Monday, May 6, 2013

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo this year I decided to have our own little mexican food fiesta at home. We spent the day working on our dining room table that we built, planted some veggies, board games and cooking some yummy mexican food!

It all started off with some salsa... I've come to realize it's really not that difficult to make your own salsa instead of buying those jarred salsas. All you need is a food processor or a blender really. The salsa will last in the fridge in a tupperware for at least 2- 3 weeks. It's great to have on hand to use in most cooking as well. And.. the longer it sits the better it tastes! You have the power to make it as spicy or mild as you want! C'mon now!

Fresh Salsa
• 2 cans hot rotel, undrained
• 2 cans organic diced tomatoes, undrained
• handful cilantro
• 1 tsp each cumin, salt & pepper
• 1 lime juiced
• 1 tsp honey or sugar
• 1 jalapeno sliced and quartered
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion roughly chopped

Salsa

Put all the ingredients in the food processor and pulse until the bigger chunks are broken down, then puree until the thickness is to your liking. Pour in a bowl, cover and refrigerate until you are ready to use. I'd recommend letting the salsa sit in fridge for at least and hour so the flavors can meld together.


Carnitas
(original recipe found here)
• 3 lbs pork shoulder cut into 2" chunks, extra fat trimmed
• 1 large orange, juiced and cut in half
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp each of dried oregano, cumin, pepper
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp of coarse salt
• 2 cups water
• 1 large onion, peeled & quartered
• 1 red fresno & jalapeno, thinly sliced
• 1 small white onion, finely diced
• 1 avocado, chopped
• small corn or flour tortillas
• cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Put all ingredients in a large cast iron dutch oven on the stovetop and bring to a simmer. Cover, and place in middle rack of the oven. Cook undisturbed for at least 2 hours.




In the meantime, chop up your favorite toppings. I used 1 small white onion (finely diced), 1 red fresno sliced thinly, 1 jalapeno sliced thinly. Let the toppings sit at room temperature until meat is ready. Don't cut up the avocado until right before you are ready to serve the Carnitas.

Once the meat is fork tender, gently pull it out of the dutch oven and remove any excess fat that might have hung around after cooking. At this point, go ahead and turn the broiler on in your oven. I left the meat chunky but you can shred it if you want too. Remove everything from the pot except the liquid and bring to a boil for about 10 minutes until it is thickened. Place meat back in pot and coat with the glaze. Spread the meat on a foil lined baking sheet and broil on one side for 5 minutes. Gently toss the meat over and broil for another 5 minutes. Serve in tortillas with your favorite toppings.


Carnitas

We used the leftovers for breakfast this morning with eggs and tortillas... yum! It was simple - I warmed up the carnitas in a dry non stick skillet, serve them in a shallow bowl. Top with your favorite style egg, cilantro, crumbled queso fresco, salsa, chopped onion and avocado.




WOW - I don't know what I liked more, the dinner or the leftovers as breakfast. Luckily we still have some leftover to enjoy over the next day or two!

Enjoy!


1 comment:

  1. That all looks so so yummy! I bet it tasted better then what you would have gotten if you went out!

    ReplyDelete