One Local Summer 2012 – Week 23

It doesn’t look like much, but this has become an annual local summer favorite.  It’s an easy crock pot dinner that involves very few ingredients and prep, just lots of simmer time in the crock pot.  It’s a pork butt cooked with cabbage, vinegar, beer, and some apples, and comes out SO AMAZING every time.  The pork is always so tender and falling apart, and the mixture of the cabbage with the other ingredients just comes out perfectly.  It sort of looks like brownish slop, but I assure you, it never lasts as leftovers very long.

Pork and Cabbage:
Pork Butt – Countrytime Farm
Cabbage – Hoagland Farm
Apples – North Star Orchard
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Vinegar, salt, pepper, spices, beer

UPDATE 2 Nov 2012 – adding the recipe since it was asked for!

Pork and Cabbage	Print
Ingredients	1 can/bottle of beer (or 12 oz white wine for gluten free)
1 pork butt (4-6 lb)	Pork rub (enough to cover the pork butt) *
1 head cabbage, shredded	1/4 cup maple syrup (grade b)
2 apples, peeled and chopped	1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
Instructions:
Rub butt down with pork rub blend – coat well; place in Crockpot on high Surround Pork with shredded cabbage and chopped apples; not all cabbage will fit Pour all liquid even over top of ingredients Cook on low for 6-8 hours; add remaining cabbage as space is available; approx once per hour baste butt with liquid in crockpot *Pork Rub used here was made with a blend of paprika, maple sugar (or brown sugar), onion powder, garlic powder, and kosher salt.  McCormick’s makes a good pork rub if you don’t feel like making your own.