One of the things I knew was a must-have for our wedding registry was a slow cooker. I usually get home later than T, so a longer cooking slow cooker recipe is a perfect way to land at a normal dinner time. It wasn’t until earlier this year that we finally pulled this red shiny cutie out for it’s first use for this recipe for Hirino Psito from A Year of Slow Cooking. We’ve made it again since – so easy and so good.

There is minimal prep, and it’s a perfect recipe to throw in and head out the door. Whereas some require some pre-cooking, the magic for this recipe all happens in the slowcooker.

Ingredients

• 3-4 pound boneless pork butt or shoulder
• 10 whole garlic cloves
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 teaspoon rosemary
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon gluten free Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 cup dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup beer

This recipe is intended for a 6 quart slow cooker. Place the pork into the crockpot. Dust on the dry spices and the brown sugar. Flip the meat over a few times so that the spice mixture is on all sides of the meat. Next, peel the garlic cloves. No need to do anything special – just put them in spread around the crockpot. Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, honey, and cranberries. Finally, top with the bay leaves and pour in the beer. Note, if you’d prefer, you can use stock in place of the beer.

Cover and cook on low until meat shreds easily with a fork, typically 8-10 hours. I’ve done this two times and far preferred it when I let it cook for around 11 hours. The meat was so tender and shredded easily. The second time we had to crank up the heat to high to catch up for not having enough time to let it cook. Though it was still good, I definitely recommend allowing to cook longer, if time permits.

You can serve over rice or pasta, on your favorite sandwich rolls, or – like we did – in tortillas for tacos! We added sour cream, which might sound strange, but was quite good.