Addie's Italian Pulled Pork

A while ago Mike and I went over to the Jenkins' place for dinner and the fabulous Addie made this pulled pork for dinner.  After dinner, I begged for the recipe but, with Addie being such a sweetpea, it didn't take too much coaxing.  It is a crock pot meal, which I was skeptical about because my mom put this deep rooted fear of crock pots in my mind.  She doesn't like the idea of leaving the house while things are plugged in, I see where she is coming from but after this meal, I am willing to take the risk!  It was awesome to come home from the gym and dinner was more then half way done.  All I had to do is throw together some broccoli and BOOM, dinner was done.  Mike is in love with this meal!  If he didn't hold back he probably would have eaten the rest of it.  It is traditionally made into a sandwich but, with doing the low carb thing I just raw dogged it and it was still phenomenal.  The meat has a velvety texture after slow cooking all day.

What you need: 

• Two pork tenderloins or pork shoulder (both Addie and myself used tenderloin)
• 1 packet Au Jus dry mix 
• 1 pack Good Seasons Italian Dressing dry mix
• 2 cups warm water
• Rosemary

Spray the crock pot with non-stick spray (just in case) and place the two tenderloins in.  Then, mix the Au Jus with a cup of warm water and dumped it into the crock and do the same with the Italian Dressing mix.  Place one or two sprigs of rosemary in and turn the crock pot on low.  Cook for 6 hours.  Ours cooked for about ten hours and it was fine. As long as there is plenty of liquid in the pot, you should be golden.

It looks pretty gross, but looks can be deceiving...

Take the tenderloins out of the broth and shred the meat (leave all the broth in the slow cooker).  Take out the rosemary sprigs and discard.  Shred the pork.  I also found that if you cut the pork into quarters before you shred you'll get the perfect size of shredded pork.

Place all the yummy shredded meat back into the crock pot where the juices are waiting. 

Give a good stir and keep on low in the juices until you are ready to eat.  Addie recommends if you like extra juice to add some beef broth at this time.  We didn't because we weren't making sandwiches but, if we were I probably would have because I like a lot of broth to make the rolls soggy.

For our side dish, I just steamed some broccoli and added "I can't believe it's not butter....spray" (oh yeah I went there) and Jane's Crazy salt.

I put the pork and broccoli into a bowl and put a little extra pork broth over everything.

And Mike scarffed it down...

*Note:  If you are making sandwiches with the pork, there are endless possibilities of toppings.  Addie told me she likes sharp provolone and garlic spinach.  You could try the Di Nic's way which is with provolone and broccoli rabe.  Roasted red peppers would be awesome too!