Daily Archives: 22 July 2015

Easy Crockpot Carnitas

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Serves: 10-12

Ingredients
4-5 lbs. pork shoulder
5 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon chipotle hot sauce
juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup orange juice
12 ounces beer
1/2 cup salsa

Instructions

Place the pork shoulder in the slow cooker. Roughly chop the garlic and place in the slow cooker.

Sprinkle the meat with salt, cumin, chili powder, black pepper, oregano, cinnamon, and cayenne. Rub seasonings onto the pork.

Add lime juice, orange juice, beer, and salsa. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

Shred meat with two forks directly in the slow cooker (or take out, shred, and replace in sauce). It should fall apart easily.

Preheat broiler. Line a baking sheet with aluminium foil. Place the shredded meat on the cooking sheet and pour a few spoonfuls of sauce over the top. Broil for 5-10 minutes or until you get browned edges on the pork.

Serve on tortillas with fresh cilantro, avocado, and lime juice.

Ranch Dressing

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Ranch Dressing

Creamy, delicious homemade ranch dressing.
(Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)


Where to begin?

This dressing is near iconic. Yes, most of us only know it from the commercial Hidden Valley Ranch product we’ve known for years.

But let’s go back in time, to when the dressing was made from scratch with no preservatives or anything fake.

Back to the original Hidden Valley Ranch itself, founded in 1954. (Read more at Wikipedia)

Mix some up, let the flavors come together as they chill in the fridge.

Then use it on a salad. Dip some cut vegetables into it. Dip some fries.

Taste the difference, you won’t want the bottled version any more.

Ingredients
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons sour cream
3 tablespoons Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chives, finely chopped
4 teaspoons lemon juice
1 medium clove of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

Makes: 1 1/3 cups

Instructions
Place all of the ingredients in a jar or other container with a tight fitting lid. Put the lid on tightly and shake to evenly distribute all the ingredients. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper as desired. Refrigerate until chilled and the flavors have melded, about 1 hour. The dressing will last about 3 days in the refrigerator.

Variants
Try using lime juice in place of the lemon juice.
Squirt a couple shots of Sriracha Sauce into the dressing for an extra zip of flavor.
Make your own mayonnaise to make this a truly homemade dressing.