Author: Shane

Shredded Beer-Pork Tacos

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The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.

The Reason:

The reason is pork tacos.

The Journey:

This recipe requires a can of beer. Pretty much *any* can of beer. So use whatever you have, but I don’t see any particular reason to use a *good* can of beer.

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I have had pork tacos before, but these have a magic trick. The magic trick is not to drink the other 5 cans of beer. That is not a magic trick; it may or may not help you enjoy pork tacos.

The magic trick is that, after you cook the pork all day in the crockpot, you cook it again. All the little pork pieces get crispy and delicious, and this is a waaaay better magic trick than drinking 5 beers.

(I remind you, the beer was “Name Tag”. Excuse me, “Name Tag Classic”. The magic trick would be keeping 5 cans of Name Tag Classic down.)

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Crispy, crispy, criiiiispy pork

The Verdict:

This makes an amazing taco, and a lot of them too, so it’s good for serving a lot of people. We have served it to company. We have served it for birthday parties. We have served it for Christmas dinner. I am not joking.

This is a taco worthy of Christmas dinner.

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The Recipe:

Recipe adapted from The Yummy Life.

  • 4 lbs.-ish boneless pork roast
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 large onion, minced
  • 2 cups salsa verde (store bought, or homemade)
  • 12 oz. beer
  1. Place pork in slow cooker. Pour on the beer. Also add beer to pork (ha ha). Sprinkle on the black pepper; top with the garlic, onions, and salsa verde.
  2. Cover and cook on high for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, or on low for 7 – 9 hours, until fork tender.
  3. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  4. Transfer cooked pork to cutting board and shred it using two forks; discard fat. Degrease the cooking liquid left in the pan.
  5. Spread out the shredded pork in a large, shallow baking pan. Pour up to 3 cups of degreased cooking liquid over the pork.
  6. Bake uncovered for 30 min. or until crispy pieces appear on top. Remove from oven and stir. Return to oven for 30 minutes or until crispy pieces appear again on top. Repeat baking, crisping, and stirring in 20 min. intervals until all or most of the liquid is gone from the bottom of pan. For a moister meat, cook until approx. 1/4″ liquid remains on bottom of pan, stirring remaining liquid back into the shredded pork. For dryer/crisper meat, cook until all liquid had cooked away.

 

A Very Chicago New Year’s Eve

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For New Year’s Eve we decided to plan a day in the city, something we don’t do as often as we should. We started with seeing Hansel and Gretel by the Emerald City Theater (right on Michigan Ave., in Water Tower Place). I really enjoyed the show. We see a decent amount of children’s theater, but this was really of the highest quality, probably the best we’ve seen with the kids. This was our first one by Emerald City Theater, and I think we will try to see a lot more shows here.

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 Ollie said, “I want a picture with the witch.”

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 Evie was very reluctant to take this picture, even though Gretel was her favorite.

Next we went to lunch at the Signature Room, on the 95th floor of the Hancock. I had never been up in the Hancock at all, and I thought the kids would enjoy it. I have to say, I was a bit impressed. The food wasn’t anything to write home about, but it wasn’t bad by any stretch, and the views were as advertised. If I’m going to pay to go up a tall building, I would much rather have a nice lunch (and a full belly!) to show for it.

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Luckily there was a New Year’s Eve buffet that day, so everyone was happy. Did I mention there was an *awesome* hot cocoa bar?

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Afterwards, we ended the evening in style: with games, puzzles, and (of course) popcorn. Maaaybe there was a little ice cream. After Ollie went to bed, we let Evie stay up and play some “grown up” games with us. (Forbidden Island and Bohnanza…ages 13 and up! She was excited.)

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Here’s to a happy 2015!

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Gryffindor Scarf

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I was in a homemade name exchange this year. I wanted to do something nice, that anybody could enjoy if they wanted, but also something that fit my personality a little bit. In other words, something geeky. I finally settled on a Gryffindor scarf.

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The scarf is knit in the round, so it is double-thick. There’s nothing particularly complicated about it, other than the fact that it is very, very long.

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In retrospect, I probably should have picked something that was a little less time consuming. I started this back in about September, and since that time, I have spent most of my free time working on it. I can knit while watching tv or some other distraction, but I knit a little bit slower. I timed myself many times during the making of this scarf and discovered I could do about 5 rows an hour while distracted. Each band of color is 25 rows, and there are 19 bands. Add in the fringe, weaving in the ends, etc. and I think it’s safe to say I spent about 100 hours working on it. Luckily, I finished just in the nick of time, at about 10 p.m. the night before the name exchange.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone makes an excellent fringe-measuring tool!

However, I’m very pleased with how it all came out. It’s a really nice scarf. My step-father ended up winning it, so I’m glad it’s staying in the (immediate) family.

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Towards the end, I kept saying, “After this, I am taking a break from knitting!” However, now that it’s done, I don’t know what to do with myself. While I was working on the scarf, I always had something to do when I had a free moment. I think I might need another project just to keep myself occupied!

On the other hand, maybe I just need to find a way to make scarves by magic…

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Food Timeline

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I was recently pointed to this food timeline website, which lists the years when foods were introduced to our diets. That probably doesn’t sound like fascinating information, but this captured my imagination.

Consider:

  • High Fructose Corn Syrup didn’t appear until 1967. That’s 14 years after marshmallow peeps were invented.
  • Betty Crocker’s Cake Mix appeared 33 years before Yukon gold potatoes were invented.
  • Girl Scout Cookies were created before popsicles.
  • Nobody thought to put peanut butter & jelly together until 1901 – that’s after Jell-O, Campbell’s soup and Candy Corn. Heck, it’s 10 years after someone invented Fig newtons.
  • Conversation Hearts have been around since 1866.
  • LOLLIPOPS PREDATE EATING SQUIRREL.

Do you think that years from now they’ll look at this list and say, “They didn’t invent test tube burgers until 2013?” or “It took them 204 years to evolve from doughnuts to cronuts?”

Go ahead, fall down the rabbit hole. Anything jump out at you? What do you see that’s interesting?

Quote Monday is indignant

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Ollie: “I couldn’t sleep because Evie kept asking me if I was awake.”
::Evie looks indignant::
Me: “Well, did you keep asking him if he was awake?”
Evie: “Not while he was asleep!”

Ollie, singing: “…Four calling birds, three French heads…”

Now THAT’S a Christmas carol…

Kid in Ollie’s class runs up to Sara: “We’re not made of chicken.”
Sara: “What?”
Kid: “Ollie said you said we were made from chickens. We’re not. We’re made of monkeys.”