It’s almost the New Year (how on earth did that happen?  is it me, or is each year shorter than the last? ), which has me planning our menu for New Year’s Day.  Have to eat the right foods to put ourselves on the right food for a prosperous 2017.

A lot of families have food traditions to ring in the new year.  My mother in law grew up in the south, so we always have to have black-eyed-peas on January 1.  I grew up always having pork.  We both had greens of some sort.  Over the years, we started having Carnitas for the pork, Cowboy Caviar for the black-eyed-peas, and whatever greens sound good.

Ingredients (serves 8-12 depending on size of roast):

• 3-5 pound Pork Shoulder Roast (you can also use a pork loin roast, but not a pork tenderloin – those don’t lend themselves as well to slow cooking)
• 1 TB each of garlic powder, cumin and chili powder (combined)
• 1 TB olive oil (optional – see below)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 chipotle peppers from a can of chipotle in adobe sauce (chopped) (reserve sauce – see below)
• 1 TB minced garlic
• 1/2 c orange juice
• Juice of 2 limes
• 2 tsp of the reserved adobo sauce
• 1/2 c beer (or beef or chicken broth if you prefer)

Instructions:

1. Rub the roast all over with the spice mixture.
2. Heat 1 TB of oil in a large pan, and brown roast, turning, so that alls sides get browned.  Or, if at this point you are thinking, hey crazy lady, I googled crockpot or slow cooker recipes because I’m pressed for time and I’m not dirtying another pan  I just want to throw this in the crockpot and start it, just…
3. Place in crock pot/slow cooker (it will still be good without the browning, I do it both ways, depending on my mood and time constraints).
4. Add onion to crock pot/slow cooker.
5. Top roast with minced garlic and chopped chipotle peppers.
6. Mix together juices, adobo sauce and beer (or broth) and pour into crockpot around the roast.
7. Cook on low 8-10 hours.
8. Shred.
9. You can be done here, but when I have time, I like to then take the shredded pork and place it in a baking dish, ladle the sauce over, and broil it in the oven until it gets a bit crisp.  Instead of broiling, you can also heat oil in a large pan and put the shredded pork in that, pressing down, until it gets nice and crispy, and then flip and do the other side.  Make sure to reserve some sauce for gravy/dipping.
10. We serve this with tortillas, chopped tomatoes and jalapeno and Cowboy Caviar.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!