Carnitas Soft Tacos

This dish is an experiment, because neither of us have ever cooked it. I just had my first taste of Carnitas a year ago, and Mikie has never made this before. She is pretty familiar with all of the ingredients, and we were eager to find another dish that we could use our picnic roasts with.

Traditionally, Carnitas are cooked with lard, but we opted to go with olive oil and chicken broth has a healthier alternative and quicken the cooking process.


We prepared fresh ingredients like oranges, red onions, avocados, lime juice and green chiles, using these fruits and vegetables together to brighten up the dish.

Aside from being really pretty to look at, it was really delicious. It kind of reminded me of our pulled pork dish a little bit, but we cooked it with green chiles and used other Mexican ingredients and spices to make it a completely different rendition.



COOKING DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pork in large pot with olive oil on medium high heat until the pork is tender in center. Add Chicken Broth to avoid burning the meat and the bottom of the pan.Takes roughly 30 minutes to cook through. Finish in oven for another 15 to 20 minutes.



INGREDIENTS

• 1 Small Can of Diced Green Chiles
• 1/2 Cup of Chicken Broth
• 2 Pork Picnic Roasts
• 1/2 a Red Onion
• Sliced Avocados
• Sliced Oranges
• Squeezed Orange Juice
• Squeezed Lime Juice
• 1 Clove Chopped Garlic
• Salt & Pepper to Taste

Lentil Soup

If you haven't noticed it's been a while since we've updated our blog. Our whole family caught a cold. In case you don't know... when you have kids, if somebody gets sick, the whole family is going to catch it. There's just no way around it, especially when people don't know how to cover their mouths when they cough.




Seeing as though none of us has had much of an appetite lately, it's been tough to want to drag ourselves out of bed to fix dinner. Mikie thought some good hearty soup might by just the prescription we all needed to get us back up on our feet.





This Lentil soup recipe is really easy to make and is a sure-fire home remedy in the same league as chicken soup. This doesn't take long to prepare and won't keep you out of bed for hours cooking. It's a great vegetarian recipe (aside from the chicken broth) to prepare when you're sick and want to fix something that will warm your insides quickly.



INGREDIENTS

• 2 Cans of Swanson's Chicken Broth
• 2 Cans of Swanson's Vegetable Broth
• 1/2 an Onion cut into large chunks
• 4 Potatoes peeled and diced
• 2 Carrots peeled and sliced thinly
• 3 Stalks of Celery sliced thin
• 1/2 a large Zucchini diced
• 2 Cups of Lentils
• 1 Sprig of Rosemary
• Salt & Pepper to taste
  

COOKING DIRECTIONS

Add all ingredients to a large pot and cook on medium heat until lentils are al dente and vegetables are cooked.