I recently discovered just about the simplest recipe for cooking ANY meat.
Farming is a lot of work and often times one of the things that falls to the wayside is cooking. (Among other household chores) When we decided to throw kiddos in the mix, meals kinda became more mandatory. When it was just the two of us, we'd skip a meal (or 2...) here or there if we were simply too busy to make anything. Dinner was particularly a challenge because we often wouldn't finish the evening until 7 or 8pm. Kinda late to start cooking. Sometimes we would have enough left from what we made from lunch to carry over to dinner, but generally, it would be starting from scratch. One of the conveniences that most folks probably take for granted (I know we did!) is being able to either run out to the grocery store or a restaurant and grab something quick on these late nights. Since we live a minimum of 20-30 minutes from the nearest grocery store or restaurant, that's not really an option for us. Not to mention, you don't wanna do that EVERY night!
I had to come up with a solution. Broiling is pretty quick but if I don't have the presence of mind to thaw something around lunch time, it ain't happenin'. I found a recipe for ribs that was extremely simple and delicious: beer, ribs, BBQ sauce in the crock pot. We tried it. Man oh man! That was some good eating! As I experimented more, I discovered that this simple recipe can actually be used with virtually any cut of pork OR beef! Here's what I do:
1 can or bottle of ANY kind of beer.
I tend to prefer darker beers for this because they give it a deeper, richer flavor, but seriously. Any beer. (you can also use wine! Dry wines are best.)
1 hunk of ANY kind of beef or pork
Yep. Just about anything works. Our favorites to use are:
Beef
Ribs
Stew meat
Lower quality cuts of steak (Round, loin tip, sirloin, etc)
Chuck or shoulder roast
Brisket (Holy dang. It's good on brisket, y'all.)
Pork
Ham slice
Shoulder slice
Ribs
The shoulder slice lends itself to this recipe a bit better and ham slice lends itself to broiling like pork chops or roast in the oven just a little better but they are fairly interchangeable from what we've found.
Your favorite seasonings
We use Montreal Steak. (It's just salt, pepper, dried garlic and dried onion)
BBQ Sauce
Make it or buy it. Whatever you do normally. I do probably a cup or so of this. Depends on the size of the hunk of meat I'm cooking that day. Just eyeball what looks good. (**Note: if substituting wine for beer, you may want to leave BBQ sauce off.)
And then what? You may be asking. Then turn your crock pot on. (That's an important step...Ask me how I know.........) I usually shoot for 4hrs on high or 8hrs on low.
When you pull that delicious hunk of meat out of the crock pot, you're gonna be pretty happy. We either serve over rice with veggies as a side or put it on sandwiches like a pulled pork (or beef). Either way is delicious. You can dress it up, or dress it down. Add veggies, switch up your sides, whatever works for you and your family. But let me tell you, you will not be disappointed if you try this. You'll probably just wish there was more.