. It can stay on warm in crock pot while serving, and can easily be reheated the next day. Serve on a kaiser roll and add more barbecue sauce if needed.

I like my pulled pork really saucy, so I discarded most of the juices and mixed it all up with some of the remaining BBQ sauce.

Anyway, life is still busy and stressful, but this week is DERBY BREAK, and the point of DERBY BREAK in my world is to take the time to do the things you have neglected. For me, that means hanging out with non-derby friends, cleaning my apartment, and updating my woefully neglected blogs.

I have posted about sloppy joes here before… way back when, I wrote about Quick Sloppy Joes that just make a small batch in one pan, for a couple of people. I call them cheater sloppy joes. Today is sloppy joes made in the crock pot, perfect for taking along to a pot luck! Which is exactly what I made them for.

You’ll need: 3 lbs ground beef, celery, onions, green pepper, 15 oz. can tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, mustard, ketchup, sloppy joe mix.

Start by finely chopping your celery, onion and green pepper. You won’t need quite this much, but I chopped it all and set some aside for other uses.

Next, brown up your three pounds of ground beef with the celery/onion/green pepper mixture. When it’s all done, drain off the excess fat.

Then add a 15 oz. can of tomato sauce

2 T. Worchestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup yellow mustard

1/4 cup ketchup

and 1 packet of sloppy joe mix.

Stir it all up until it’s well combined

Then transfer it over to a crock pot, set on low and cook alllll day. I started mine first thing in the morning for a shindig that started at 5 or 6pm (I don’t remember for sure). My mom suggested buying 24 buns for this amount of sloppy joes… it was pretty close.

I have to apologize for the lack of pictures of the finished product on a bun, ready to consume. The day I made these, I was also attempting to make a pan-fried onion dip… I burnt the first set of onions, and when I went to make a second attempt, I sliced open my thumb and ended up in the ER for 3 stitches and a tetanus shot. Needless to say, I made it to the party with my sloppy joes in tow, but was not necessarily in the right frame of mind to remember to take finished product pictures. Or even take my camera to the party. Ah well. They were delicious either way!

Crockpot Sloppy Joes
Source: Mom’s recipe box

3 lb hamburger
Celery
Onion
and Green pepper, chopped fine
15 oz. tomato sauce
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup ketchup
1 pkg sloppy joe mix

Brown hamburger with celery, onion and green pepper. Drain off excessive fat. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Transfer to crock pot and cook on low for several hours.

Making this BLT also marked the first time I have ever attempted cooking bacon. You’ll notice that the photos of this step are conspicuously absent. At first, this was because I was more worried about not burning myself than taking pictures. In the end, it was because I burnt the crap out of the bacon and filled my apartment full of smoke. In fact, the pieces of bacon that made it into the picture (plus enough for one more sandwich) ended up being the only pieces I ate. The rest made it into the garbage can. Since then, I’ve heard I should try cooking bacon in the microwave or in the oven, so I’ll have to try that. In the meantime, I’m happy with Oscar Meyer fully cooked bacon. Shh, don’t tell.

Everything you need for a BLT. Bread, tomato, lettuce, bacon, miracle whip, salt and pepper.

First, I sliced up my tomato. Then I fried my bacon, but we’ve already established that I won’t be showing you that step.

Then I toasted my bread.

Followed by a generous slathering of miracle whip. Seriously tomato, plus the “tangy zip of Miracle whip” is just wonderful.

Then I showed how completely weird and anal I am by cutting my tomato so I could put it in one single layer. Cause I’m strange like that and I don’t like it doubled up. I’m also a strange person who doesn’t like the meat too thick on my sandwiches either.

Salt and pepper the tomato. Usually I go all out and salt and pepper the other side of the bread too. Wild woman, I know.

Add your bacon, if it’s edible.

Then add your lettuce. Normally, lettuce picked out of a salad mix is not what I would use, but it’s what I had so that’s what you get.

Then put your sandwich together and eat! And use a napkin because it will drip yummy goodness everywhere!

The beautiful thing about summer, though? I’m just as happy with a simple tomato sandwich, where you’re done assembling after you salt and pepper your tomato. Which is exactly what I had with the rest of my tomatoes after I dumped my burnt bacon in the trash can and hauled it out to the dumpster while my apartment smelled like bacon for 3 days.

Yesterday though I made chicken salad, which I had not only never featured on this site, I’ve never made it myself before! I use my mom’s chicken salad recipe because it’s incredibly simple, and the best chicken salad I’ve ever had.

Here’s what you need.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Crushed Pineapple. Pecan Pieces. Miracle Whip. I suppose you could use regular mayonnaise, but I can’t promise it will be as delicious without the tangy zip of Miracle Whip. (No, I don’t get any money from the lovely folks at Kraft, but maybe they should pay me for my constant pushing of Miracle Whip.)

First you need to boil your chicken… no pictures of this step. The best thing about chicken salad is that you can make as much or as little as you’d like. You could make just one or two chicken breasts, or you could make the whole package. I pulled out about 5 pieces of chicken. Two were pretty big, and one was really small. I thought about cooking my whole bag of chicken, since I knew I’d have to share. But since I’ve never made chicken salad before, I decided not to… if I made that much and it didn’t turn out well for some reason, I’d have been heartbroken.

After the chicken has cooked all the way through, you’ll want to shred it. You can wait for it to cool and pull it apart with your fingers, or you can be like me and use two forks to pull it apart while it is still hot.

Put the shredded chicken in a large bowl. Lament again that all you have are white bowls, and your camera doesn’t like white bowls. (I have a blue bowl, but my blue bowl does not have a lid.)

As you can see, those are not the pecan halves from the ingredient picture… I ran them through the food processor. I added a big handful of pecans, a couple good sized spoonfuls of Miracle Whip, and a big spoonful of crushed pineapple. No exact measurements, you have to just see as you go. And if you know me at all, you know how much that drives me crazy. I ask my mom for exact measurements on EVERYTHING. That’s part of why you see more baked goods on here than other cooking– baking is precisely measured, just the way I like it.

A note about the pineapple, don’t strain it.. you don’t necessarily want to just pour it in there, but you want some of the juice. In the end I think I ended up putting just a touch more pineapple and a little more miracle whip in the bowl.

This is what the chicken salad looks like when it’s done. Mmmm… I don’t know if it looks appetizing to you or not, but it does to me because I know how delicious it is. You should be able to tell from the picture that there’s enough to get pineapple and pecans in each bite, and the chicken is well coated in the miracle whip… you don’t want dry chicken salad!

At this point, I stuck it in the fridge for awhile since I’d mixed it up when the chicken was still warm, and I wanted to let the flavors sit together for a bit.

It’s good on bread, but the BEST way to serve this chicken salad is on a croissant. Yum! I’m glad I packed some for my lunch today because I’m drooling now!

Today, however, I decided to share with you one of my more peculiar favorite sandwiches. The peanut butter and pickle sandwich. If you’re seriously grossed out by the thought of that, you can thank Ted Murphy from Izea because he’s the one who gave me the idea to post about them. Now, I’ve been eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches since I was a kid, but Ted recently started a conversation about them when he started eating peanut butter and pickle wraps. It’s for that reason that when I was putting together my sandwich last night so I wouldn’t have to take meds on an empty stomach, I decided to snap a couple of pictures.

First you need two pieces of bread.

Then, you need your peanut butter. What kind you use is up to you. I tend to bake with creamy peanut butter, but I choose chunky peanut butter for sandwiches. My mom on the other hand uses creamy peanut butter for her PB & P sandwiches. So slather on some peanut butter of your choosing.

Finally, you need to add the pickles. If I’m just snacking on pickles, I prefer the high-quality Claussen variety. For a simple sandwich however, basic dill hamburger slices will do just fine! How many pickles you put on your sandwich is also up to you, but I choose to put a single layer of as many pickle slices I can fit on the piece of bread.

Then you just put your sandwich together, and enjoy! Mmm…. Now I’m wishing I’d brought another peanut butter and pickle sandwich to work with me for lunch, but I suppose I’ll just have to be satisfied with the turkey sandwich I have.

If you are a fellow PB & P lover, let’s hear from you! And if you try one after reading this, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. The first time I saw my mom eating this sandwich, I said “Ewwwwwwwwww!” but she made me try and a bite and the rest is history!

First, I buttered my bread:

Then I put one slice, butter side down, in a heated skillet and added half my cheese, and my bacon:

Then, I added the rest of the cheese, smooshed my sandwich together, and cooked it until it was browned on both sides, and all gooey in the middle. As you can see, I’m got a little overzealous in the smooshing part:

The Verdict:
It was alright. I’ll definitely consider using shredded cheese on my next grilled cheese because it was deliciously gooey. Unfortunately, my bacon was slightly overcooked, so I had to deal with a slight burnt taste. In the end, I think the only thing this sandwich was sorely missing was … MIRACLE WHIP.

And I have to confess, I didn’t quite make it. After several bites, I caved, and fished some good ole M.W. from the fridge to dunk my sandwich in. Sorry, Skeet, I tried! You just can’t have a grilled cheese without some Miracle Whip!

What’s the perfect sandwich in your world?

Once you have it cooked, drain it and return it to the pan. (I always rinse my meat and my pan to take out as much grease as possible). Now you are going to add as much mustard as you need to cover the meat, and turn it a nice mustardy yellow:

When you have added enough mustard, you’re going to add brown sugar. You’ll need to add as much brown sugar as it takes to cut out the color of the mustard, and make it a nice caramel color:

The final ingredient is the ketchup. This will make give your Sloppy Joes the correct color, and consistency!

I don’t have this “down” quite as well as my mom does, so at this point, I usually have to do a little tweaking to get it just right. After I took this picture, I did a little taste test, and decided my Sloppy Joes needed a little more brown sugar because they weren’t sweet enough. They were perfect after that though!
My best tip for making one-skillet Sloppy Joes is to add things in small amounts, and work up from there. You can always add more if you haven’t gotten it quite right, but you can’t take it back out if you add too much.
Of course, the final step is to spoon it onto a bun and eat it! I added pasta and potato salads to my plate. Yum!