Pork Carnitas and Mexican Slaw: "I could eat this all day" says my husband.

My cooking motto should be "Stay calm and make mexican food".  There are so many variations that I love and almost all involve avocado and beer.  Tonight was a real fiesta at the Gerhards.  I made slow cooker pork carnitas, very easy and tasty.  But it was really the combination of spicy meat and the cool crunchy mexican slaw that got it the spot in the binder.  Add in a little creamy guacomole and as my husband announced;  "I could eat this all day".

Mexican Slaw

adapted from My Kitchen Addiction

Chop one small cabbage and two carrots.  I used the food processor for this work.  

Prepare the dressing by mixing together

2 T Dijon mustard

Zest and juice of one lime

1 jalapeno seeded and chopped fine

1 t cumin

salt and pepper to taste

slowly whisk in 1/4 cup olive oil

Combine dressing with the vegetables and allow to chill for 30 minutes

My favorite appetizer!  Guacamole and Spotted cow.

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas 

adapted from A Year of Inconvenience

2 lbs cubed pork shoulder.  Here I decided to be creative and used boneless pork country ribs.  My hope was to avoid the cubing.  Cubing 2 lbs of pork shoulder just wasn't appealing to me today.  However, the pork ribs weren't a breeze either and really didn't shred after cooking.  "Stay calm" I told myself because the result was still really good.

Top with 4 cloves garlic and 1/2 a sliced sweet onion in the slow cooker

Mix together

2 t dried oregano

2 t cumin

11/2 t ancho chili powder

1 t smoked paprika

1 t salt

1 t pepper

Dump and mix the whole thing together.  Cook on high for about 4 hours.  

The carnitas could be used in just about any Mexican dish imaginable.  Burrito, fajita, taco, whatever.  Plenty for the next day too.  As I suspected it was the Mexican version of my favorite Pork Ragu in the slow cooker.  Hasta manana pork carnitas.