New Family Fave...SO Easy!

Thanks to Slow Cooker Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches  posted on Six Sisters' Stuff, we have a new addition to the list of favorite meals around here.  The family has requested it be a weekly dinner-- with plenty of leftovers for impromptu meals and snacks at other times.

With prior fails, I am still wary of Crock-Pot recipes.  But recent successes have made me braver at trying new ones.  

No Crock-Pot?  No worries.  See note at the end of this post.

This recipe was just too intriguing --with "Root Beer" in the title (yum!)-- and too easy --with only 3 ingredients and relatively no prep-- to pass up.

I threw 2 pork sirloin tip roasts (from Costco @ $1.99/pound), totaling just over 4 pounds, into my Crock-Pot.  I then poured in 12 ounces of root beer, and turned the crockpot to low for 7 or 8 hours.





After that time, following the directions given by Six Sisters, I removed the pork (for the most part, in pieces, because it was so well cooked and tender), and discarded the root beer.  

I shredded the pork and returned it to the now empty Crock-Pot  then stirred in 18 ounces of our favorite (**no-high-fructose-corn-syrup) barbecue sauce, Stubb's Sweet Heat Bar-B-Q Sauce.   It seemed a little drier than I wanted, so I changed the original recipe here, by adding approximately 1/2 cup of water to the empty bottle to swirl out any remaining sauce, and adding all to the pork mixture.


Inspired by the new Beef Brisket Sandwich at Costco, I served this on a toasted (homemade) bun spread with mayo, plus shredded cabbage and carrot mixture. (Prepared cole slaw, as served on the Beef Brisket Sandwich, would work, too.)  This adds a fresh and crisp element to the sandwich, as well as being a good way to sneak in some healthy veggies.

I am not a huge pork fan, nor a big fan of barbecue sauce. I figured it would be OK for my barbecue-sauce-loving family, even if I chose to make it only for nights I wasn't going to be able to be home for dinner.  As it turns out, I don't have to save this for nights I'm away.  I love it, too!!  --Better yet, it makes for a decent meal to take my dad, and he, who rarely comments about what I serve him, said, "You sure make a dandy burger!"  :-D



*Note:
If you don't have a Crock-Pot, you can still make this recipe.  I had 4 roasts I needed to cook in one day, and wanted some pork mixture to freeze for quick meals when needed by athletes and those who work during dinner hours.  So I put 2 of the roasts in the Crock-Pot  and the remaining 2, with root beer, into my 6-quart porcelain lined cast iron pot, put on the lid, and did the slow cooking in the oven at 275 degrees for the same 7 to 8 hour span.  (Same method I used for Beer-Onion Soup Mix Pot Roast.)  At the 5 to 6-hour point, the roasts looked a little dry on top, so I turned them over.  After cooking, I discarded the root beer, shred the meat, and added the barbecue sauce, as above.

**Note to myself and to others concerned with this issue: 
I made the effort to find a barbecue sauce without high fructose corn syrup, but the root beer I used, and also, the ketchup I've always used to make my homemade barbecue sauce both have high fructose corn syrup.  Time to find new brands for both.