Pulled pork and barbecue sauce

I got 5 pounds of pork butt at the farmer's market last weekend from my favorite meat vendor, Hilltop Pastures Family Farm.  They are super friendly and the (10 year old?) daughter meticulously calculated my total, plus the meat is delicious.  I wanted to make a big batch of pulled pork to eat and freeze so that I didn't have to cook so much in this hot weather. Due to aforementioned heat, I also opted to use the slow cooker.

I used a simple dry rub recipe modified from Paleo Comfort Foods, and I also tried their barbeque sauce. I really like barbecue sauce, maybe because there is usually lots of brown sugar in there. This sauce turned out really nice: tangy and just sweet enough. I don't know that you can really go wrong here - any rub, or no rub will all still be good; barbecue sauce or no, still good. Yum!

Make sure your pork butt is thawed out (mine took almost 2 days in the fridge). Rub it all over with the following dry rub, but feel free to modify/add other spices in there.

Rub that spice all up over that meat!

Quick rub:
1 tsp ground cumin 
1 tsp fennel, ground
2 tsp black peppercorns, ground
2 tsp garlic powder
1 T chili powder
1 T dried rosemary

Set the pork in the slow cooker and the low setting, and cook for 10 hours. When it is done, there will be lots of juice which you will want to remove most of, and then SAVE. This juice makes greens so incredibly delicious it is almost worth making a huge pork roast just for that (just heat up the liquid with a bunch of whatever greens you have: collards, swiss chard, or kale and cook down a bit). Use two forks to pull the pork apart, and voila!  You can eat it just like that (I add salt too.)

You can also make some bbq sauce and stir that in (and for even better results, let cook together for another hour or so to really get all the flavors simmered together).

Barbecue sauce with some kick
(from Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook)
6 oz. tomato paste
1 c. beef stock
1/4 c. minced shallot
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 t. prepared horseradish
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1 T. avocado oil
1/2 t. salt
1 t. red pepper
1 t. cumin
1 t. cayenne
1 t. black pepper

1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer on medium heat.
2. Reduce to medium low and cover for 15-20 minutes. Stir frequently so it doesn't stick.
3. The longer the better for this sauce! If you have 1/2 hour, add an extra 1/2 c. of beef stock at the beginning and simmer for 25-35 minutes/until desired consistency.