Tortilla Soup

While the rest of the nation is stuck in a cold snap, I’m over here complaining that it’s just under 60 outside today…

But, winter is winter and here I am with my spicy take on a toasty and tasty tortilla soup!

This is pretty easy if you want to go with canned ingredients. Or if you’re a freezer lady, like me, it’s all out of the freezer or fresh, so it’s still pretty easy… It is soup, after all.

I have chicken broth, black beans, onions, corn, bell peppers and chicken ready to go in the freezer. I went out and grabbed a couple Roma tomatoes and used a leftover can of green chiles I had bought for a dip and never used. (Seriously, canned food is lonely in my pantry. It hangs out with the lingering cans of tuna but even that canned fish I grew up knowing and loving is making it’s way out of my diet.)

So, let’s get some ingredients, which are approximate, because I freeze crap in bulk and don’t measure much as I take it out.

About 16oz of shredded chicken
32oz of chicken broth
2cups of black beans, rinsed and drained
3 roma tomatoes, diced
1cup green bell peppers, diced
1cup onions, diced
2cups of corn, diced
A few cloves of garlic

Directions:

Dump it all in the crock pot. Just throw that shit in there all willy nilly like. You’re in a hurry, aren’t you? That’s what a crock pot meal is for… So dump that shit, turn it on low if you’re not that hungry or turn it on high if it’s time to eat.

While you’re waiting, either open a bag of tortilla chips or bust out a stack of corn tortillas, preheat your oven to something hotter than the pavement in the summer and grab a pizza cutter. Slice up the tortillas, however you want and throw them on a baking sheet. Salt, season, oil, spit shine those bad boys, however you prefer and pop them into the oven until they’re crispy!

Serve it all together, maybe a little cheese on top, maybe not, that’s okay too, but tortilla that soup up and you’re done!

Enjoy, guero.

Pork Chile Verde

The culmination of the last two posts, I bring you the Pork Chile Verde plate!

For the sauce, click here.

For the pork and pork stock, click here.

For the refried beans and Spanish rice, click here.

Directions, assuming you’ve got your sauce ready, pork chopped, beans refried and rice is a simmerin’ are as follows:

In a medium sauce pot, depending on how much you’re making for this particular dish, combine cubed pork and the chile verde sauce and simmer on low. That’s it. Let the pork get tender and let the reduce…

Serve, plated like this with corn tortillas, or in a flour tortilla as a burrito!

Enjoy!

Chile Verde Sauce

In my last post I showed you how to make homemade pork stock from a big ole honkin’ pork ass. You can find that, here.

Today, we’re going to take that ass stock and make a whole bunch of chile verde, for the freezer.

Chile verde is a green, chile based sauce that is served over pork, usually, but is great over beef or chicken and is usually served plate style, or in a burrito. The sauce can also be used to make soup, like green chile chicken soup, which I’ll be making, soon…

The sauce can’t get any more simple. If you want to use boxed stock, feel free, it should work just fine but I’m all about the bone broth here.

INGREDIENTS:

4lb Hatch chiles
2lbs Tomatillos
1lb/4large Onions
Jalapenos, to taste, depending how spicy you want it
1 head of garlic

DIRECTIONS:

Roast all the veggies.

 

Remove the tops and stem scars from the tomatillos and chiles.

 

I usually just do an assembly line of cleaned, prepped veggies with two casserole dishes alternating in the oven, with the oven on broil.

 

As one is roasting, the other is getting blended, the empty dish filled with veggies to roast and popped in the oven by the time the other is ready to pull out, dump in the blender and repeat.

 

Blend as well as you can, don’t worry if your veggies are still crunchy, you’ll be simmering the hell out of this in just a bit…

Once everything is blended. Add it to your stock pot and grab a whisk…

I like to simmer this, on medium low, until it has no “crunch” left to it when you taste it. Uncooked, even blended veggies will produce a “raw” taste to a sauce like this. Only after you cook and reduce it for a long time, will you taste the difference when the veggies get softer and the flavors get sexy… I add pork stock, about two cups or so, as I go along to improve consistency and richen the flavor.

Add cumin, salt, black pepper and oregano to taste.

You can add cilantro at this point, but I’m not a big fan.

 

 

 

This gets bagged, tagged and frozen as well.

I use it in Pollo Verde Enchiladas and of course, for pork green chile.

That will be my next post, but here’s a little preview:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

Homemade Pork Stock

This entry is going to kick off a bigger picture. Pork stock to make chile verde sauce to make pork chile verde from the pork that the stock was made. The stock is used in the chile verde sauce as well. It’s like the culinary circle of life…

 

This, is step one.

 

I went to the store and got my hands on a pork shoulder, on sale!

 

I brought it home and baked it up in the oven.

 

Shredded what was shred-able for bbq sammies and what couldn’t be shredded was cubed for chile verde. The big piece of skin was saved to flavor beans, as they cook, to use as refried beans. The bone was kept for step two!

 

Nothing went to waste!!

 

Step two is simple… Take the bone you’ve got left, with any undesirable fat, tendon, waste that was left and put it in a stock pot.

 

Since I was making chile verde that day too, I had veggies on hand to use in the stock. Onion pieces and such. Normally, I don’t use a bunch of veggies in my stock. You can use the granulated versions, because they’re only there for taste, but it’s up to you. I find cooking the seasoned skin and all that stuffs is enough.

I used the ends of the onions here, that’s what’s floating along with the bone, skin, fat, ect.

Fill the pot with water and boil away. As the water level goes down, I refill, tasting as I go. Once I have the desired amount and flavor, it’s done!

Quality over quantity!

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the shitty photo quality on the end here, but I didn’t Instagram the finished product for obvious reasons…

Maybe not so obvious, after all, I ig’d a shot of bones boiling in water.

My life… Is riveting.

 

 

 

Anyhoo, bag it, tag it and freeze it.

End o’ story! Enjoy!

Freezer Taco Chicken

Last week, I celebrated my sons birthday with a pool party “Fiesta” in which I cooked a bunch of chicken up to make some tacos with!

I had to feed about 30 people and wanted the most cost effective way of getting enough chicken to feed them all, as well as have some leftovers, hopefully!

Thanks to the amazing prices at Smart & Final I was able to get chicken for under $1 a pound… .79/lb I think, to be exact.

The leg quarters were huge and exactly what I needed.

I decided to bake the chicken, skin on, seasoned to death and it came out incredible!

Seasoned with just chili powder, garlic powder, dried onion, oregano, pepper and some tomato bullion and covered with foil while it cooks. I like to make my own taco seasoning, because the stuff in the pouch has too much sodium, things that AREN’T even seasonings in it and (I know sodium is salt) but it TASTES like you’re eating tomato salt, not food. Not a fan. The tomato bullion that I use for Spanish rice, has enough salt in it to taste, but not over power.

Enjoy!

Triple Birthday Fiesta!

So many birthdays in the month of

July…

 

My son, his Tio and I all celebrate

this month, so we decided to throw a

party at our place to get the family

together for some pool fun!

 

We went a little crazy at Party City, I’ll

admit, and I do wish I had taken more

photos, but this won’t be the last time I

throw a pool side fiesta!

 

I ran out of time and didn’t quite get ALL

the décor I had, up. BUT, I think it turned

out cute enough to share!

 

I used dollar store frames to label the food, salsa and drinks.

Old coffee cans with the labels stripped off made great faux vases for my paper flowers.

You can find a ton of tutorials on Pinterest on how to make paper flowers…

I used twine, which cut my hands, a lot. I wouldn’t use it again. Any other type of string, but twine. However. I wanted to give it a try because I like the look of white tissue paper flowers and twine and wanted to see how well the twine would work, for the flowers, before starting this other project!

 

I love this cake stand. It comes in SO handy at every party we have and it’s seriously priceless. It was the cheapest one at Michaels and I bought it WAY back for my baby shower…

I snuck a few of my experimental white flowers in with the colored ones…

Those moustaches turned out to be an amazing hit with both the adults and the children. I only wish I would have posted a hastag to use so I could have seen all the hilarity that ensued…

And aren’t those little sombrero’s cute?

Excuse the present overflow onto my table, however they were all books, so I can’t complain! lol

Yep…

We got the bull.

NO fiesta is complete with out the bull piñata!

Say hi to Daddy, grilling tortillas and endorsing some cold, deliciously refreshing Bud Light.

I had the rice and beans ordered from Pro's Ranch Market in Phoenix. They were perfect, convenient, overpriced and delicious. Seriously, I thought I’d save myself some time and pain by ordering two of the simplest, cheapest parts of the whole party, and while I did, I did NOT want to pay $40 for it. But we did.

I made the chicken which I’ll post about next and link it (here). Simplest taco chicken recipe, ever.

I made two kinds of salsa, using both of my recipes, for red and for green as well as some “queso dip”, which is ALWAYS gone and seriously, a three year old could make it. I melt Velveeta and a smidge of milk in a crock pot, stirring occasionally until it’s creamy and adding a little more milk, when needed and then adding red and/or green salsa to taste. Go full on Chili’s and add a little ground beef, I won’t tell.

Isn’t my man sexy? And yes, those are guard shorts, if you happen to drown in his dreamy Latino eyes, he’s certified to save your life. Ay, Papi.

I have no photos of the family to share, because 120 degree weather and pool soaking do nothing of justice to us and all the photos I took after Grandma so graciously swooped my little Boo away for the night, are highly inappropriate for this down home blog. Not to mention the bff and I donned those moustaches and I look something like Javier Bardim… But, if you follow me on Instagram, you already saw that…

Yay.

Enjoy… and ole!

SUPER Market

Scottsdale has little to offer when it comes to affordable food shopping, besides Food City. (I mean affordable to folks who “make their own” food thus buy in bulk.) We have a Smart and Final, which is great for the basics, but I want mooooore…

I’m a fan of the “Mexican Market”, but again, Food City just doesn’t always DO it for me. Great example came from my search for churros for my pool side fiesta I’m planning… (Yes, it’s a link to Churro’s Wiki, because apparently, not everybody knows what a “churro” is, BUT THEY SHOULD. Consider yourself enlightened, and you’re welcome.)

Anyhoo, I walked into Food City, asking, “How much are churro’s if I want a couple dozen?” To which the girl behind the counter replied, “Cheerio's?” Um, no. Just no. You can’t have a deli full of South of the Border delights and respond to my question like that. BYE!

So, I got on the Google-nets and started doing my research…

I found the Pros Ranch Market website and the clouds parted, angels sang… Okay, pretty much just the grito sounded, but that was enough for me. We were in the car and off after Boo took one look!

Check it out…

This place is huge.

 

They’re all listed online with different names for different locations, this one is Juan.

 

Just check it out and see which one is near you…

 

Chances are, if you live in my area around Scottsdale, there isn’t one NEAR you, BUT with things like ground beef at a dollar a pound, you can’t really complain. Just do your shopping in bulk and make less trips!

 

This is the first stop, straight inside the front door. Of course, we were stopping to ask for churros, but um, I forgot what I was saying… Do you SEE this fresh baked deliciousness? Of COURSE they had churros, by the dozen, and they were delicious.

I’m sorry, were you not sold already?

 

THEY HAVE A TORTILLARIA. Yep, I’m white girl excited.

 

They make their own chips and tortillas there, they’re average priced, but I didn’t pick any up, because I was looking for bulk chips and at 1.79/lb, that wasn’t the ticket.

 

However, I’ll be trying the tortillas, for SURE.

 

 

Next stop, the veggie, isle, isles, courtyard… They had, a plethora of choice, literally, I couldn’t make it to all the nooks and crannies of this place. They had more, than everything, and, I’m speechless, really. And no sale, just .79cents for a WHOLE POUND of tomatillos? Food City can’t beat that, WalMart can’t beat that, Smart and Final can’t beat that.

 

Did I mention veggies?

 

Beautiful, bountiful, colorful, healthy, plentiful veggies, waiting to be taken home and loved!

 

Peppers I’ve never heard of or seen…

 

Since I was making salsa for our party too, I got to pick up a ton of freshness and cook it up into GALLONS of delicious salsa.

 

More on that later…

 

 

Say hello to my little friend…

I had to check out their meat specials, hence the shout out for the dollar a pound ground beef earlier…

Well, this is where that comes from. Ew.

I had to share this little gem, it’s about as “Mexican Market” as it gets.

So. Much. Meat.

 

 

Well, that wraps up the Tour De Ranch Market.

I really do suggest checking this place out, it’s worth the drive if you’re a serious cook and it’s WELL worth the drive if you’re a seriously adventurous cook!

We even caught a beautiful sunset behind Tovrea Castle on the way home… Monsoon season is the best.

Enjoy.

Cinco De Mayo ‘Ritas

Coming from a long history of college partying on Cinco De Mayo, my Frat Daddy fiancé and I couldn’t really give up one of the best “party” holidays just because we were parents, however, we don’t exactly “party” these days… We wanted something kid friendly, by the pool with a few of our close friends and their little ones. Well we got it! Thanks to the not too hot Scottsdale weather, we threw a nice little fiesta at our beautiful pool!

I wanted to make some margaritas, but I didn’t feel like there was enough effort going into this cocktail sesh, so I figured I’d try to make my own simple syrup. It went SO well, I wish I’d taken more pictures of the process, but I was in SUCH a hurry I had no time to photograph a process that was going much slower than I needed it to anyway. BUT, it’s worth blogging about, because this can be made with most any fruit, I feel like, and could be used in a bunch of different ways!

Plus, it’s too easy!

As you can see, I wasn’t working with the fanciest tequila, that’s why the mixers must be tasty enough to conceal that, um, taste.

For the simple syrup all you do is combine sugar and water in equal parts, on the pot over high heat, boil until the sugar is dissolved. (I whisked away for a little while longer, hoping for a syrupy consistency, which worked, a little) Then, in my food processor, I combined about a cup and half of strawberries and obliterated them, seeds and all, because those little bastards don’t really bother me. If they aren’t your cup of seedy tea, then run your final mixture through a fine strainer to remove the seeds. But you’ll still end up with some in your ‘rita, cuz you’re putting fresh strawberries in there, so you’re really fighting a loosing battle…

Anyway, let the sugar water mixture cool completely before combining it with the strawberries either in the food processor or the blender. You should use just the blender, but I like to make a mess, so I used a food processor and a blender. Mix that shit up, real good, pour in a jar and set aside.

NOW, we’re ready to assemble some dranks.

I didn’t have any Grand Marnier this time, but I really prefer it in my margarita so my recipe calls for it.

This is for one margarita, just double, triple, whatever you need!

2oz Grand Marnier
2oz Tequila
2oz Lime juice (I use the premade stuff, juicing that many limes isn’t for the faint of heart.)
2.5oz Simple syrup
(Depending on your tolerance for the hard stuff, you can add a little Sprite to the mixture which makes your batch of ‘ritas go further and not pack such a punch. Messing with the recipe messes with the taste, keep that in mind. If this isn’t hard enough, or you just had a rough day, don’t be shy about adding some moscato. Don’t drink too many, because you will have a noticeably worse hangover than you can remember having for a long time. Obvi, wine, fire water and the Marnier aren’t friends, but they taste splendidly together.)

For the garnish and rim, keep some sliced limes and strawberries on the side as well as a little receptacle for a sugar/salt mixture for the rim.

You can either rim the glass with a lime wedge and dip into the salt/sugar, but I find that’s not sticky enough and I often fill the other half of my “’rita salter thingy” with lime juice.

Either combine everything in a blender with ice, or in a shaker with ice and serve!

Enjoy and happy margarita making!

Green Chile Carnitas Tacos

So, if you live in Arizona, you  may have been to a Food City. If you have, you know what incredible deals they boast on produce, meat and pretty much anything else. I go for the produce and meat, but it helps that they have the essentials, if I don’t want to stop at more than one store. At first approach, you feel like you should just go somewhere else to shop, but I assure you, press on. They’re part of the Basha’s and AJ’s Fine Foods family, so you’re getting the best food for your dollar. Also, Food City is more than willing to tell you where and who their meat and produce comes from, so you’re never left wondering exactly how many different chickens went into one flat of breasts.

Anyway, I didn’t take a picture, BUT, I got 8lbs of picnic roast for only $7.65. I used a little over a pound to make these tacos, making about 8 tacos out of it. You can see how this kind of purchase goes a LONG way. Since the beans and rice were home made, they cost literally pennies. Ah, the satisfaction I get from feeding my family something delicious and health conscious that costs less than a dollar a plate! #winning

I’ve said it before, but it begs repeating, I cook my beans and rice in advance and freeze them in portions. I cook up POUNDS of pinto beans, because my darling son loves to eat “Bees wice” (refried beans and spanish rice, mixed) almost every day. I either remove half the beans from the crock pot, before they’re cooked to super soft refry ready status, and freeze them after they’ve cooled, or I cook them in separate batches. Those I use for chili while the others I refry for the boy and freeze.

 

INGREDIENTS:

For the tacos:

Picnic roast, or another large, well marbled cut of pork
3 Anaheim green chiles, sliced into strips
Bell peppers, about 2, I like red and green, you can use whatever color you like, sliced into strips
1 white onion, sliced
Oregano, cumin, chili powder, thyme
Corn tortillas

Rice and beans:

I’ve posted before how I make these… You can find the instructions for the beans here and the instructions for the rice here.

INSTRUCTIONS:

I roasted the pork in the oven, at 350, covered, for about an hour, before I hacked off a chunk to shred, leaving the rest of the roast to finish while I finished cooking. Obviously it’ll take a different amount of time, depending on the size of your roast.

I shred and/or dice the rest of the roast, using the shredded meat for tacos and chili and the diced meat for chile verde/colorado. This one roast makes about 4 dinners, each with it’s respective leftovers for the following day and sometimes the day after that. We’re a BIG leftover family, Daddy takes them with him to work, because the man needs to eat ALL day long. I rarely find time to eat during the day, but it provides a great little buffet of food for a picky toddler!

Meanwhile if you are making your beans and/or rice from scratch, get those cooking!

 

Next, sauté those veggies while you’re shredding the pork.

Add the shredded meat to the veggies and cook a little longer until the veggies are soft to taste.

To heat your tortillas, use a flat iron or a large skillet on the stove. You can even throw them into the oven, if it’s still warm, for a few minutes to get a little crisp. Avoid the microwave when heating tortillas, please, you’re not helping the taste or texture and flour tortillas become rubbery when microwaved. No bueno.

 

 

 

Now, just assemble and enjoy!

Keep an eye out for a adobada taco post where I use the rest of this roast and slow cook it in some homemade red chile I made! I’ll post the chile as well, because it’s AMAZING. I made almost 20 cups, and ran out in less than 2 weeks, neighbors won’t leave me alone, Cinco de Mayo is upon is and I MUST make more (as I sit here using chips as a salty segway to shovel the last bit I hid for myself, into my fat face, smh).

PEACE!

My Salsa… Part Dos.

Just before Thanksgiving took over, I posted about a green salsa I made and LOVED.

Well, it was not made alone.

Here is my second salsa, a red salsa. Salsa Roja, if you will… Whatever you call it, it’s delicious.

I don’t like my red salsa to be chunky or crunchy or as “fresco” as the green one. I like my red salsa to have a bit of a heartier flavor, a lot more heat and a smoky-ness to it that really only comes from roasting the shit out of those tomatoes!

So, let’s get to it!

 

INGREDIENTS:

Again, this amount of ingredients is going to yield about a gallon of salsa. Plan accordingly… (It freezes well!)

4lbs tomatoes, halved, I used Roma and regular old hothouse
3 red bell peppers, halved
4 jalapenos, halved, the amount depends on the heat you want. I keep jalapeno juice in my fridge to spice it up a lot more, since we like one bite of salsa to send us into fits of sweats…
3 white onions, quartered
1 head of garlic, peeled
1 bunch of cilantro, more if you like the taste, I was surprised how much I needed…
Cumin, salt, pepper, chili powder, cayenne, thyme

DIRECTIONS:

Follow the directions in the link to the green salsa above, roasting the veggies a bit longer, allowing them to get REALLY charred under the broiler.

Blend well, season to taste… I have more spices than I can name on my fingers and toes, it’s what you do to your food that makes it YOURS. Remember that things like cumin and chili powder may seem frivolous, but if your salsa tastes off, they can bring it back to a normal taste in a jif. As a “White Girl” venturing into a world of cooking beyond Easy Mac and Uncle Ben’s, I didn’t know WHAT flavors I was tasting when I ate certain foods, and although I feel I’ve mastered a lot of dishes, even this threw me off a bit. It just tasted like veggies until I started seasoning away. Cumin made a world of difference and so did the chili powder, which I wouldn’t have thought of the latter, off the top of my head…

Anyway, that’s all there is to it. It’s best to let the flavors hang out over night and get friendly with one another. The longer it sits, the better it tastes… Well, until it goes bad, then it obviously takes like crap, amiright?

Enjoy!

My salsa…

Makes all the pretty girls dance and want to take off their underpants….. My salsa.

Yep, I went there.

Ladies and gentlemen, I made, SALSA.

No, but seriously, last Sunday Funday we had a little too many margaritas at our “Avacado” party and got to eating a TON of my salsa I brought over. I decided to TRY to make both red and green kinds, they turned out well and I thought they’d be a nice addition to the part-ay.

Little did I know I did SUCH a good job on them, that Char used the green one in her Chicken Bites and her guy Jason actually kept half the jar! I keep forgetting to ask her if she liked the rest of it and what she did with it, but will be asking today, for sure!

Needless to say, it was a hit. We love having fresh salsa in the house and use it on everything. But this post is not about my love of the salsa. It’s about how this white girl makes some mean salsa.

Today, we’ll be making the green kind. Salsa Verde, to me is different than Chile Verde. Some disagree, some agree, whatever floats my boat in my kitchen, amiright? Yep. SO, the uncooked, chip friendly version we’re making in this post, would be, to me, salsa verde. The cooked, amended version would be chile verde, suitable for burritos and worthy of an addiction. I have mastered this too, and will show you later, grasshopper.

So, this is pretty easy, it’s just time consuming. It’s best to do this when you know your grocery store or local market is having a sale, sometimes, if you don’t know where to look, tomatillos can be a rip off. As can chiles of all sorts. We shop at Food City. They’re close, cheap, and grow locally. Sold.


Now, you might be asking yourself… “What the crap is a tomatillo?”
You may not have as potty-mouthed of an inner voice as I do, but, let’s pretend.

A tomatillo is NOT a green tomato. It’s not a un-ripe tomato, it’s not part of the tomato family. It is it’s own entity.

A delicious entity.

So head out to your local Mexican market and get your hands on some of these sticky bastards. You’ll be hooked… I am.
Especially when they’re 3lbs for $1… Right?!

INGREDIENTS:
This recipe makes over a gallon of salsa. It freezes well, thaws beautifully and lasts surprisingly long in the fridge, when kept in a mason jar.
3lbs tomatillos, cleaned and halved with stem scars removed
2 large white onions
1lb hatch chiles, halved
1 green bell pepper, halved
2 pasilla chiles, halved
3 jalapenos, halved
2 heads of garlic, peeled
1 bunch of green onion, diced
1 Bunch of cilantro, you can leave it whole, or chop it slightly, this all goes in a blender anyway
Juice from 3-4 limes, really depends on your love of tang. Get it?
1tbsp cumin, thyme, black pepper, salt, red pepper flakes (make a the largest tbsp of cumin down to the smallest tbsp of red pepper. I don’t even own measuring spoons, so I’m always guessing on the seasonings, and I use my hands to measure. Always season to taste!)
You will also need a blender or a food processor and a couple baking dishes. Tongs are helpful because the dishes are HOT when they come out of the oven. Obvi.

DIRECTIONS:
Roast all the veggies, except the green onion and cilantro, in the oven under the broiler, in glass baking dishes. These tomatillos have been roasted too long for salsa. You don’t want that much charred skin, you just want to soften everything and bring out the heat in the peppers. These were for chile verde, because I wasn’t sure the salsa was going to work when I made it, I didn’t take a lot of pictures. We’re still living off our freezer supply, so I’m making do with my own stock photography.

Repeat until all the veggies are roasted. I use a glass dish to keep the roasted mess in until it gets blended. Make sure you throw all the juices and seeds into the bowl too!

Now either in a food processor or a blender, blend everything REALLY well, adding some green onion and cilantro to every batch, to make sure it’s evenly chopped and distributed. I do it in small portions, to ensure it’s all mixed well. And then scoop it out and do it again. Before you blend everything for the second time, taste it, season it and remember the flavor will be stronger, spicier and better tomorrow and every day from then on. So don’t over season!

The salsa should sit in the fridge over night, if not 2 nights, to let the flavors become friends, don’t forget this part. Taste it again, after and make sure it tastes right to you, if not, re-season!

From there, I usually line some Tupperware bowls with plastic wrap and portion out 2 cups in each, freeze and when they’re solid, I take them out, wrap the plastic wrap the rest of the way around, wrap again in tin foil and label. They stack nicely in the freezer because I freeze everything in the same size Tupperware, every time. 2 cups is about half a mason jar, which lasts us 2 weeks or so.

I hope you try this, next freezer meal day, or any day! It’s WELL worth the effort. Mo eats salsa on his eggs, in his breakfast burritos and on anything else he can think of, some days!

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Carnitas Tacos & Chipotle Marinade

I promised a follow up to the pork loin recipe with more ideas for these massive pork loins I’ve been finding on sale and hopefully, you have found some AMAZING deals as well!

These carnitas tacos are delicious, easy, they taste authentic, they freeze well so you can use the leftover meat in something else, like chili or soup. My next post will be the chili I made from the leftover meat from this recipe!

First, I have to say I made my own marinade for this recipe. It’s no secret. I usually use chipotle peppers in adobo sauce for most any red Mexican dish I made. They add a distinctive spice and the smokey adobo is unique and delicious. I hated buying a can of peppers in the sauce because I’d use one or two peppers, a little sauce, store it in the fridge for who knows how long and end up throwing it away.

So, I made my own!



Like I said, there’s no secret.

Go buy a can or two, or three, of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, throw it in a food processor with a little squeeze of lime juice and cumin, portion into an ice cube tray, lined in plastic wrap and freeze!

To use, just melt the cube in a little warm water or broth, add some vinegar, maybe some beer or tequila and marinate that meat!

Back to the carnitas.

INGREDIENTS:

3lbs Pork loin, thawed or frozen, again, this can be done with frozen meat, since it’s being shredded, the toughness of the meat doesn’t matter.
1cup Green bell pepper, diced. I keep mine frozen, which saves a ton of time.
1cup White onion, diced. Again, frozen for me.
1tbs Red pepper flakes
1/2tbs Rosemary
1tbs Thyme
1/2tbs Cumin
1/2tbs Ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

In a crock pot, combine above ingredients, with enough water to almost cover the meat. Start on high to get the heat going and lower to low after about an hour or two. Leave until cooked through.

Then, I cut mine in big chunks and set it aside to cool, shred and add back to the crock pot. I then cooked the meat until the liquid was absorbed. (I used a little liquid when I made the refried beans, my fiance said they were the best beans I’ve made so far… Just a little hint!)

What was left was tender, deliciously flavorful, spicy but not TOO spicy, carnitas. I made tacos out of it, then froze half for later! It’s an all day affair with your crock pot, this one… So it’s feasible to leave this cooking all day while you do your thing…

Enjoooooy and have a great weekend!!