Pork Carnitas

My big brother, Justin, shared with me this recipe for pork carnitas. We had it for dinner tonight and it was so deliciously yummy that I'm thinking about opening a taco truck on the corner. Thanks for a great dinner Justin!

Pork Carnitas

Put a pork roast in a crock pot and cover it with water. Cut up an onion and put in there. Zest an orange and put that and the peel in as well. Boil on low for 3 hours. Add in a can of coke and keep boiling for another couple hours. Just be sure to watch it through all this to make sure the liquid isn’t all boiling off. If it’s looking low just add more water. When it’s ready, drain off the liquid and shred. Put the shredded pork in a roasting pan and put in the oven on 400 degrees for a half hour. Check it every 10 min, stirring it up. You could occasionally pour some of the liquid that it boiled in to keep it moist. The roasting sugar from the coke will make the tips of the meat crispy.

Take it out and serve in warmed corn or flour tortillas with fresh pico de gallo (salsa would be ok, but fresh tomatoes, onion, cilantro is AWESOME on this). You could add guacamole if you want. Cut up some limes and serve on the side. People can squish as much lime juice onto them as they want. (Great with hot sauce and/or chili peppers).

I made these just like it's described above except I used root beer instead of Coke. I made pico de gallo for the first time using this recipe:

Pico de Gallo

8-10 Roma tomatoes (seeded)
□ 1/2-1 red onion (to taste)
□ 1 jalapeno pepper (or more to taste)
□ 2 medium cloves garlic
□ juice of one lime
□ 1 tablespoon olive oil
□ 4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
□ 1 teaspoon coarse salt
□ 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Seed and dice tomatoes. Chop onion, jalapeno and garlic to a fine consistency. To these ingredients, add the fresh cilantro, salt, pepper, olive oil and lime. Mix well.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Best if served the next day.

I made this just like it says to, but didn't have 3 hours to let it sit. I served it right away on the carnitas and it was delicious! We had corn and rice as our side dishes. Enjoy!