Frugal Web: Slow Cooked and Pulled

Nothing beats having the the slow cooker going and enjoying the delicious smell that flows from it, every time you lift the lid. Recently we tried a pulled pork recipe since there was a roast in the freezer that needed to be used up. The roast had been picked on when it was marked down on clearance since it would be expiring the same day.

flickr/cc - stevendepolo

It was quite a large roast for two people, 5.5 pounds, and required that the recipe be doubled. It was served with rice that had pineapple stirred into it and a vegetable.

Ingredients
1 large onion, sliced
2 1/2 pounds boneless pork loin roast
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 dash hot pepper sauce, or to taste

Directions:
1. Arrange onion slices evenly over the bottom of the slow cooker, and then place the roast on top of the onion. In a bowl, mix together water, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and hot sauce; pour over roast.
2. Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours, or on High for 3 to 4 hours.
3. It was very easy to take and shred the pork to make sandwiches, since it was so tender by this time.
NOTE: I did not have any hot pepper sauce, so I used a half teaspoon of red pepper, which did the trick for me and all still came out delicious.

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I've decided to pickup the Sunday paper and try again with the coupons. I get the updates to the Groupon site (aff.) and last week they had a really good deal on the local weekend paper. Usually I can get a deal for 87 cents on the Sunday only (40% off cover) and this Groupon ad had it at $17 for 13 weeks (with a $10 Grocery gift card) and that worked out to 54 cents a paper (63% discount), plus I receive the Saturday paper as well.

Now that I have the Sunday paper coming again with the coupons, I'm trying to stay up to date on the coupons with sites like Couponmom and other forums. However, I have a learning curve in the forums for all the terms - like "Hang Tag", which is a coupon hanging from the neck of a bottle.

Thankfully, the Consumerist recently posted a glossary of coupon terms that are used. Here are a few more:
MIR: Mail-In Rebate.
OOP: Out-of-Pocket. Your cost after coupons, catalinas, ECBs, etc.
OOS: Out of Stock.
Peelie: A coupon that is adhered to a product and that must be peeled off to use

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My only concern with coupons is the desire to stockpile items. I don't like to go overboard and nothing helps me clean out my storage area like watching an episode of Hoarders. Did you see the recent episode of CSI that included hoarding in the subject matter as well. I feel like Nick Stokes and want to sort through everything after watching an episode of Hoarders.

Over at ThriftyFun, Sandi has been relaying her behind the scenes situation on cleaning and maintaining a house with a couple of hoarders. And if you missed it, here is the earlier article on too much stuff.
Sandi offers these questions to start with in regards to know when to stop collecting:

• How much room do I have that I can control?
• How much work do I have time and energy for to care for it?
• What do I want to spend to clean and maintenance?
• Can I enlist anyone's help or is this problem just mine?
• Do I want to admit to anyone that I can't do this on my own?