Kicked Up Pulled Pork Sandwich

Baby memes have surpassed cats as my meme of choice.

In the world outside of the interwebs, I work as a Business Intelligence Analyst for a very large company.  In general, I spend a lot of time using statistics to build forecasting models (financial forecasting, not weather forecasting), or using fancy tools to create visuals for large data sets in a way that makes the appropriate action obvious.  

However, the trend as of late is for me to spend the majority of my time working on break/fix issues.  Break/fixes mean that I spend time identifying the underlying cause of a problem for an application that used to work but isn't anymore.  In general, these issues are horrible to work on, since there could be hundreds of reasons that an application is "broken" most of which fall into the category of PBKAC (Problem between keyboard and chairs).

Working on a break/fix issues once in a literal blue moon is not too bad, because when I am able to resolve the problem in about 30 seconds, I get lauded as HERO (Human Error Reduction Operator).  But, the sheer volume of break/fix issues that I've been working through is atrocious, and every person thinks his or her issue is the most important.  At one point today, I had 6 IM sessions going at once, 75 emails landed in my inbox in a single hour, and about 14 instances of a single application running at one time.

The very instant I was able to catch my breath from all these problems, I shut down Outlook, blocked my instant messenger, and engaged in one of my favorite form of escapism, meme therapy.  Meme therapy is where I get to spend as much time as necessary making memes that express my feelings.  Then I get to email the best one to a few coworkers who would appreciate it.  This is one that I created this evening as I got off of work.

Once I finished the meme, all my anger had subsided, and I was able to get back to the task at hand.  Does anyone else have to engage in meme therapy? No? Just me, I guess.

The other thing that gets me through a tough day at work is the promise of a delicious dinner at the end of the work day.  This is called food therapy, and I know you do it to.

This kicked up pulled pork sandwich was just the inspiration I needed to keep working through the end of the day.  The sandwich is the king of all deliciousness.  I can't believe I never thought of adding cheese and avocado to a pulled pork sandwich before a few weeks ago when I saw this post for Barbecue Chicken Grilled Cheese from Domesticate Me.

Pulled pork and grilled cheese were meant for each other.  I strongly recommend this recipe the next time you have leftover pulled pork.

Kicked up Pulled Pork Sandwich

Ingredients (Makes Two Sandwiches):

2 Slice Jack Cheese

1 Roma Tomato Sliced

1/2 Red Onion sliced into thin strips

1/2 Avocado slice

4 Slices hearty whole wheat bread

1/4 Lb Prepared Pulled Pork

1oz BBQ Sauce (I love Sweet Baby Ray's)

Butter (at room temp)

Directions:

1. Coat Pulled Pork with BBQ sauce

2. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and then spread pulled pork on parchment paper.

3. Bake Pork in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes.

4. Saute Red Onions in butter on high heat until they begin to brown (about 3-4 minutes)

5. Saute tomato slices in butter on high heat until the begin to brown  (about 1-2 minutes per side)

5b. Don't forget to turn off the burner for the next few minutes.

6. Butter both slices of bread.

7. When pork is out of the oven, melt more butter in the frying pan

8. Begin assembling sandwich in the frying pan (or griddle) lay bread butter side down, followed by cheese, pulled pork, onion, tomatoes, avocado and topped by other slice of bread butter side up.

9. Cook for 3 minutes on high heat and then flip and cook another three minutes

10. Enjoy!

Serving suggestions: I like to eat this sandwich with raw vegetables or salads with a light dressing.  You've got carbs, proteins and fats in this sandwich already so you don't really need a hearty side.