Pulled Pork Sandwiches & Rainbow Slaw

I love pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw. It's an odd choice of comfort food in that I haven't actually liked barbeque for very long and I'm not actually a big fan of pork.

It's strange to think that as a kid I hated barbeque, though I think it's because I hadn't found a BBQ sauce that I liked. I'm more partial to vinegar-y tasting sauces, and most of the time if you go out for barbeque in Texas, the sauce is more on the sweet side.

Anyways, I bought a crock-pot/slow cooker a week or so ago and I'd been itching to use it. I'm gone for work until late some nights and there's no opportunity to cook when I get home, so having something already made and hot that Ryan can eat when he gets home from class sounded like a dream come true.

So when Taylor mentioned she'd found a really great recipe on Pinterest that was super easy (only 4 ingredients!) and made for the crock-pot, I tried it.

I'm soso glad I did, especially since I was side-eyeing the part about adding a can of diet pepsi to the mix. It was so good! And it made enough for lunch today and maybe a bit extra! The only thing I changed about the recipe was that I used Stubb's regular BBQ sauce instead of the one they recommended, because I wanted a less sweet tasting pulled pork.

As for the coleslaw, I just used a rainbow slaw mix I got at the grocery store (it has broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and red cabbage). I prefer the rainbow slaw to regular cabbage slaw mix because you're getting more vitamins and a better variety of veggies, especially since you're not really eating something particularly healthy. Then I mix just a little bit of Marzetti's coleslaw dressing in, salt and pepper it, and voila!

pulled pork recipe via Sweet & Savory Food blog

Mom's French Toast

As a child, I remember ordering french toast at a restaurant thinking it would taste similar to my mom's french toast. No. It tasted like scrambled egg on bread. If that's what you like, that's cool. But this is not that.

This is a caramelized sweet version of french toast that I've personally only tasted in my mother's kitchen or my own.

Also, you should feel free to reduce the amount of sugar, I've already reduced it from the original recipe because Ryan really likes maple syrup, whereas when I was a kid we never really used it so the sugar was necessary.

Have I ever told you about how I only use jam on my waffles? Not a big fan of maple syrup.

Anyways, without further ado:

Mom's French Toast

Recipe yields about 4 pieces of french toast (2 servings)

Ingredients needed:

2 large eggs
1/2 c white sugar
tsp of cinnamon (optional)
4 pieces of bread (stale bread works best) I used fresh honey wheat

Instructions:

1. Warm frying pan or skillet on stove (be sure to spray cooking spray or butter because these babies will stick (even to nonstick pans)
2. Crack eggs and whisk until they are scrambled consistency, mix in sugar and cinnamon until well blended. I normally like to mix them together in a shallow bowl or a deep plate so that it's easier to coat the pieces of bread. I got my shallow bowls at Pier 1 and they're a life-saver for marinating and coating stuff.
3. Turn skillet to medium heat.
4. Dip piece of bread into egg/sugar mixture, one side at a time. Turn piece of coated bread until excess drips off.
5. Place coated bread into now hot skillet and let cook on one side until the sugar has caramelized, then flip and repeat. (you can check if it's caramelizing by lifting up a corner of the toast with your spatula.)
6. Repeat step 4 & 5 until you finish all four pieces of toast. (Remember to respray the pan each time!!) This should use almost all of the egg/sugar mixture. You may be able to make a 5th piece of toast, but 4 is normally plenty to split between 2 people.

Serve with syrup and powdered sugar or plain (they're sweet enough!).

-Becca