Thursday, June 30, 2011 Grape Soda Night Was DDelicious!

Usually, once dinner is in full swing, I completely drop the ball on the picture taking and video making - but I managed to snap this shot before I ate all my grape soda pulled pork.

OMG! Grape soda pulled pork!

As I was preparing this feast over the course of two days I made an important discovery. Grape soda turns things horrible colors, but it tastes good.

Grape soda can chicken, seasoned with cocoa, chili, cardamom, galangal, allspice, sage, oregano, sea salt and pepper. Pulled pork seasoned with chili, cardamom, allspice, cinnamon, cayenne, paprika, sea salt and pepper, cooked in the crockpot with a bottle of Goya grape soda. Two kinds of grape soda BBQ sauce, one spicy and one sweet. Slammin drop biscuits, apple sauce made with grape soda and corn. Oh, the corn, with grape soda reduction and roasted garlic and butter - it was like a sweet ghetto Burre Blanc and gaddangit it was good! If you take any recipe from this dinner let it be this one. This covered about 12 ears...

1/2 can Grape Soda - put it in a pan at low-medium heat and reduce it by half,

Add a couple cloves of chopped roasted garlic and continue to reduce for about 5 minutes, it'll start to smell incredible.

Then add two sticks of butter, slowly in pieces, whisking it in to prevent separation.

Pour it on grilled corn, sprinkle with salt and BOO-YEAH!

You're going to have to trust me on this one. It sounds strange, but it will blow your mind with it's sweet complexity - simply dreamy.

Dessert was s'mores, and more grape ice cream sodas (which we also had as an app because dinner wasn't ready yet, bad timing on my part combined with early guest arrival. But no one complained they had to eat ice cream as an app, who would?). I just LOVE s'mores! I had two. And the guests loved them...and there was a big gob of melted chocolate on my carpet, always a good sign.

One of the best dinners ever - I really surprised myself. At one point, when I first pulled the pork out of the crockpot and saw the putrid color it had become I started to get nervous, but I managed to season everything perfectly. You can't go wrong with sweet and spicy, that's what I say!

Stay tuned for the video and feel free to contact me with any questions!

And, while you're at it, check out this awesome article I wrote for Alternative Control, check out this scene I did for Scenes from the Movies on Tango Dango and don't forget to make a reservation to see my play Connect Couples (dot) Com.

-HH