Carnitas

Who has ever eaten Mexican food, I mean REALLY good authentic Mexican food & doesn't LOVE Carnitas? I don't really know anyone who could say "me!". So our new friend, Leslie who we met at a Slow Food LA event last month, came up from Santa Monica this weekend to hang out! As she was leaving, she said, I'm going home to eat Carnitas with my husband. And I thought, YUM! I should make those! So I said to her, I have a pastured pork Butt Roast from AHO in my freezer. And she said, that is exactly what you use! And so I did! Well, first I actually researched recipes, and found this one by the oh-so-talented David Lebovitz formerly of Chez Panisse! (I actually got to TA a chocolate class he did at WCI ages ago. Lovely man.) So this is my take on his method.

Sorry I didn't take before snaps! It was frozen solid. I rubbed it all over with Safflower Oil, poured a tons of Kosher Salt on top & rubbed that in, placed in a Stainless saute pan (don't ask me about my roasting pan, ok!) And stuck the whole thing under a hot broiler to brown...about 15 minutes each of the 4 sides. Then I cut it all up into large chucks, placed in a glass pyrex, added some beer, half a cinnamon stick, about 2 cloves of garlic, just smashed to release flavor, chili powder, paprika, cumin all over (best guess: 4-5 Tsp) pepper & bay leaves (you need enough liquid to cover about 2/3rd of the meat). Tossed it all around together & placed back under the broiler about 10 min, flipped, another 10-15 min. Reduce oven heat to 300 & let bake uncovered for about 3 hours. Flipping every now & then to keep moist. I think I had to add more beer after awhile so it didn't dry out completely.

Take it out, & chop into smaller bite sized shreds & chunks.

Put back in the oven & flip every now & then until most of the liquid is gone (about another 30 minutes...). Serve however you want: with rice, beans tortillas, salsa, make it into burritos, tacos, OM! The possibilities are endless & it by far THE yummiest meat you will ever taste!

You know how when it's thanksgiving & you want to eat that one little piece of crispy skin? And some meat is stuck to it & sort of caramelized...that's how this is, except the whole outside is pumped with flavor & crisp! And the soft insides are soft & white, but not dry & flavorless, they taste amazing too!

I got 2 words for you: bon appetite!

Burritos for Dinner

Ok, so I had ordered some (3) Mary's Chicken Thighs thru my CSA, so I put them in a pan during a free moment over my crazy gardening weekend.  I tossed them with my gorgeous new Olive oil from Azure, it's 100% pure EVOO from Napa, yum... S&P & broiled 

them for about 15 minutes.  Then I dumped about a half a cup of Salsa

 (I haven't ventured into the world of lacto-fermented salsas yet, so for now, my old FAV, Herdez will just have to do) on top, covered with foil, lowered the oven to 350 degrees & baked it for about 30-45 minutes (I honestly can't remember...)  The meat should fall off the bones & it will be VERY easy to clean & shred...

Anyhoo, I let it cool while I did a bazillion other things & eventually I got around to cleaning it (taking off the skin, separating the bones & ick away),  so it's mostly shredded by then, just from that process.  I put it back in the salsa it was cooked in & threw it in the fridge.

Tonight was THE night...

I got home, pulled the frozen, but pre-soaked pintos out of the fridge.  Chopped & sauteed half a brown onion & a clove of garlic, in the pressure cooker.  I added Cayenne Pepper, S&P, Cumin & stirred, added the beans, added stock to cover the beans, stirred it all up, put the lid on, set to #1 & once it came to a boil, I cooked for 20 minutes.  Turned it off, checked & sure enough, the beans were cooked. I adjusted S&P & added a half a Jalapeno, let it simmer on low for awhile while I got other things going...

I grated cheese, raw goat cheddar & raw Jack.

  

I chopped up 2 organic tomatoes. 

I LOVE, did I say LOVE, cuz I mean LOVE these wonder Spelt Tortillas I found at Lassens, the are soft enough to almost be as 'normal' as white flour junk tortillas & they keep FOR-EVER!

I also sauteed onion, added some salsa & then threw it in Rice Cooker for some easy-peasy MexiRice.... remind me to never use Short Brown Rice again, kinda weird!..

So I heat the tortillas (dry) in a large skillet (YES I still own some nonstick, but I love my Berndes pans, so hard to switch!)

Put some Re-Fried Pintos (fried in Bacon grease, yummy!)

Top with cheese, chicken, some sour cream & salsa and you got Heavenly mexican food for dinner!

Update: a couple nights later I wasn't up to making dinner, so I told Joe to make it.  He started pulling things outta the fridge en masse, so, natch, I panicked & took over.  ;)  Can you spell control freak? (I can! ooh I can! Pick me!  E-R-I-N)

ok, back to the story... he'd found the leftover tortilla shells so I thought ok, there's leftover pintos too... and I always have cheese.  We'll just have bean & cheese burritos.  Then I remembered that I'd fried extra bacon on Sunday & it was in the in the fridge... when I asked Joe if he wanted bacon in his burrito, he said, are we making breakfast burritos?  So I thought about it for a sec and decided that was doable.

So we had Egg, Bacon, Pinto, Salsa, Sour Cream & Raw Jack Burritos, they we huge & messy as could be!  But man were they tasty!