Indoor barbecue

Tonight's Menu

• slow-cooker barbecued pork
  
• potato salad
  
• steamed corn on the cob
  
• mixed tomato salad
  

Hey! Hello there! I have not been posting! Sorry about that. We've been eating really boring crap, like hamburgers and tacos and ... leftover hamburgers and tacos. And stuff. This weather has me ALL MESSED UP. I like to grill all summer long, you know that, but it's been really rainy. So I went and planned some meals that did not require grilling, and since then it's been sunny. WHATEVER, Ma Nature. I think you're just trying to piss me off now.

Ahem. ANYWAY.

It did rain a bit today, so the slow-cooker pork was a good call. All I did was slice a big sweet onion, separate it into rings, layer them in the bottom of the slow cooker, whomp a pork roast on top (I used sirloin but you could use loin or shoulder or whatever), then dump on a bottle of barbecue sauce (in this case Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle, which was FABULOUS) and cook on low for a good 8-10 hours. If you're using a long-grained cut of meat, like loin, you can shred this and serve it on buns, but I just chunked it up a bit and we ate it like that. Really yummy and summery, but I didn't have to light the grill!

I'm convinced my potato salad is the only reason we get invited to the neighborhood 4th of July potluck every year. I have been told not to bother showing up if I don't bring it. Okay, nobody actually SAID that, but I KNOW WHAT THEY'RE THINKING. Seriously, this stuff NEVER fails to draw compliments. I take no credit for it because I cribbed it from an old issue of Taste of Home magazine.

All you do is take a bag of those small red-skinned potatoes (about 2-3 pounds), cut them in quarters or eighths depending on how big they are, layer them on a foil-lined baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, bake for about 45 minutes at 425 degrees F and let them cool. Then dump them in a bowl with some chopped hard-boiled eggs, a bunch of crumbled cooked bacon, chopped sweet onion, and shredded cheddar cheese. Mix three parts sour cream to two parts mayonnaise, squirt in just a bit of yellow mustard, and toss that with the potato mixture. You can serve this right away or make it a day ahead of time. It's SO GOOD, I am not kidding. Bring it to a party and you might get invited back, is all I'm saying.

Oh, I almost forgot the mixed tomato salad! That was just chopped (well, cubed really) red tomatoes from my garden along with yellow tomatoes from my dad's garden tossed in just a wee bit of EVOO and apple cider vinegar (whisk those together first to emulsify), salt and pepper. I've done this with balsamic before too and it's really good, but I thought the cider vinegar would better compliment the barbecue.