Carnitas Soup

So, I enjoy adapting favorite recipes and making them "my own". Monday night I needed to prepare some soup for a potluck lunch at work the next day. I decided to adapt one of my favorite recipes, Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup...

Basically, I pulled out my crockpot...plugged it in (on LOW heat)...and started layering the following items inside:

1. 1 bottle of gluten free beer...I used Redbridge

2. Pour in one package of GF taco seasoning (I used McCormick's reduced sodium)

3. Add veggies/beans....adapt however you want! I used all canned, but you can use fresh things as well! I put in:

~ two cans of tomatos/chillies (one happened to be Rotel brand, the other was something else I can't remember...but usually I use all Rotel),

~two cans of diced tomatoes,

~one large can of black beans (drained, rinsed),

~two cans of hominy (drained, rinsed),

~two cans of dark red kidney beans (drained, rinsed)

3. Add meat...I used 2.5 lbs of pork loin...just plopped it into the middle of the mess of beans/veggies and covered it up by spooning veggies/beans on top.

4. The soup looked kinda thick so I added 3 cups of water...could also use some kind of stock (when I've made chicken taco soup this way, I use chicken stock for a bit more liquid)

5. Add some more seasoning if you want...I sprinkled some cumin, salt, and fresh-ground pepper on top.

6. Cover and let your crock pot work it's magic! I cooked it over night for 7 hours on low, then brought it to work and cooked for 3 more hours on low. Clearly it would very...but this turned out pretty dang deliciously!

7. Shred your meat (pork here). When I woke up in the morning (which happened to be 4:30am since I was going to a spinning class prior to work!), I pulled out the pork (which was falling-apart-tender) and shredded it quickly on a cutting board, and then put it back into the soup and gave it a good stir.

8. Serve with any appropriate accompaniments...tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream, bread...whatever! :)

The crock pot was scraped to the very bottom at the lunch...so I think that was a good sign :).

Here's a picture of some of the "leftover" (I reserved some of it to keep at home. Actually, it's going to be our dinner tonight!).

Enjoy!!!

(aside...someday I'll get a "real" camera and learn how to take "real" photos :))