Pomegranate Cherry Braised Pork

We recently joined a meat CSA. It makes me feel so much better about eating meat. I have never really had much of a problem, until I started investigating where meat really comes from. Maybe it is the media scaring me, but I feel better when I know exactly where it came from. We are sharing the meat with our friends Stacie and Greg. We got our first bag of meat last week. Oh my, do we have a lot of meat. In the bag was a huge pork shoulder. What do you do with a pork shoulder? Braise it for many of hours. I love braising meat, it makes it so tender and delicious. And it is usually pretty easy. Just throw a few things into a pot. I found this recipe on a fellow bloggers site. http://www.bitchincamero.com/mel/. I added a few things, but mostly left it the same, since it was my first try at pork shoulder. and of course I served it with mashed potatoes.

Recipe
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pound pork shoulder- mine had the bone in, I left it in for cooking.
salt and pepper
1 onion diced- I recently wondered how the pros cut onions. I watched this video and it so much easier now. http://www.chow.com/stories/10134
1 cup pomegranate juice
1 cup red wine- never cook with wine that you wouldn't drink.
Juice from 1 orange
1/2 cup tart dried cherries
2 guajillo dried peppers, chopped without seeds
4 garlic cloves minced

Heat the oil over medium heat, add the onions. Let them get a little brown. Then you can add the big hunk oh meat. Brown this on each side for about 5 minutes.

Now you can add the pomegranite juice, wine, orange juice, cherries, peppers and garlic.



Once all combined, cover it up and place in a 325 degree oven for about 3 hours. About every 40 minutes open it up and turn the meat over, this makes sure that the meat stays moist through the cooking process.

When it is all done, it will be falling off the bone. Pull off some meat, pour some sauce on it and enjoy! For the mashed potatoes, boil red potatoes for about 20 minutes or until a fork can easily pierce through them. Drain them and add a little butter and a splash of milk. I mash mine by hand, then you don't risk getting them all gummy. I like mine to have texture to them, so this works best.