Last Sunday morning while I was drinking coffee on the back porch with my husband, it started to rain. The soothing sound of rain makes me want to slow-cook something and play in the kitchen. Since I needed to work on a dinner roll recipe, I decided to slow-cook a pork shoulder in the crock pot at the same time. On the way back from Sulphur Springs around noon, I stopped at the store and picked up a large pork shoulder and barbeque sauce. If I don’t make my own sauce, I like Sweet Baby Ray’s.

At home I realized the pork shoulder had over an inch of fat and that’s more than I like, so I trimmed it, washed the shoulder and patted it dry. I gathered the seasonings to make a quick rub. I flipped the shoulder over so I was dealing with the bottom and I layered on garlic salt, cracked black pepper, dried oregano, chili powder and onion powder. I gave that a gentle massage and dropped its herbed-bottom side down in the crock pot. The side with the fat layer should always be on top.

Then I layered the same ingredients on the top of the shoulder. I drizzled the top with the barbeque sauce – not too much just enough to add a little moisture and flavor. The shoulder will give off plenty of juice while it’s slowly cooking. I set my crock pot on high and worked on the dinner roll recipe.

In 6-8 hours the meat should be done enough to fall off the bones. Mine took 6 since my crock pot cooks at a higher heat than most. I turned the crock to warm. Then I used two forks and began separating the meat from the bones and pulling the pork into small pieces.

For dinner I served pulled pork sandwiches on Kaiser rolls with leftover slaw from last week’s dinner recipe. It turned out to be a hot sunny afternoon, but by 7:00 that evening the back porch was cool with the ceiling fans going and the sandwiches were just right.

The dinner roll recipe worked out great, but it makes about 75 rolls. I only needed 36 so I made Kaiser rolls with the leftover dough. Personally I think those rolls made the sandwiches be over-the-top.