As you may have noticed (due to the increased amounts of traffic at around 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.) school has started back up again. There are lots of reasons to be excited about starting a new year of school, but let’s be real – the BEST part of any school day is LUNCH. And what’s a more iconic lunchtime symbol than the thermos? They should make a real thermos with a calendar on it, it might help your kids (or you!) get to class on time! But for now, this month’s desktop calendar will have to do.

As you know, we made pulled pork this weekend, and naturally we needed some baked beans to go along with our sandwiches for the perfect Saturday meal.

We wanted to make the beans from dried beans, but we weren’t too keen on the idea of needing to have them soak overnight – who can remember to start that? Not us. So we searched far and wide for a recipe that’d let us get beans on the table when our pork was done without overnight fanfare.

We used this recipe from Taste of Home, making our own barbecue sauce, of course. And by we, I mean Corelyn. Now, as you know from the Pulled Pork post, Corelyn basically whipped up some perfect concoction of ketchup, Worcestershire, mustard, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, and salt and pepper.

We also left the bacon out because we love our vegetarians (holla achta girl, Megan!) and you know what? I know that bacon is amazing and you think you are going to miss it, but…we didn’t, and that’s not even to make Megan feel better! These beans were amazing.

Our only suggestion to this would be to be careful with the water you add – we ended up having to add more after they simmered and after they came to a boil the second time, too – just a bit, but you want them to have enough liquid to actually boil and not get scorched.

Eat these on the side of your pulled pork with some salad, for good measure, and you’re on your way to the perfect weekend meal. Enjoy!

After years of searching Los Angeles in vain for a decent barbecue pork sandwich, we finally decided the only solution was to make one ourselves. Like most people born in the Southeast, I am very opinionated about my barbecue. I like Carolina style BBQ, and that means a lot of vinegar and a hint of sweetness.

My Uncle Fred was kind enough to lay out the basics of this recipe for me on a family vacation earlier this summer. I took copious notes and could not wait to come home and try it out myself! The genius of Fred’s method is using a spray bottle to keep the meat drenched in vinegar throughout the cooking process, and it resulted in meat that was tender and flavorful while retaining its integrity.

For extra flavor, we started with a dry rub of our favorite spices and pan-seared this before slow-roasting it. I also whipped up a barbecue sauce to top off our sandwiches, but true to form, I completely forgot to pay attention to how I made it. I promise to share my barbecue sauce recipe just as soon as we sit down and actually pay attention to how it’s made, but I can tell you it includes the following: apple cider vinegar, ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.

Ingredients:
1 6-lb boneless pork shoulder
1 cup brown sugar
4 cups apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil

For the dry rub:
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp thyme
¼ cup kosher salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degree.
2. Trim excess fat and cut pork shoulder into 3 or 4 pieces for easier handling.
3. Combine all ingredients for dry rub in a bowl, and rub the pork with your spice mixture, being sure to coat all surfaces and crevices. Let pork sit for 30 minutes.
4. Combine apple cider vinegar and brown sugar and transfer to spray bottle.
5. Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven or large cast iron skillet. Brown the pork on all sides, about 3 minutes per side.
6. Transfer the pork shoulder to a roasting pan, or keep it in your large dutch oven and place in oven.
7. Roast uncovered for 3 hours at 325 degrees, spraying liberally with vinegar mixture at every 30 minute interval.
8. Raise oven temperature to 425 degrees and cover pork with foil. Roast for one more hour, spraying with vinegar mixture every 30 minutes.
9. Remove when pork is fork tender and juices run clear. When the meat has cooled somewhat, use two forks or your fingers to shred.

We were so pleased with how this turned out, and it received rave reviews from several friends who might be as picky about barbecue as I am. We’ll probably continue to tweak and perfect this over time, but I can promise you that we will be making it again!

It’s that time of year again. The Doctor is returning to his regularly scheduled, unpredictable shenanigans. Who knows what trysts he’s larked on and hearts he’s seduced in the interim (although history would suggest it may involve some intimate endeavors with a royal family member).

Love him or leave him you can’t deny the resounding impact he’s had on our culture. Just think how much longer society would have had to wait for a halfway decent banana daiquiri.

And because we tend toward the side of having some serious love for the Doctor, we’ve devised a way to welcome him back in style, featuring that Doctor approved dietary staple: the banana.

In a twist on the traditional banana daiquiri (because who, if not the Doctor, is all for invention), we’ve created a tropical drink perfectly suited to salute all things both timey wimey and wibbly wobbly. It even has a wisp of time stream mixed in, giving it just the slightest tinge toward tardis blue. For the full recipe, head over to Fanboy Comics!

We hope it helps you welcome the Doctor back into action this Saturday. If all else fails at your Who gatherings this weekend, just remember: always bring a banana to a party. Because bananas are good.

This summer has been hot hot hot! in California, which has left us with dog-day afternoons starting in June. As a result, popsicles have become our best friends – they are easy to make, easy to eat, and they can be so many meals!

You can make a smoothie popsicle (exactly what you’d make in a smoothie, frozen) and BAM you have frozen breakfast. You can make sweet fruit popsicles out of the extra fruit from your CSA or your farmer’s market. Or, you can do what we do, which is making amazing dessert popsicles as a treat at the end of a long, hot, sticky day!

I don’t know about y’all, but I love sprinkles almost more than anything else. I recognized they are sugar, pure and simple, colored into rainbow colors to dazzle us, but they are beautiful, they are delicious, and they speak summer to my heart. So it was easy to decide to make some creamsicle popsicles with a dessert-twist – sprinkles throughout! These come together quickly and the orange makes them refreshing (and the sprinkles, of course, make them fun!)

Check out our recipe over at Studio DIY today for the full recipe – enjoy!