Day 13: Pulled Pork with Rootbeer BBQ Sauce(Crockpot) & Low fat Carmel Apple Bread Pudding

The pork is from a crockpot recipe list that my mother in law emailed me along time ago, and I ignored. She resent the list to me once I began this challenge and this time I not only looked at it but marked some recipes as well. This one seemed easy enough and sounded really different.

Big step for me today...I left the crock pot home alone while we went to the zoo with my Dad and Angie. We were gone for five hours total. I stopped worrying around hour three after not hearing from the fire department.

I made the dessert toinight because there were people to share it with. Plus, my dad is a little cukoo when it comes to fat, calories, sugar, etc so I knew this would be right up his alley. Total fat per serving = 1 gram and only 180 calories. Crazy. Can it really be that good when it is virtually guilt free? This recipe comes from a monthly cookbook my mom used to get. This particular edition is from 1998. The pages were brittle and yellowed.

Pulled Pork with Rootbeer BBQ Sauce

http://www.50plusfriends.com/cookbook/crockpot/pulledpork.html

Note: Rootbeer Concentrate=impossible to find(it didn't need it); I used pork shoulder instead of roast.

Kitchen Play by Play: Most time consuming aspect is cutting the onions and garlic and trimming the fat off the pork, but it still only took about 10 minutes to do these steps. Browning the pork took about five minutes; so,all in all, the meal was in the crock pot in less than 20. I set mine for 8 hours because that is what fit with our plans for the day, but as the instructions state you could do less or more time. You really do forget about it until about 1/2 hour before it's done. At that time, you start the sauce. Really simple. The only issue is stirring it very often to keep the chili sauce from sticking to the bottom. I use Bennets Chili sauce. I couldn't find the Rootbeer extract so I didn't put it in, but I did put several drops of tabasco in the sauce during the last minutes of cooking. I served the pork sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, pickle and cheese. We also had broccoli and cantalope to round off the meal.

The Verdict:
Nicole- It was easy...bonus. The pork was super tender and flavorful on its own. The rootbeer sauce was a little too sweet for me, but it was still very edible. I would probably still make the pork as directed in the crock pot, but maybe look into a different BBQ sauce. I've never had pork as tender as this recipe. I give the pork a 4. I give the sauce a 3.

Paul-gives it a 3. Pork was TENDER and JUICY, but the sauce was a little sweeter than what he looks for in a pulled pork sandwich.

Austin-ate it but was far more focused on the broccoli and cantalope.

Dad- gives the pork a 4. The sauce a 2. No words just a hand waving gesture.

Angie- gives the pork a 4. Extremely tender. The sauce gets a 1. Lacked punch...too sweet.


Low Fat Carmel Apple Bread Pudding
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup skim milk
1/2 egg beaters
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 cups 1 inch cubed french bread( I used Jewel's Vienna loaf)
Fat Free carmel topping

Step 1: Mix all ingredients except bread and carmel in large bowl with wire whisk until smooth

Step 2: Fold in bread. Pour in greased 9 inch pie pan.

Step 3: Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes until golden brown

Step 4: Serve with carmel on top

Kitchen Play by Play: I had this prepped before Paul had the dinner dishes done...enough said. I put a generous amount of carmel on top before serving because we LOVE carmel.

The Verdict:
Nicole- It would have been great for 10 grams of fat per serving, but for 1 gram of fat per serving it is flippin phenomenal. I did add a little low fat vanilla ice cream to the hot bread pudding...YUM! I give it a strong 4.

Paul-gives it a 4. No comment...just good.

Austin-was already sleeping. I'm sure he would have given it a 5. He will enjoy it tomorrow.

Dad- gives it a 4. However, Mr. " I can't eat that. It still has a lot of sugar," still ate it with a huge scoop of Oberweiss Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream(not low fat) and crushed walnuts. He gives the combo a 10.

Angie-gives it a 4. " I love bread; I love carmel, so really you could have just dumped carmel on top of bread and I'd be happy."