food fit for the weather.

[A rare double-post day]

OK, so here's the backstory: We invited Mom, Bill, Grandma and Hans for a Christmas visit, the centerpiece of which was to be a leisurely, multi-course dinner. I was just thrilled at the thought of having my loved-ones at our dinner table, so I started menu-planning early. Because Bill had prepared a killer beef tenderloin at Mom's over Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to do something different.

Cue MarthaStewart.com, where I found a recipe for a roasted pork shoulder. We ordered one from Eckerlin, picked it up a few days before Christmas and ...

When we got it home, Rob realized the thing was less than $2 a pound. Hm. He looked at me and said, "I don't want to freak you out, but ... how confident are we in this recipe?" Learning that the cut was cheap, and deciding that it didn't even look like what was pictured in the recipe, I answered, "Not very." So we went to the grocery and picked up a lovely pork tenderloin roast, and the meal was terrific.

Which left us with a 4 pound pork shoulder in the freezer.

Fast forward to today: At Bill's instruction, we rubbed the thing with a mix of coriander, cumin, paprika and S&P, browned it, and then slow-cooked it in the Dutch oven under a mess of pureed roasted peppers, garlic, onion, tomato and jalapeno. It smells amazing.

That, a good red wine and the Packers game are our evening plans.