Apricot, Soy and Honey Slow Cooked Goodness

Last night I was reading October's Food and Wine magazine, and came across this recipe for "Apricot-Stuffed Pork Shoulder with Soy-Honey Glaze."

Looks pretty awesome, huh?

It was also a bit labor-intensive, at least in the unfolding, stuffing and wrapping up of the pork shoulder. That, and, it's fall. I want to throw a bunch of ingredients into a crock pot and smell heaven all day long.

So when I saw a pork butt at the grocery store this morning, I thought: hmmmm... I can work with this.

I took the basic idea, added a few ingredients, threw it in the slow-cooker, and, in fact, had a little slice of heaven tonight.

Intrigued by Food and Wine's suggestion to boil garlic and dried apricots, I did that. I'm interested in what the boiling of the garlic does... I guess lesson the intensity?  About 8 garlic cloves and 10 apricot halves.

Then I mixed together their other suggested ingredients (um, some of them), and added some of my own:

Ingredients

1. 8 garlic cloves, peeled √
2. 10 dried apricot halves √
3. One 5 1/2-pound boneless pork shoulder roast (here I used a 3.5 pound bone-in pork butt. mmmm... pork butt)
4. Salt and freshly ground black pepper √
5. Crushed red pepper (forgot this one! Didn't purposely leave it out, just read right over top of it)
6. 3 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine) or sweet sherry  √
   
7. 2 tablespoons soy sauce √
8. 2 tablespoons honey √
9. 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard Mike hates mustard and if he can detect even the smallest amount in a dish, he'll refuse the rest
10. 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil √

And because I can't leave good enough alone, my own additions:
    1.  2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
    2.  1 tablespoon molasses
    3.  1 teaspoon pickled ginger juice, with several slices of pickled ginger

All that... into the crock pot.

 Did I mention how much I adore pork butt?

Ever hour or so, I flipped the whole thing over, so that I could sit in the juice (the above only covered about half the butt). After 5 hours on high, it was beautiful:

 So soft and tender, it came apart even as I was pulling it out of the crock pot to pull into pieces.

 Before starting to shred the butt, I added 1 tablespoon corn starch to warm water, whisked it together, then added it to the sauce in the crock pot. I kept the pot on high and let that bubble up while shredding. Then I added all the pork back to the pot. 

 I know, you're so jealous you didn't come over tonight for dinner, aren't you? David, this just had to be the Sunday that Steelers were on regular TV, huh?

 The pooch even got into the action. She loves butt, too.