braised pork with sweet & tangy barbecue sauce

I am a huge fan of barbecue - or even what I'll call not-really-barbecue-but-close-enough-for me.  For many years I've made a simple pulled pork recipe in the slow cooker with onions and bottled barbecue sauce.  It is very easy and flavorful, but I was thinking of expanding a little and making something that was a little more handmade and hands on this past weekend.

I did a search on Food Gawker for pulled pork recipes and found many that were similar to what I wasn't looking for - slow cooker, fix and forget style.  Not. for. me.  However, then I stumbled on to Kathleen's Gonna Want Seconds blog recipe for Pulled Pork Sandwiches.  This was more what I was looking for - dry rubbed pork shoulder roast, braised in the oven and then topped with barbecue sauce.

Spaghetti with Artichokes, Lemon and Ricotta

Happy New Year!  I cannot believe I haven't written any blog posts since the end of November.  Honestly, photographing what I've been cooking has been one of the biggest hurdles since the Bay Area can be rather low on the natural light in which we all love to shoot.  I've been looking around at several solutions for lighting and/or flashes so hopefully I won't go into these low light lulls in the future. 

This dish was my own adapted version of a seasonal spring recipe I found in A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen.  I made a few slight changes and added some of my own ideas and came out with a really delicious, simple dish that was full of flavor.