Home Cooking Throwdown - Pickles, Bacon & Cheese Grits, Pulled Pork and More...

The week was filled with a lot of time in the kitchen prepping for a 31st birthday we were hosting at our place for our good buddy Travis.

A trip over to my friend Matt's house inspired me to pickle some wonderful zucchini that his wife Anna had recently made.  The recipe is straight forward and can be found here.  In addition to the zucchini I also dug up a pickled jalapeno recipe here.  Outside of the tips of my fingers being on fire from quartering and cleaning the jalapeno's the recipe was breeze.

Quartered Jalapenos                                                                                        

Sliced and Cleaned, ready to pickle

                        Jalapenos and Carrots soaking on the stove top in vinegar

                      Jalapeno & Carrots and Zucchini & Onion pickled and cooling

 As I was pickling I threw 7lbs. of pork shoulder from Drewes Bros. (my new favorite butcher in the city) in the slow cooker for 18 hours.  I sliced up a white onion, crushed 5 or 6 cloves of garlic and made the Lee Bros. North Carolina BBQ sauce, which is basically vinegar with some red chili and pepper.  The vinegar does a fabulous job of breaking down the pork into what eventually becomes uber tender pulled pork.  On top of the North Carolina BBQ sauce, I also pulled together the Lee Bros. South Carolina BBQ sauce, a heavy mustard based BBQ sauce that we used as a sauce to go on top of the pulled pork.

                Pork shoulder prepped and ready for 18 hours of slow cooking

North Carolina BBQ Sauce

                                             South Carolina BBQ Sauce                                        

Canned and Ready for Consumption

For sides we served up some green goddess potato salad from the Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern Cookbook as well as their coleslaw and bacon and cheese grits recipes from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook.

                                                              
                                  Beautiful Green Goddess Dressing                                

 Potatoes Tossed in Green Goddess

                                               Coleslaw

Browned Bacon and Cheese Grits

With an abundant amount of leftovers there were certainly a lot of goodies to play with.  We ended up having some nachos and cheese with pulled pork and pickled jalapenos and carrots that was beyond ballgame worthy.  On top of that my roomie Doug cooked up a homemade pizza with pulled pork, liquid smoke BBQ sauce, thyme, rosemary, onion, shallots and bacon.  The pizza was absolutely delicious and belongs on some restaurants menu.

                                                                                                      
                                             Nachos!

Semi devoured BBQ pulled pork pizza with bacon

What have you been cooking this week?  Any new recipe finds you adore or old faithfuls that you have been hooked on lately?

@Clayco Eats!!!

As of late I have found myself frequently  writing and posting pictures to my personal blog about the food I'm making and eating (both in the kitchen and out and about).  Since my frequency of cooking in the kitchen has increased, along with my penchant for dining out frequently, I thought I would share the treats I'm snacking on (currently in love with my Zingerman's fall order), the eats I'm cooking (obsessed with the Lee Bros. two cookbooks and pickling) and some of the amazing meals and restaurants I am running around to enjoy (Wayfare Tavern, Bar Agricole, Plow and TaKorea food tuck).

Today, I spent the morning navigating the throngs of tourists and sight seers in town to take in Fleet Week down on the Embaracadero as Hunter and I skateboarded to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market.  The inspiration to head down during such a crazy weekend came from 4505 Meats @Chicharrones Twitter account, showing a picture of the steak and eggs poutine they were serving up.  I opted for a delicious steak and egg sandwich with some out of this world gravy.  I love all of the concoctions that come from 4505, they are always tasty with a little bit of edginess. 

On the way out I stumbled upon a vendor tucked in the corner I had heard mentioned to me a few times recently to due my current pickling obsession, Happy Girl Kitchen Co.  I was in a trance as as walked into their little tent, looking at all the beautiful jams, jellies and pickles.  I walked away with a host of jars you can see below.  I ended up snagging their spicy dry-farmed country ketchup, spicy carrots, wildly spicy pickled peppers, some of their own pickling mix, crushed heirloom tomatoes and their spicy fresh heirloom tomato salsa.  It took a ton of resistance to not pick up one of everything.  After talking to the lady there I was excited to find out they do pickling, salsa, and jam making classes over in Oakland, their HQ.

Beautiful vibrant red wildly spicy pickled peppers