Meal Monday: Spicy Pulled Pork Tostadas

Do you follow Shrinking Kitchen?  If you don't, you really should.  Every weekend, they post a menu for the week that can totally take the guesswork out of menu planning.  Last week, the ladies at Shrinking Kitchen posted some serious winners.  This is my take on their Spicy Pulled Pork Tostadas with Lime Cumin Slaw.  It was absolutely AMAZING and the family ate it up - even my girl who claims to not really like Mexican food.  You can click on the link up there to get their recipe plus they have a fancy ZipList plugin so you can save it.  I made a couple changes but for the most part followed it pretty much as written.  I noted my changes below.

Ingredients (these are Shrinking Kitchen's directions with my notes)

1 - 2 lb pork shoulder (I used 2 pounds and it was barely enough for the 4 of us after it cooked down)

1 onion, quartered

3 garlic cloves, smashed

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano (mine was ground oregano)

1/8 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon chili flake (I used red pepper flakes)

1/2 bottle beer (I used Oberon from Bell's Kalamazoo Brewing - it's a wheat and worked perfectly)

16 small corn tortillas

For the Slaw

1 head napa cabbage, chopped

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/4 cup sweet corn (from the cob or frozen) - I used about 1/2 a can of Del Monte Summer Crisp Corn

1/4 cup chopped cilantro - I used more like 1/2 a cup

1 tablespoon jalapeño pepper (seeds removed if you're sensitive to heat) - I used 1/2 a jalapeno 

1 teaspoon cumin

juice of 1 lime - about 1 Tbsp lime juice from a bottle

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

2 tablespoon fat free plain yogurt - I used Greek yogurt

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Rinse pork shoulder and pat dry, place in slow cooker. (I also trimmed quite a bit of the fat away.)
2. Add onion, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, oregano, brown sugar and chili flake to the bowl of a food processor.
3. Pulse until you have a paste. (Do not use a blender and put a silicone spatula into it while it's moving, unless you like picking out pieces of plastic from your food.)
4. With clean hands, give the pork shoulder a massage with the paste mixture. Get in every nook and cranny.
5. Pour the beer into the slow cooker.
6. Cover and cook on high heat for 4 hours or low heat for 6.  (I probably cooked mine closer to 8 hours on low and it turned out fine.)
7. Remove the pork from the slow cooker and use two forks to shred.  Get rid of any of the fat you see.
For the Slaw
8. In a large bowl, whisk together lime juice, olive oil, yogurt, cumin, honey, salt and pepper.
9. Add the cabbage, red pepper, corn, cilantro and jalapeno.
10. Toss together gently and place in the fridge for at least an hour.  (I did this step at lunch time and it seemed like a huge amount, but by dinner time it had "shrunk".)  
To Assemble Tostadas
11. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat.
12. Spray corn tortillas with olive oil spray and place in the skillet.
13. Warm the tortillas until they reach your desired level of crispness.  I kept mine soft enough to fold like a taco but you could make them crispy and flat like an actual tostada if you wanted.
14. Place two tortillas on a plate, and add shredded pork, slaw and any other toppings you like: light sour cream, pico de gallo, avocado or light shredded cheese work well.  I just put extra cilantro and a squirt of lime on each of mine.  

I still have 1/2 a pork shoulder in the freezer, so I wouldn't be surprised if this makes it into the rotation again this week.  It really was delicious and I LOVED the slaw.  I'd probably even kick up the heat a little bit more next time.  I had enough left over for one taco for lunch the next day - it reheated great but was much better the night before with corn tortillas rather than the flour tortilla I used for lunch.

   

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