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 :))

Party Time!

Tonight I am having some friends over for a birthday party...my friends Jami, Abbey, Sarah, Laura, and myself all have a birthday within a month of one another! Mine was first, back on October 28, and everyone else's is between now and the end of November! So, we decided to have a little birthday party for us :).

So as not to have to deal with restaurants, I volunteered to play hostess and host the event at our place. We decided to do somewhat of a Mexican theme (so easy!). I volunteered to make the "main course": Chicken Taco Soup, as well as dessert: vanilla gluten-free cake with chocolate gluten-free frosting!

I got the soup recipe in a daily e-mail I get from a fabulous website, Gluten Free Checklist. Here's the fabulous-sounding recipe...

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
Ingredients 1 onion, chopped
1 (16 oz.) can gluten free chili beans
1 (15 oz.) can black beans
1 (15 oz.) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 bottle of Redbridge gluten free beer
2 (10 oz.) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 package gluten free taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
Shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
Sour cream (optional)
Crushed tortilla chips (optional)

Directions
Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours. Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled and shredded. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded Cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips, if desired.

I put the soup together last night and put the crock from my crock pot in the fridge....

This morning, I set up the timer for 5 hours (I turned it on around 7am), knowing I would be able to come home over lunch to shred the chicken. I shredded the chicken...and the soup smells great! Kinda spicy, but great :). Well, I am sure I will use lots of cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips with my bowl of soup to cool down the spicy-ness a bit! Oh, and I left out the onion...I don't particularly like onion and I knew there were enough flavors in all of the other things. I am sure it will be fine without the stinkin' onion. We'll see! So, now the crock pot timer is set to two hours, and after the final two hours of cooking it will move to the "warm" setting until we are ready to devour it this evening! :) I'm excited to try it!

After I had the soup safely in the fridge last night, I started in on the cake. I used a mix (how lazy of me! ;) ) because I also had to make my husband some cookies to take to work today, so I wanted to maximize what I could get done in a minimal amount of time. The mix, Arrowhead Mills' Gluten Free Vanilla, I purchased earlier this week at Naturally Yours, our local organic/health food store. All I had to add to the mix was oil, water, and eggs.

I sampled a tiny little crumb bite from the top of the cake after it came out of the oven, and it seemed pretty tasty!

For frosting, I used a great-sounding gluten-free chocolate frosting recipe on the back of the box...it was awesome (I licked the bowl after frosting the cake! :) ).

I am excited for tonight...I love hosting dinner parties! :)