What I Made for Dinner: December 16 & 17, 2009

Roast pork shoulder.

The past two days have been dedicated to my end-of-semester push to finish grading my students' papers, "equalize" their grades (meaning I make sure I wasn't grading differently three weeks ago than I was at the end), and figure their course grades. It's pretty all-consuming for me.

We needed some quick, low-effort dinners. So on Wednesday morning before I left for work, I seared a pork roast, rubbed it with a paste of olive oil, brown mustard, garlic, and herbs, and put it in a 250 oven to braise in beer and diced canned tomatoes. Eight hours later, when I got home, we had six pounds of falling-apart delectable meat. We made soft tacos with it on Wednesday, and then last night I served it with garlic bread and a mixed green salad.

We would welcome suggestions for what to do with the rest of it, because boy that's a lot of shredded pork.

Anyhow, I am finished with my work for the semester, so now I can get into my cookbooks and magazines for more inspiration!