The mighty Leftovers - Pork carnitas

Finding something to do with leftovers can be a daunting task. Often times we just re-make the original meal. Something we still struggle with is being inventive with our leftovers. Well on the Sunday after making the pork carnitas, I was watching Cooking with Daisy on PBS and she was making a pork sandwich. Well Daisy, I just happen to have some left over pork so why don't I follow your idea here and make one myself.

As I've already mentioned, we like to make things from scratch if we can, so Matt baked up a loaf of French bread for our sandwich. To construct it I did a layer of mayonnaise in order to prevent the bread from getting to soggy. I topped that with the shredded pork which I squeezed out as much residual moisture as I could. Topped that with more of the marinated onion relish, and finally top with cheese, we used cheddar. Now the fun part, take the sandwich and wrap it tightly in foil. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the foil wrapped sandwich on a baking sheet, place another baking sheet on top of it then place a weight on the top of that sheet, we used my cast iron skillet. By doing this you have pretty much created a large panini press which helps make a nice crust and holds the sandwich together when cutting into pieces. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is melted. We actually enjoyed this almost more than the original meal to start with.

This is a very versatile concept and can be used with almost any combination of toppings. Use this to create a pizza sandwich, or a baked meatball sub with the marinara on the side for dipping. The possibilities are endless and gives a whole new spin to the standard boring sandwich.

Daisy's sandwich was Mayo, pork roast, bread and butter pickles and swiss cheese. This layer combination seems to work well.

P.S Sorry this post is so untimely

Cinco De Mayo 2011

Matt and I are total suckers for Mexican food and Cinco De Mayo is a great excuse to cook up some Mexican food. Generally we would make tamales, but this year I decided to do some slow cooker Pork Carnitas. I flipped through my Mexican cookbook and used the recipe there as my foundation. I had also been looking online to find recipes and kind of combined them, which is what I am notorious for. The cook book did have a delicious marinated onion salsa for the carnitas, so I whipped that together. To top off the meal I made Mexican red rice, fried up some fresh tortilla chips, Avocado slices and opened a can of refried beans (hangs head in shame). Speaking of the refried beans, that is something we still have not mastered. So here is the pork and marinated onion salsa. 


Slow cooker Pork Carnitas
 2-3lb pork roast
 1 orange
 1 lime
 1 tsp marjoram
 1 tsp thyme
 1 tsp cumin
 1/2 tsp chili powder
 1 tsp salt
 2 dried bay leaves
 7 whole cloves of garlic
 1 small onion, quartered
 1/2 cup water or chicken broth
 Corn tortillas to serve

 Place pork roast in the crock pot. Squeeze the juice from the lime and the orange, then quarter the body of the orange and add it to the pot. Add all remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 10 hours. Remove the pork from the crock-pot, let sit for 5-10 minutes, remove the bone and any excess fat then shred the roast. If you want to crisp the meat up a little bit you can. Just take a large heavy skillet heat up enough oil to just cover the bottom. Add the shredded pork and fry the pork until it crisps a little. To serve, take a griddle or a large skillet on medium high heat and warm each corn tortilla until they are soft and pliable. Fill with the shredded pork and top with marinated onions.


Marinated onion relish  
1 medium white onion
 8-10 pickled jalapeño chile slices plus 1 bs of the juice
 3 tbs freshly squeezed orange juice
 juice from 1 lime
 1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro or to taste
 Freshly ground pepper

 Dice the onion, jalapenos and cilantro if desired, place in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and let marinade at least 2 hours to overnight.

Enchilada Sauce

So we are huge fans of Mexican food and are often trying to create authentic, restaurant quality food at home. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we come short. Well the other night we decided to make Enchiladas; corn tortillas? check, ground beef? check, cheese? check, sauce... umm nope. Well, I guess the reason we didn't have any sauce is because we don't much care for the canned stuff anyway, but that's besides the point. What we do always have on hand are dried California Chili pods, we get them in the bulk section of our local store, however you can find them at most grocery stores in the Hispanic isle, or at specialty stores. We keep these around to make Tamales or enchilada sauce on the fly. Want to see one of the reasons why we make the sauce ourselves, aside from it tasting better? The ingredients in our sauce are as follows: dried California chili pods (or New Mexico chili pods), dried arbol peppers (or cayanne peppers), water, salt, garlic, dried oregano, cumin, and vegetable oil.

Here is the ingredients list for Old El Paso sauce,Water, Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Modified Corn Starch, Dried Red Chilies, Soybean Oil, Sugar, Salt, Citric Acid, Onion Powder, Mono sodium Glutamate, Spice, Garlic Powder, Red Pepper, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (Corn, Soy And Wheat), Autolyzed Yeast Extract. Contains Wheat And Soy Ingredients.... wait, what?? Wheat and soy ingredients? Since when do chili peppers contain soy or wheat...oh wait, they don't. Anyway, getting off track here.

In making our own sauce we have a lot more flexibility. We can make it spicier (just add some more dried Cayenne peppers in with the California peppers), add some tomato body, runnier, thicker etc etc...the possibilities are endless. So with one base recipe and a few ingredients we are able to make this an incredibly versatile sauce in our kitchen.

Ingredients list:

8 dried California chili pods (or New Mexico chili pods)

6 dried arbol peppers (or cayanne peppers)

4 cups water

1tsp salt

1 clove garlic pressed

1tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 cup vegetable oil.

The Process is easy. Take 8 California chile pods, cut off the stems and remove all the seeds. Cut into a few smaller pieces. Take 6 Arbol peppers (more or less depending on how spicy you want it), cut off the stems and remove all the seeds. Put in in a medium saucepan and cover with 4 cups of water. Heat water to boil, cover and remove from heat. Let pot sit for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, pour the water and peppers in a blender. Add 1/4 cup oil to blender. Add in the salt, oregano, cumin, and pressed garlic. Blend well.

There you go, mix it in with whatever meat you are making and reduce, and if making enchiladas, pour some of the sauce over the prepared tortillas and bake. Enjoy.