Looking for a quick Mexican dish? Pork Carnitas Tacos are great for any day of the week! Just add sour cream, salsa, and cheese for an easy and tasty meal.
Ingredients
7 cups water
2 pounds Pork butt trimmed, and cut in 2″ cubes
4 cloves garlic, crushed sea salt and ground pepper to taste
1 teaspoon olive oil
½ cup orange juice
½ cup milk
24 Corn Tortillas
Salsa Fresca
Avocado slices
Chopped cilantro
Chopped onion
Limes cut into wedges
Procedure
Step 1 – In a large Dutch oven add the pork, garlic, salt and pepper, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer over medium low for 45 minutes to one hour. Drain well.
Step 2 – When cool enough to handle, shred the meat by hand or with the tines of a fork. Remove and discard any remaining fat. Transfer back to Dutch oven and heat the olive oil. Add the orange juice and milk and cook until liquid has evaporated and pork has browned; stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Step 3 – Chop onions and cilantro, and slice avocado and limes. Place each in small individual bowls for serving.
Step 4 – Heat tortillas in a dry frying pan and keep warm.
Step 5 – For each taco, stack 2 tortillas and layer with warm carnitas, chopped cilantro, onion and avocado slices and give it a good squeeze of lemon juice.
Stocking your pantry can seem daunting, but if you start with the essentials and work your way toward more specific ingredients, your pantry will be stocked in no time!
These are the essential six staples to always have on hand: salt, pepper, olive oil, vegetable oil, all-purpose flour, and granulated sugar.
Once you have these, you can start working on canned goods, such as chicken stock or broth, canned tomatoes and tomato sauce, canned beans: white, black, kidney, and tuna.
Does your family eat a lot of pasta? Do you prepare stir-fries and other Asian dishes? Stock up on what you like to eat like pasta (in various shapes, strands, and tubes), long-grain white rice, lentils, split peas, and dried bread crumbs.
An excellent place to find coupons is in the grocery store. But it can be a challenging task for thrifty shoppers to keep up with shopping lists, clipped coupons plus spot all the coupons displayed throughout the store. Luckily most manufactures realize this and have product promotions that are brightly colored which catch your eye, dispensers with blinking lights, and “pop up” ads that are quickly spotted.
As you become more familiar with what the coupon dispenser look like and where they are generally placed, it will become easier to find them and take advantage of the offers.
Blinkies (SmartSource Coupon Machines) are small red dispensers that blink in order to attract shoppers. They contain coupons and are usually located on store shelves in front of the promoted product. The coupons can be used in any store which accepts coupons.
Peelies are coupons which are attached directly to the product. Remove the coupon stickers from the item and hand it to the cashier when you check out. Generally cashiers will not redeem the coupon if it is left on the package.
Tear Pads are pads with coupons or rebate forms attached and are usually located on the shelf or displayed near the advertised product.
Citrus Red 2, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3, which include some of the most commonly used artificial food colorings, have all been identified as being, or being contaminated with, potential cancer-causing chemicals, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. And Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 are known to trigger reactions in those with allergies.
Until the twentieth century, food coloring could only be obtained from what people found in nature. Ancient Romans used saffron and other spices to put a rich yellow color into various foods. Other frequently used natural colors included paprika, turmeric, beet extract, and petals of various flowers.
The science of food coloring evolved from there and technology created a new kind of dye derived from coal tar, a waste product of coal gas and coke. The synthetic dyes came to be known at coal-tar colors and they are what we still use today.
Today, the FDA suggested that problems associated with artificial coloring might be akin to a peanut allergy or intolerance to these substances and not to any inherent toxic properties of the colorings themselves, according to the New York Times.
But this may not be accurate, according to a 2004 Southampton University study covered by the BBC. A team of researchers found that adding food colors to children’s diets increased hyperactivity rates in all young children, not just those who were allergic to food colorings or who had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
One of the most common complaints among coupon clippers is the difficulty in finding coupons for products they like. A keen eye can often help solve this problem because often manufacturers include valuable coupons and rebate forms inside or on product packaging. So the next time you go to throw away the packaging from a product you enjoy, check it out, you might find a valuable coupon.
Places to look on packages for coupons include:
- Removable labels on canned foods and jars.
- Lids of cans or bottle caps.
- Cardboard covers on frozen foods.
- On the paper which wraps around soaps and candy.
- Tiny folded coupons within the product, such as in dog foods.
- Printed instructions. Example – hair color products.
Also, some manufacturers include printed codes on the product packaging which can be entered at the manufacture’s Web site in exchange for a coupon or premium item.
According to ChicagoBusiness.com, customers can look forward to seeing deep discounts on daily items such as half-priced shellfish thanks to a collaboration between coupon website Groupon.com and the Big Y Food grocery chain.
This is a new pilot program for Groupon to test ways to expand. The difference with this program and the existing Groupon program is that customers who purchase a daily Big Y Foods Groupon will not have to print a coupon. Instead the discount will be processed through their Big Y Foods loyalty card during checkout.
The fact that the process is handled through loyalty cards and not with paper coupons will certainly make the program more appealing to larger grocery store chains. The fact that coupons will not be used with this program should also work in Groupon’s favor.
Citrus is a must in any cook or baker’s kitchen! Aside from the tasty tinge they add to any dish, citrus is rich in vitamin C and other healthful necessities that help build your body strong into old age.
Grapefruit
The crop of pink, red and white grapefruit is bountiful, and the fruit is sweet and luscious. Color is not an indicator of sweetness, and white grapefruit are no sweeter or more sour than pink or red varieties. Most types can be used interchangeably for juicing, or to cut in half and eat for snacks with a grapefruit spoon. (Star ruby grapefruit, a type of dark, red-fleshed fruit, is too crunchy to eat easily with a grapefruit spoon.) Florida grapefruit are easy to peel and excellent for sectioning. Use three colors of grapefruit to make a rainbow fruit salad, or add to ambrosia or spinach, avocado and red onion salad.
Sunburst Tangerines
This variety is what most people envision when they think of a tangerine. The fruit is small, with a dark orange, loose rind that practically falls off the fruit. They have a bright, sweet, juicy flavor and plenty of seeds. Because they’re easy to peel, these are great packed in lunch bags. Remove the seeds and toss sections in salads, layer in cakes or sprinkle over vanilla ice cream.
Meyer Lemons
These large, thin-skinned lemons are seldom sold commercially, but the trees are popular for landscaping. So, if a neighbor offers some off a backyard tree, take them. They have abundant juice. They are sweeter than supermarket lemons, so they make excellent lemonade. Use the juice also in marinades, sauces and cakes and frostings.
For any college student or first-time cook, cooking can seem a daunting task. But here, we’ll teach you how to cook one of a cook’s most basic side dishes: rice.
Get out a nice heavy pan with a tight fitting lid and use any version of long-grained rice that you’d like. (One cup dry makes about three cups cooked). Using this measurement, pour as much as you’d like into the pan.
Level the rice in the pot and place your index finger so that it just touches the surface of the rice. Add water until the level comes just up to the crease at the backside of the top of the first knuckle on your index finger. Crank the heat up on the stove quite high and put the pot of rice on the burner. Stir the rice lightly before it comes to a boil, just once, so it doesn’t stick. Let it come to a full, rolling boil, then lower the heat to about medium. Let it boil undisturbed until the free water evaporates and little holes appear in the surface of the rice.
When this stage is reached, immediately lower the heat to the lowest setting possible cover the rice and let it simmer and steam for about twenty minutes. Don’t stir the rise and try not to lift the lid until the time has elapsed. When the time has passed you will have a pot of perfectly cooked rice. Fluff it a bit when you put it in the serving dish.
The grocery store produce section provides another reminder that most of the U.S. is in for a change of season. As the bins of summer plums, peaches and nectarines diminish, the space devoted to apples will expand. According to the International Apple Institute, Red and Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, McIntosh and Rome apples remain our favorites. However, American apple producers are harvesting several new varieties we’re likely to find in grocery stores.
For a change of pace, look for Empire, Fuji, Gala and Jonagold apples. The first three should be available at least through December, while the Jonagold has a relatively short season from mid-September through October. All are recommended for eating fresh as snacks and in salads. The American Apple Institute lists the Fuji as an “all purpose” apple, meaning it is good for eating raw as well as cooked, and Jonagolds are good for baking.
Whether or not you find these new apples this season may depend somewhat upon how close you are to the primary growing areas. Empire apples, a dark red cross between McIntosh and Red Delicious, are being grown primarily in the East and Upper Midwest. They’re described as crisp, juicy and mildly tart. California and Washington are the primary production sites for Fuji apples. Originally produced in Japan, these greenish-yellow apples with a red blush are crisp, juicy and sweet. Gala apples are sweet, orange-yellow colored and available nationally. Despite their short season, Jonagolds should also be available in most markets. Look for their bright red over gold color and expect a sweet, tangy, juicy apple.
To nobody’s surprise, pizza is often the food of choice for kids’ parties. You can order it (the chains will deliver to a park if the party’s not at your house), but making it can be a fun activity to build the party around. You can buy the dough from a neighborhood pizzeria or Italian market or buy pizza shells at the supermarket. You can make the sauce or use bottled. You can let the kids grate the cheese, or you do it in advance. Have an assortment of toppings — pepperoni, cooked ground beef, veggies — and let the kids help assemble the pizzas. Then you bake them: pizza takes about 10 minutes at 500 degrees. You could also start with frozen mini-pizzas and let each child have his or her own.
Offer juice, lemonade, water and/or milk as well as soft drinks so that children have a choice. Mix orange sherbet and ginger ale for a fizzy, creamy treat that kids like. Or offer jazzy, fizzy treats by mixing white grape juice with seltzer and crushed ice. (The purple juice makes stains and the other parents will remember you with loathing every time they do the laundry.)