Crock Pot Pork-Stuffed Peppers

I made this tonight and it's currently cooking in the crock pot.  I have a large crock pot and wish I had bought 6 green bell peppers instead of three because I had the room and PLENTY of the meat mixture left over.  So, if you have a large crockpot, I would go with 6 instead of 4.  The recipe and pictures below can be found here. 

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground pork (or a combination of pork and beef)
• 4 large green peppers
• 1 large onion
• 2 carrots
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• 6 ounce can of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon dry oregano
• 1 tablespoon dry or fresh tarragon
• Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the tops of the peppers and clean the seeds out.

Arrange peppers in the Crock-Pot standing up and make sure they fit securely.
Grate onion, carrots, garlic and cauliflower in the food processor. You can also just chop them into small pieces with a knife if you don’t have a food processor.

In a big bowl, combine ground pork, shredded vegetables, seasonings and tomato paste.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Stuff the peppers with the mixture and arrange leftover meat between the peppers. Add half a cup of water, cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

If you don’t have a slow-cooker, the dish can be cooked in the oven, covered, for 1-2 hours.

BBQ Pulled Pork - To be used with the BBQ Sauce

The pulled pork recipe is SUPER simple, all you need is the following ingredients and a crock pot.  I cooked it for 8 hours...it was PERFECT!!

4 pound pork shoulder or boston butt
28 oz. of liquid (i used chicken stock)
2 bay leaves
1.5 medium onions, chopped or sliced

Put the onions and bay leaves on the bottom, put the pork shoulder on top and then pour in the liquid.  Cover, cook and shred!

Recipe can be found here.

Paleo BBQ Sauce (for the pulled pork!)

I've been looking around for paleo BBQ sauce recipes that tastes like BBQ sauce.  There is SO much sugar in conventional BBQ sauce and this one seems to be pretty close.

To start with, I made up a batch of Paleo Ketchup (recipe found here)
1 small can (384 mL/12 oz) of plain, sugar-free tomato sauce
1 small can (6 oz) tomato paste
2 tsp vinegar (I used apple cider)
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
a pinch of ground cloves
1/4 tsp allspice Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Let cool and transfer to container and then into fridge.
 This recipe omits the sugar/artificial sweetener. Also, this does not last as long as store bought (no preservatives) so its good for a few weeks

I then added (and doubled) the ingredients below to the sauce pan to make the BBQ sauce.  I ended up adding 5 packets of Truvia to add a little sweetness to it, can't wait to eat it with my pulled pork!


Spicy Paleo BBQ Sauce (recipe found here)

-1 c paleo ketchup (As I mentioned above, I used the whole recipe which was about 2 cups so I doubled everything below)

-4 tsp Dijon mustard

-4 tsp apple cider vinegar

-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

-2 tsp liquid smoke

-1 tsp cayenne pepper (or less, depending on your taste)

-1/2 tsp mustard powder

-1/2 tsp black pepper

Mix everything well. I imagine that doing this over low heat would allow for some nice flavor infusion, but I mixed it cold and it tasted pretty darn good.