Slow Cooked Pork Shoulder

Talk about a lot of meat for your money! I bought this 8lb pork shoulder at Stop & Shop for $12.71 and made enough for four meals. Amazing, it makes my inner cavewoman very happy. I trimmed the skin off, which probably brought it down to 7lbs and cooked it on high on my crockpot for 8 hours. It just melted off the bone. Now, my crockpot is from 2001, and it only has two settings - lo and high - well 3 setting if you include "off". :)  So, this would have to be adjusted to your own slow cooker.

Just to give a reference, the bowl this is sitting in is a huge serving/salad bowl. I wanted to pick it up Flinstones-style from the bone and have at it.

I did a dry rub on the pork of cumin, cayenne, chili powder, and salt and pepper. Covered the entire piece of meat with the rub. Then put into the slow cooker with 1 chopped onion, and two small cans of green chilies. Once that is all in the cooker, add enough chicken broth to just cover (if you can) the meat. Turn it on to high (or adjust for your cooker) and walk away for 8 hours. The meat could not be covered in my crock pot so I did turn it over in the pot for the last two hours.

It just melted off the bone. We had it the first night with cauliflower rice and again last night as tacos. And I still have two bags of it in the freezer for two more meals. Bang for the buck.

Sunflower Seed Pesto - nut free and stores in the freezer

Pesto is a staple item that I keep on hand at all times. When I am short on time for dinner I will bake or grill some chicken or fish and spread the pesto on top and serve with veggies. Pine nuts are amazing, but are also expensive, so when I came across Primal Palate's recipe for nut-free pesto that uses sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts, I made it that night.

I am really big on preparing as much as I can in double or triple batches when key items are on sale so that I am not only saving money but making the nighttime rush a little easier by freezing extra portions. I just used a frozen portion that I made over two months ago and it was still incredible.

The picture below will be part of an upcoming post on a paleo pizza, but you can see how good the pesto looks even after being frozen. That reminds me, I have those leftovers for lunch today. Lucky me!

Visit Primal Plate for the Nut-Free Pesto Recipe. I didn't, and wouldn't change a thing.

Taco Fries - the deconstructed taco

Tacos, meet fries. Fries, meet tacos. a prefect Paleo marriage. Deconstructing a taco is not really news, but pairing with sweet potato fries is genius. The flavors together are incredible. This Taco Fries recipe from Paleo Leap is always in the dinner rotation because it is easy to make, tastes good, and is what I consider to be a Paleo comfort food.  There are endless veggies and spices you can add to this dish to vary it up or just use what you have in the fridge.

To make the fries, I suggest using a food processor. My Hamilton Beach Processor came with a fry blade on it, or if making fries is too much of a pain, shred the sweet potato and crisp those up in the oven on in  skillet with a little avocado oil.

Please go get this recipe from Paleo Leap. I didn't change much in the picture except that I didn't have a green pepper on hand.

Starting Paleo with a Food Processor

One of the first things I realized I needed when starting Paleo was a decent food processor. I had a mini one to chop nuts, or make a small sauce, and my blender, but with all the chopping and shredding of veggies and the larger quantities of fresh food I needed a power house.

After reading a lot of reviews, I decided on the Hamilton Beach 14-Cup Food Processor, that purchased from Amazon. Worth every penny so far. It came with 3 blades; the traditional chopping blade that sits down in the bottom of the bowl and then a shredding/slicing blade and french fry blades that side up on the top of the bowl that makes slicing and dicing a breeze. The french fry blade is a total bonus - especially for making sweet potato fries. Even my toddler will eat those.

The base has suction cups that secure it to the counter and keep it from shaking and all the parts can go in the dishwasher. no, I am not getting any side kicks for reviewing the processor, I just really love it and have found it to be really dependable.

That's it!

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