Tomato Basil Grilled Cheese with Pulled Pork & Avocado

Here’s a grilled cheese sandwich full of flavor  for The Farmer’s Monday morning breakfast!   Pulled pork,  Cabot Tomato Basil Cheddar Cheese, and sliced California avocado on grilled sourdough bread.  I’m calling this the Tomato Basil Grilled Cheese with Pulled Pork and Avocado, and it’s a mouthful!

Making Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

I put my pork roast into the slow cooker early on Sunday evening so it would be ready on Monday morning. It’s so easy to make a big pot of pulled pork.  Just buy a pork shoulder roast,  brown it in a skillet,  chop up a large onion and put it into the slow cooker.  Add the browned pork roast  with 1- 2 cups of water and let it cook on high until bedtime.   Turn it to low and let it cook all night.   In the morning, use a ladle to get most of the liquid out of the pot before you pull off the fat.

Some pork shoulder roasts come well trimmed,  and when they do there is a little less work.   If they are not trimmed,  I like to make sure that the big piece of fat on one side of the roast is on top.  That was I can remove it before the meat starts to fall apart.   I pull off the fat with tongs, and remove the bones from the roast. They should fall right out of the meat.   Once the fat and bones are discarded, just pull on the meat with tongs or two forks — it will fall apart easily.

  Since it’s breakfast time,  I made the grilled cheese sandwich for The Farmer. It’s hearty and just enough food that he’ll be back in the house at lunch time.  Another day I might cook an egg over easy and serve it on top of the sandwich,  letting the yolk ooze all over that grilled sourdough bread.

Baked Idaho Potatoes Too!

This year we served Idaho baked potatoes with all the fixings for Mother’s Day.  Butter, sour cream, green onions, chives, bacon bits, ham, salsa, ripe California olives and CALIFORNIA AVOCADOS!  What more could we want!  I love to have baked potatoes left over so I can cut them up and brown them in butter for breakfast!

That’s what I did for my own breakfast today!  On top of that country-fried potato I added a pile of  the pulled pork,  melted some creamy Cabot Tomato Basil Cheddar cheese on top, and sliced up the other half of avocado on the side.  Brunch for The Farmer’s Wife!

Matajilla Poppies

It’s the middle of May here at the ranch, and the Matajilla poppies are blooming!  Spectacular native plants that are nicknamed “Fried Egg Flowers”,   these huge blossoms are so cheerful on a typical gray May day here in Southern California.  The colors look so pretty with the reddish purple Buddleia,  also called “Butterfly Bush”.  What’s blooming in your garden this month?

Music To Our Ears

This week our youngest daughter is graduating from college with a Bachelor of Music in flute performance!   Do we have any  music lovers here?   Enjoy  Rachel’s senior flute recital — we are proud parents indeed!

Disclosure:   Cabot Creamery Cooperative sent me a gift box of their World’s Greatest Cheddar cheeses because I’m a  member of their Cabot Blogger Cheese Board.  I grew up near Cabot, Vermont — have you seen my post on the Cabot Cheese tour?  If you’re ever in Vermont, this a place to visit!

My friends at Idaho Potato Commission sent me a beautiful box of Idaho Russet Burbank potatoes.  I love them so.  I’ll never forget my visit to Idaho for the Idaho Potato Harvest.  Read about it HERE.    Do you know that they have a recipe photo contest?  Just make the recipe from their site and snap some photos.  You might win $500 and have your photo placed on their site.  Give it a try!