Balsamic Shredded Beef

For this round of the recipe swap, it’s Blogger’s Choice! I was assigned Carrie’s blog Carrie’s Sweet Life and I got to choose any recipe I wanted. It’s always quite a choice to pick which recipe I make. Since I participate in the recipe swaps to expand my horizons, I usually try to pick a non-baking recipe to make. Thanks Sarah from A Taste of Home Cooking for organizing the Recipe Swaps!

The weather is turning cooler, and my husband had been talking about making Philly Cheesesteak type sandwiches at home. Plus all my friends on Facebook and Pinterest keep posting yummy looking beef roasts. So I came across this recipe for Balsamic Shredded Beef and thought it would be wonderful. I really like balsamic vinegar so I thought adding it to a roast was ingenious! Plus, I got the makings for Philly sandwiches so we could go that route too.

I cooked my roast for about 8 hours, and it probably could have cooked even longer. I think it depends on the roast you get. This was way more meat than my husband and I could eat, so we had leftovers, warmed with barbeque sauce, that was excellent as well. I really liked this and the balsamic cooking liquid is just divine! Thanks for such a great recipe Carrie!

Balsamic Shredded Beef

3-4 pound boneless beef roast

1 cup beef broth

½ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Place roast beef in your slow cooker. Combine the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture over the beef roast. Cook for 4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.

Once the roast is cooked, remove it from the slow cooker and place on a cutting board. Shred the meat with two forks. Moisten the meat with some of the reserved cooking liquid. 

Serve the shredded beef on buns. Top with toppings of your choice: sliced cheese, grilled onions, grilled bell peppers.

Recipe from Carrie’s Sweet Life

Crockpot Pulled Pork Sandwiches

For this round of the recipe swap, the theme was “Too Hot to Cook.” This theme leads to a lot of possibilities, and I was given this recipe for pulled pork from Coleen at Does Not Cook Well with Others. Cooking things in the slow cooker is a great option for the summer because it doesn’t really heat up the kitchen. I always forget to use mine even though it is sitting out on the counter. 

I had made pulled pork before, but using quite a different recipe. It uses lean pork loin, so this is fairly healthy, too! It seems like I can never find quite the right cut of meat at the store, but I found a lean pork loin that was the right size and it worked great. I have a big slow cooker, so I ended up using 24 ounces of (sugar free) root beer so that there was plenty of cooking liquid. I also omitted the cayenne from the original recipe because I don’t care for heat that much.

This was a really great dinner. And since there are just two of us, it made sandwiches one night and then we made taco/swap sandwiches with the leftovers. I’m not sure that I could pick out the root beef flavor, but my husband could. I didn’t taste the meat before adding the barbeque sauce, so maybe that’s the difference. I really enjoyed this and I will certainly make it again. Thanks for the recipe Coleen!

Crockpot Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2 pounds boneless center cut pork loin

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon garlic powder

12-24 ounces root beer

18 ounces barbecue sauce

8 hamburger buns, split and toasted

Season the pork with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle on the paprika and garlic powder. Place in your crock pot. Pour the root beer into the crockpot, and cook on low for 5-1/2 hours.

After 5-1/2 hours, remove pork to a cutting pork and use two forks to shred the pork. Drain the root beer from the crockpot. Place shredded pork back in crockpot, and pour in the barbecue sauce. Stir to combine. Set temperature to low, and cook for another 1 ½ hours. 

Spoon pork onto hamburger buns and serve.

Recipe from Does Not Cook Well with Others