A Hockey and Pulled Pork New Year

Well, when I uploaded images, the pork came up first, and it was first chronologically, so here goes.

I got an electric smoker for a just-after-Christmas present. Good pulled pork is very hard to find in Texas, where beef is king. So I decided to smoke a pork shoulder (both the butt [just called a butt, it is from the shoulder] and the picnic ham [not really a ham]). It was 11 pounds and spent 23.5 hours in the smoker, though I only ran smoke for the first few hours. 

This is what it looked like when it came out. Yes, it looks burnt up, but that is the bark, and only the very outside layer was charred. 

This picture shows me sliding the shoulder blade right out without any problem- which is the sign it is done. It cooked to an internal temp of 195 degrees, which ensures the collagen has broken down so that everything shreds apart with ease. 

And voila, after just a few minutes of shredding with forks we have a big pile of yummy pulled pork. I think it was better than a lot of pulled pork you get from around here. Not the best, but I am pleased with how my first real barbecue experience turned out. We ate a ton that night, had a bunch of leftovers later in the week, and still have three quart bags in the freezer. Yummy! 

So my wonderful wife found a free hockey training program for kids every Saturday this month in Richardson (not too far away at all). Here is Sabrina getting geared up. 

Clark with everything on except for helmet and ice skates. We had trouble finding helmets that fit our kids. Blame that on my genetics.

They started out pushing around stacked buckets on the ice to hold themselves up. This picture shows Clark with a coach who is trying to help Clark skate with a hockey stick instead of the buckets. They had really good coaches out there watching the kids and helping them improve. Clark was the only kid with a red helmet since they had to find a special one to fit him. Made it easy to find him. 

Sabrina took to the ice pretty quickly and got to skate around doing some basic drills while holding the stick. She had so much fun! Clark had fun, but Sabrina was so excited about it afterwards. What a great, free (yeah!) Saturday activity. 

I just realized I had no Eliza pictures, so here you go. We had really cold weather, and a little snow, the last couple days, so Eliza had to get all bundled up to go outside.

I got off work a little early Friday because it started snowing and Dallas gets really ugly when it snows unexpectedly. They expect it to be 74 degrees on Tuesday, though. This place has some crazy weather.

Happy new year!