Tacostacostacos

There are quite a few ways to feed a crowd, but I almost always go with TACOS. We had visitors on Saturday and here's the filling that I made, served along with the usual toppings.

Pineapple Chipotle Carnitas

5# pork picnic shoulder or butt
2 cans diced tomatoes with chiles
12 oz beer, or hard cider, or regular cider
1/2 - 1 can chipotle sauce (depending how spicy you like it)
1 can pineapple tidbits
1 small onion, diced
1 head garlic, chopped
ground cumin
Adobo all purpose seasoning

How I did it:

Trim all the big chunks of fat off of the pork. Sprinkle Adobo and cumin all over the pork, and rub it on in. Set aside. Heat a big pan or wok on med-high, add about 1T oil, then saute' the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent. Remove the onions and garlic from the pan and return to heat. Add another 2T of oil, the sear the pork on all sides.

Transfer pork to roasting pan or crockpot. Add all of the other ingredients. If cooking in the oven, cover with foil. Cook on 350F for 3-4 hours, or in the crock pot on low for 8-10. The longer that this cooks, the softer the meat will get. You want to be able to shred it easily with a fork.

The easiest way to do that is the two-fork method, holding the meat with one fork and shredding with the grain with the other fork. If you've cooked the meat long enough, this is super easy. If you have to fight with the meat, you need to cook it longer. You can do this right in the pan, and mix it with all of the chunky bits and cooking juice before serving.

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I actually did a 10# shoulder - it fed 10 of us and I have an insane amount of leftovers. We should have had them for dinner last night, but someone was drinking drinks that taste like candy and someone really needed Chinese food while she lay on the couch watching Dollhouse and regretting her folly.

Someone = me