Thank You, Canada!

Canada has sent us some lovely cool temperatures this week. Yay, Canada! One of my favorite neighbors. The winds haven’t been especially kind to my sniffer, however. My allergies and sinuses are still bothersome even with Claritin and the antibiotic that I was reluctant to start taking. I’m hoping it’s something environmental that is triggering it, as that would be easiest to fix or manage—I think. At least I’m feeling much better than I was the week before last. I haven’t been using my neti pot as often either. Tsk, tsk! I really should use it twice a day for best results. I should know not to get complacent just because I have improved. Prevention is always better than correction.

It was actually so cold last night that I had to wake up and put socks on! And I’m so not a sock-wearer. Do you like socks? I can live without them, Dustin can’t. Socks are like his second skin.

It’s hot, it’s cold—our climate is having an identity crisis. I’m happy to change up from just hot, hot, hot though. I see a lot of higher temps in the forecast, so I guess I’ll just enjoy this gift from Canada until it’s gone.

I started on tonight’s dinner before bed last night. Crock pot cooking is the best. Throw it in, put the cover on, and let it do its thing while you do yours.

Slow-cooker Shredded BBQ Pork Tenderloin

See how fancy I got with a bay leaf?! haha I see people using them in recipes all the time, so I picked up a jar of them the other day. I just added it on top so I could be a cool kid. I have no idea if it gave much flavor to it. Probably not.

In the crock pot: a lean pork tenderloin cut into ~1” pieces, along with 2 TBSP organic palm shortening, one whole medium diced vidalia onion, a bit of low-sodium sea salt, garlic powder, black pepper, 1/2 cup water, and the all-important bay leaf. Set to cook on low for 8 hours. By the time I woke up, it was fully cooked and ready to be shredded. I just used a fork to shred it up. Super easy. And all of those onions? Cooked down to practically nothing. About an hour before we ate dinner, I added in about 1/3 cup of BBQ sauce, stirred it, and put it back on high to reheat it.

I planned to eat this as-is with mashed potatoes that I recruited my mom to make, but after a long 3-4 mile walk with Dustin late this afternoon and nothing to eat since about 10 hours earlier, I was pretty hungry and decided to visit Carbtopia and have two starches. heh

Lumpy, skin-on, red mashed potatoes.

Cold unsweetened iced tea. Best beverage ever.

Oversized Nature’s Pride bun (250 cal). Clearly meant to hold more than the amount of pulled pork put on it. But having too much bread is never a bad thing, in my opinion.

A small mountain of steamed string beans on the side tossed with EVOO, red wine vinegar, Himalayan pink salt, black pepper, and garlic powder = awesome flavor combo.

Inside the fluffy bun:

So yummy! I’ve learned (the hard way) that it’s smart to precut your meat into smaller pieces when slow-cooking in the crock pot to avoid long shreds of it later on, unless you want to chop it up when it’s done, e.g., extra steps. Much easier to just cut it into a few smaller pieces before cooking, as seen in the crock pot pic above.

I stopped taking my prescription Aldactone. I just don’t feel comfortable with it. But I am happy that I lost almost all of the water weight I gained last week from being without my prescription. Just keeping my sodium intake low-ish helped, along with planned and unplanned activity like walking and competitive grocery shopping and kitty cat herding.

It’s quite chilly right now, but definitely still not complaining. Canadian cold fronts: you are welcome to stay, eh!

Tagged as: allergies, BBQ, crock pot, mashed potatoes, pork, pulled pork, recipes, slow cooker recipes, string beans, weather