Chocolate and Pork

Two seemingly unrelated things (but with the way people are throwing bacon on top of everything these days, who knows...) that were both made in my kitchen this weekend!

Our neighbors Nate and Molly are awesome - not only are they fun to hang out with, but as a total bonus, Nate is always willing to help Ben out with random house projects! We have had more than our fair share lately... I wanted to make him (+ Molly) a treat to say thanks and I figured chocolate chip cookies would do the trick! I had seen this post on The Way the Cookie Crumbles where Bridget helpfully tried 4 recipes out and compared them. Because of her comments, I decided to try out Alton Brown's The Chewy. I had tried this recipe before and while it was good, it didn't wow me, so I wanted something different.

I will look no further in the future for MY perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe - these are awesome! They stay chewy, which is key for me. I really am not a fan of any crispiness in my cookies (which was shown during my cookie baking bonanza last month). Ben also was a huge fan. In fact he wants me to make another batch tonight... :)

Ben has been having a hankering for pulled pork lately, so we decided to use the Pioneer Woman's spicy pulled pork recipe on Sunday. We used our roasting oven that Ben got for a Christmas exchange gift about 5 years ago that has been used exactly three times (once by my parents) and it worked great, but since there are tiny holes in the top we didn't get as much juices in the pan. I was expecting to be more wowed by this... it was good, but I think we'll try another recipe next time. For dinner that night we had the pork on tortillas with some sour cream and homemade salsa. The salsa was super good! I am very thankful that Annie posted it last Sunday, right as I was looking for a good recipe to try! We used the leftovers for BBQ pork sandwiches for lunches.