Barbecue...

Two weeks ago we had Homecoming Day at our church. It was a great time, we honored three of our members who are over 90 years old and had grown up going to this little church. Our church building was built in the late 1800's and the cemetery on the property has graves from before the civil war, some dated as far back as the early 1800s and late 1700s.

I didn't mean to get off on that rabbit trail but the history of our church and the surrounding area is so interesting to me.

Anyway, we had volunteered to bring smoked pork and Barbecue sauce for our part of the meal, and what a meal it was. Everyone liked the Barbecue and we sent plates home with lots of people.

The Thursday before, we bought a case of pork butts at Sam's and let them sit in the refrigerator overnight with dry rub on them (we put two in a 2 gallon plastic bag and stack them up that way).

Then we got up super early on Friday morning and got them smoking. Notice that it's still dark outside in the picture.

They smoked all day and into the night --18 hours total. After they reach the proper internal temperature, they go in plastic bags to rest and cool. Then the next morning, we pulled the meat and JP chopped it up some to make it easier to serve.

Here are the cooked butts after resting for a while, ready to be pulled apart.

 

(JP here: It's especially delicious piled high on a soft hamburger bun, with some of the barbecue sauce poured over it and a large dollop of cole slaw to finish it off..... yum, yum.)


Also, we didn't want to waste all of those smoky bones, so JP made stock with them. We froze the stock and can use it to make soups when the weather is cold, or to flavor rice dishes, etc.

It's always a lot of work to crank out a case of pulled pork barbecue,  but it's worth it. We still have some in the freezer and gave some to my Mom and Dad.

JP again: We can have barbecue sammiches, barbecue potatoes, barbecue fried rice, barbecue pizza.... I'll quit now because I'm starting to sound like Bubba from the Forrest Gump movie.