Not Your Traditional Carnitas

Wow, eating healthy has never been so delicious. I love preparing my meals at home. Nothing beats a homemade meal. Not only do you have control over the ingredients but it tastes so much better and you get the satisfaction of knowing you are doing your best at leading a healthy lifestyle. 

In my last post I mentioned working with Mazola® and agreeing to prepare and review their recipes. They sent along product as well as a token of thank you in exchange for an honest review.  As promised, here is recipe #2 in that series. 

Pork Carnitas with Tomatillo Salsa

Servings: 4 
Yield: 4 servings
1 pound pork shoulder
2 tablespoons Mazola® Corn Oil
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon Chipotle peppers in Adobe sauce 
2 tomatillos, finely chopped
1/2 cup tomatoes, finely chopped
1/4 cup coarsely chopped parsley
4 flour tortillas

Combine chopped tomatillos, tomatoes and parsley in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Cut pork into 1 inch cubes; season with salt and pepper. 

Heat oil in large skillet or Dutch oven. Add pork, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder and chipotle peppers in adobe sauce (the original recipe called for 1/4 tsp Chipotle chili powder which I didn't have - this sauce worked great); saute 3 to 5 minutes to brown the meat.

Add enough water to barely cover pork. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to simmer an additional 45 minutes or until liquid has evaporated.

Place an equal amount of pork on each tortilla. Top with tomatillo salsa. Garnish with shredded cheese and sour cream if desired.

Enjoy!

The carnitas took more time than I realized, because I didn't pay attention to detail, but was worth the wait. Preparing this ahead would make an easy weeknight meal for those busy days. They're definitely not your traditional carnitas but so yummy nonetheless.

Click here to see the recipe that inspired my version

Another easy, delicious and nutritious dish that's sure to be a part of my menu rotation. 

Give it a try. You won't regret it!

If you are interested in reading more about Mazola® Corn Oil click here.
 

Want more tasty recipes from Mazola®? Find them here.

Bison - The New Healthy Red Meat

When I was contacted a few months ago by Allrecipes and was asked if I was interested in working with bison I jumped at the chance. My husband is an avid white tail deer hunter and loves all things "meat" so I knew he wouldn't have been very happy with me if I passed up this opportunity. Plus I was kinda excited to try something new that he would be willing to eat.  Allrecipes had teamed up with The Bison Council and were looking for home cooks to try some bison and spread the word about how healthy bison is. Here is one fascinating tidbit about bison - it has 45% fewer calories, 88% less fat and 88% less saturated fat than beef. Now that's huge.  Check out more of their nutrition information here on their Health & Nutrition page.

Sixty home cooks like me elected to try bison and Allrecipes sent us a list of twenty-five recipes to choose from one afternoon. The list of recipes had a variety of bison cuts to choose from. Anywhere from bison dogs to tenderloin. Oh how I would love to get my hands on a bison tenderloin. Now, since I work outside the home and I don't have access 24/7 to the internet or have a smartphone, some of my fellow cooks were able to see this list of recipes and make their choice before I even knew the list was posted. Call me envious - that's ok :) By the time I got to the list my choices were limited. I remember there were bison dogs, bacon and brisket left and maybe a couple more that seemed to have left my memory. I chose the brisket recipe knowing my meat loving husband would love the fact that we would be getting a five pound brisket delivered to us from The Bison Council. Imagine our excitement when we found out we would be getting twice the amount of brisket we thought we would. Ten pounds of brisket to try is a lot of brisket! Talk about being overwhelmed by the generosity!  So we waited patiently for September to roll around and for the delivery man to show up at our doorstep with our bison. And this is what we got!

The bison brisket came to us frozen tucked away neatly in a Styrofoam cooler along with freezer packs. It arrived on a very warm Friday morning and I can't believe it was still frozen solid when I opened it. Now that's some good packing!

I chose to make Beer-Braised Bison Brisket with Root Vegetables using the slow cooker. Now I don't normally have good luck using a slow cooker. Things usually turn out overcooked and smelling weird so I was a little leery of trying this method. I considered baking it in my enameled cast iron french oven but decided in all fairness that I must make the recipe per the instructions in order to give honest feedback. Here is my finished product:

Beer-Braised Bison with Root Vegetables

This turned out delicious. Not only did I get to try one new ingredient but this recipe calls for dried apricots, turnips and parsnips that I had never had before. I couldn't find the parsnips so I left those out but I found out I enjoy turnips and love the dried apricots (they may just become a new snack for me).

Please take a moment and check out more information about bison on The Bison Council's webpage and see just how healthy bison is. You'll be amazed at what you find out.  And be sure to browse Allrecipes for all sorts of recipes.

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.   Product received from an Advertiser is only used for experience based reviews on this site. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Livin' Life - One Spoonful At A Time.  

•