Bright and sunny food for bright and sunny weather!

Today got off to a bit of a slow start. I didn't sleep so well last night, so I was fairly tired for most of the work day. I tried to keep my chin up, though, because I knew the day could only get better. The sun was out and it's finally beginning to look like spring in this dreary city.

Nice weather means I can switch to wearing shorts on runs and has the potential for there to be some running in my afternoon CrossFit metcon. This afternoon's WOD proved my little prediction right. The skill portion of the workout consisted of: 16 minutes, on the minute, of 3 snatch balances and 5 hands off push ups. (I managed to do 35 lbs for the weight. It's not very heavy, but I tried to tell myself that I was concentrating on perfecting my form and not trying to be like Heman...) This was followed by the metcon of: a 200 m run, 15 dead lifts, 20 sit-ups, 400 m run, 10 dead lifts, 20 sit-ups, 800 m run, 4 dead lifts and 20 sit-ups, all for time. I ended up doing everything in 11 minutes 26 seconds, and the dead lifts at 85 lbs. 

Needless to say, all this running and lifting left me somewhat drained. I came home and was heating up some leftovers for dinner and thought, "Hey, this recipe is totally worth sharing." It's a different take on a previous one, but it's quite tasty:

Lemon Ginger Pulled Pork

(Doesn't that look succulent?)

Ingredients:

• 6-7 lbs bone in pork butt
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 2-2 1/2" piece of ginger, minced
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 lemon, quartered (I used the zested lemon)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground mace, optional
• 1/2 tsp ground mustard, optional

Method:

• Combine the salt, pepper, ground mace and ground mustard in a small bowl. Rub this mixture all over the pork.
• Combine the onion, garlic, lemon zest and ginger, in another bowl. Place have of this mix into the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the seasoned pork shoulder on top. Pour the remaining onion/garlic/ginger mix on top of the pork. Squeeze a little of the juice from the quartered lemon on top of the pork and place them around the roast.
• Cook on high for 5-6 hours and then cook on low for an additional 3-4 hours, or until the pork is easy to shred.** Taste, adjust any seasonings.
• Enjoy!

**Note** I find that this recipe works the best with the high then low cooking method. I've cooked pork on low all day and found that it's not always easy to shred. (Granted, this could be because it was a 7.5 lb roast in a little crock-pot...) Starting high and then switching to low seems to be fool-proof. You'll barely have to touch the pork to pull it apart, it's that tender.

This pulled pork ROCKS!  It's a little spicy from the ginger and citrusy from the lemon. You might think that these two flavors would overpower, but they work beautifully. I'm not sure the mace and mustard powder added too much to the recipe (hence the 'optional'...) Feel free to add some red pepper flakes to this to kick up the heat. You'll truly enjoy this porky dish!