Christmas Potluck

Italian Crescent Strudel

Veggie Cream Cheese Pizza 

Buffalo Balls

The Spread

Buche de Noel

Buche de Noel

This past weekend, I hosted a Christmas Potluck. It was a success! My friends are such good cooks. As always, there was too much food for our own good. The dishes I made included, oven roasted pulled pork (recipe below), O'Briens hash browns, and a Buche de Noel (Yule log). Joe made a crescent roll strudel with ham, pepperoni, salami, roasted peppers, and swiss. Kelly and Chad brought Buffalo Balls. They are turkey meatballs cooked in buffalo sauce and served with blue cheese and celery. Kirsten and Julien brought Pillsbury veggie-cream cheese pizza, and crab and cream cheese in crescents. Heidi made brownies and Sam brought beverages. YUMMM! As you can probably tell, the weight watchers got put on pause for that day! It was spectacular. Potlucks are my favorite because I don't have any family around and I love to have a house full of friends. Plus, it gives me an excuse to cook. 

Oven Roasted Pulled Pork

(adapted from Emeril and Tyler Florence)

Ingredients

Picnic pork shoulder roast (trimmed of fat, but leave the large piece of skin on)

Dry rub (recipe below)

Vinegar Mop Sauce(recipe below)

Garlic cloves, smashed

BBQ Sauce ( I used Dinosaur BBQ sauce)

Dry Rub

3 Tbsp Paprika

1 Tbsp Dry Mustard

1 Tbsp Granulated Garlic

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

2-3 Tbsp Salt

Mix all ingredients together

Vinegar Mop Sauce

1 C White Vinegar

1 C Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Tbsp Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp Red Pepper Flakes

1 Tbsp Black Pepper

1 Tbsp Salt

Combine ingredients and whisk well. Refrigerate and let set for a while for the flavors to blend. 

Serve with (optional):

Coleslaw

Chopped Pickles

Rolls

Directions:

Preheat oven to 225. Rub dry spice blend all over the pork roast and let set for at least an hour to overnight (the longer, the deeper the flavor).  Place Garlic cloves in roasting pan and set the roast on the garlic. Place in the oven. Every hour baste the mop sauce on the roast. I hope you don't mind the smell of vinegar because it will be very strong in your home, but totally worth it.  Cooking time will depend on how many pounds your roast is. Mine was about 11 pounds and took about 11-12 hours. The longer you cook it, the more tender it will be. About 4 or 5 hours into cooking, I covered the roast in foil so it wouldn't dry out. 

I made the mistake of not starting my roast until 4 pm on Saturday. I had to set my alarm for 3 am Sunday morning to take it out of the oven. I actually didn't take it out of the oven until 6:30am, but I did turn the oven off at 3 am. I left the roast covered in foil, cracked the oven, and and left it there. I was willing to get up to turn the oven off, but not pull the pork. I waited until about 6:30 am. Believe me, the pork will be fine left in the oven. It was still very hot in the middle and who knows, it may have even made it more tender. Anyway it was delicious, and I may never do it in the crockpot again! I really recommend trying it this way!