Quick, easy and good

First off, thank you to my mom for the shout out on her blog, Alabama Kitchen Sink (alabamakitchensink.blogspot.com), which seems to be gaining a lot of regular readers. She has influenced my cooking more than anyone else (although my grandmother Mattie comes in a close second).

Striving for good, home-cooked meals is an ongoing challenge. We turned to the time-tested crock pot last night to help us make an easy, time-saving dinner. I don't have any research to back this up, but I have a hunch that people in my age group and younger (late twenties, early thirties) don't cook with the crock pot. That's a shame because time is something no one has and time is the one thing, in my opinion, that can make the biggest difference in a good to great meal (see my ragu bolognese).

That said, I found a really nice pork roast on sale at our local Italian grocery Prisco's and Natalie seasoned it with Magic Seasonings in the morning, added a can of diced tomatoes and nearly a full bottle of store bought barbeque sauce (in this case Famous Dave's sweet sauce). Leaving it on low for the day resulted in falling apart pork barbeque that was better than all but the best purveyors of true barbeque.

We paired it with the rest of the greens (turnip, collard and mustard) prepared in the same manner as my previous post and homemade sweet potato chips. Using our deep fryer, which I know not everyone has, and our mandoline (one of Natalie's favorite kitchen tools I think), the chips were quick, different and went perfectly with the meal. I just deep fried them, let them rest on a plate covered in paper towels to drain and seasoned with a pinch of kosher salt. I was going for a sweet potato version of the saratoga chips that are popular in Cincinnati barbeque restaurants like Montgomery Inn, which has the best sauce I've ever had.