Easy and delicious - homemade flour tortillas with pulled pork (carnitas)

One of the things I miss most from our years spent living in Los Angeles is the easy access to cheap and delicious Mexican food. We have had minimal luck finding authentic ('Californian') Mexican food since coming home 10 years ago so we decided it was up to us to try and re-create the flavours that we miss so much in our own home.

One of our favourite taco and burrito fillings is carnitas - braised or 'pulled' pork - tender, juicy and more-ish. So I attempted to make my own version of carnitas based on a braised pork ragu recipe I found in an old Donna Hay magazine. The result was quite literally, finger-licking good.

The recipe itself is easy - but takes about three hours to cook. The best thing about the ragu is that you can combine it with pasta, mash, couscous or rice. So just freeze any leftovers and pull out on a night when you are feeling too lazy/ tired to cook from scratch. Reheat, throw some gnocchi in a pot and you are good to go.

I have also included the recipe for home-made tortillas. Once you have tried these, you will never go back to the packaged ones. I love making food from scratch and knowing exactly what goes into the meals I prepare for my family.  Authentic, simple and delicious. Enjoy!

Carnitas/ Ragu

A pot that can be placed in the oven and used over a stove. If your pot can't do both, do as I do and prepare in a saucepan and then prior to placing in the oven, transfer the food into an oven-proof pot.
1 kg of pork roast or pork neck
plain flour to dust the pork with
2 tablespoons of olive oil
150 grams of chopped pancetta
1 medium-sized brown onion - chopped
2 carrots - peeled and chopped
2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 cups/ 500ml of red wine (don't forget to taste it just to ensure it tastes ok - that's my excuse)
2 cups/ 500ml chicken stock
4 bay leaves
4 sprigs of thyme
6 sprigs of oregano
Patience (it will smell delicous and you will want to devour it almost immediately)

Preheat the oven to 180C.
I chopped up my roast into 4 portions. Dust the pork in flour and give it a good shake to remove any excess.
Add the oil to your pot and heat. Time to brown the pork so pop it in- should take about 2 or 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Throw the pancetta into the pot and cook for 3 minutes. Add the onion, garlic and carrot and cook for about 7 minutes on medium heat.
Follow this with the tomato paste and cook for another minute. Add the wine (again, I just take a quick sip to ensure it's still ok) and cook for 3 minutes - don't forget to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any food that may be sticking to the bottom.
In goes the stock, tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves and oregano. Give it a good stir and return the pork to the pot.
Cover with a tight-fitting lid and pop it into the oven for 2 hours.
Once the two hours are done, shred the pork using two forks, return it to the sauce and get ready for some lip-smacking goodness.

Tortillas

Ingredients

3 cups of plain flour

1 cup of warm water

1 teaspoon of salt

1/3 cup of vegetable oil (I use Rice Bran Oil)

1 can Spray-On Oil (vegetable or olive)

Mix all of the ingredients together. 

Roll dough into a large ball. 

Pull off palm-sized balls of the dough and either push into a flat, thin circle in your hands or use a rolling pin to do it. The key is thin and round. It may take a few goes to get it right - it took me a couple but managed to master it surprisingly early. 

Spray a frying pan with olive oil (or vegetable oil)

Place tortilla on the pan and cook until the familiar brown spots start appearing on the tortilla. It shouldn't take long at all so keep an eye on them and make sure they don't over-cook.

I wrapped mine in aluminium foil to keep them warm whilst the others cooked.

You can make a simple salsa of chopped tomatoes, coriander and red onion to make it even more authentic. My kids love to throw in some lettuce and cheese to complete the soft-shelled tacos.

I hope you give this one a go - it really is delicious.

Delicious and healthy-ish Chia, Banana and Chocolate Muffins

I will begin by stating that baking and I are not a good mix. We are terrible together. Which is one of the reasons why I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after tasting these muffins which I (thankfully) successfully baked. With my own, bake-useless hands. Delicious - seriously so. They even bounced on the floor as opposed to my normal muffin attempts which just dented the floor when they fell. Success indeed.

I got the recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks - Chrissy Freer's Supergrains. As I have mentioned in past posts, I am on a mission to lift my family's diet to ultra-healthy levels and so I thought I would give it a go. I was a little hesitant - I assumed the recipes would be a bit meh (bland, tasteless, dull) but thankfully, I was completely wrong. Chrissy's recipes are not only ridiculously healthy but in my house, they are kid and husband friendly - the marker of true success.

This recipe can be tweaked to make it that little bit more healthy. Use wholemeal flour instead of normal flour - gluten-free if you have a gluten intolerance.  You can use fine brown sugar instead of caster sugar and you can always leave out the chocolate but seriously, why would you? Everyone deserves a bit of naughtiness every now and then. 

The chia seeds are fabulous in this recipe - they're a bit like poppy seeds but in my opinion, better. The reason? Apart from being delicious, they also happen to have the highest plant content of Omega 3 fatty acids and are very high in fibre. Throw in the fact that they are gluten-free and you have the triple whammy.

So treat yourself and enjoy Chrissy Freer's delicious Chia, Banana and Chocolate Muffins.

Preparation time: Approx 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups (300g) self-raising flour
2 tablespoons of black chia seeds (yum)
1/2 cup (45g) of dessicated coconut
2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar
1 cup (240g) of mashed bananas
100g of melted and cooled unsalted butter
1/2 cup (125ml) milk
2/3 cup milk chocolate 'bits'
* I always try and use as many organic products as possible. Our local supermarkets have a great range of organic 'basics'. 

The 'How To'

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F).
Brush a muffin tin (12 hole) with melted butter to grease or line with paper cases.

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the chia seeds, sugar and coconut. Mix with a wooden spoon before adding the melted butter, banana, and milk. Stir to combine but don't over-mix. If you have any chocolate bits left after no doubt nibbling on them along the way, pop them in and carefully fold into the mixture.

Divide the mixture into the muffin holes and bake for 20 minutes. Lick the spoon and the bowl. 

As tempting as it will be to stuff one straight into your mouth, set aside for 5 minutes to cool and then pop them onto a wire rack. 

Delicious.

Roast Lamb and Couscous/ Quinoa Salad on Pita Bread

I cooked my first roast when I was well into my 30s. I come from a South American background and grew up on asados (the most insanely delicious bbqs in existance) and stews. As a kid, I used to listen to school friends talk about their Sunday roasts and I would turn green with envy (I would also get very envious as I watched them open their lunchboxes and pull out their devon and tomato sauce sandwiches. We didn't do devon.)

It wasn't until I moved in with my then boyfriend-now-husband that I managed to build up the courage to try baking a roast. It seriously turned me into a nervous wreck - was it burning/ cooked/ still moving/ edible? It was all in all a very unpleasant experience. 

But I have matured (in more ways than one - and not always like a fine wine, unfortunately) and I have moved on to successfully baking roasts. Here's a recipe I found in a House and Garden magazine. It's a great one for a weekend lunch - fresh, light and healthy. Obviously not one for my vegetarian friends but I promise to start sharing some meat-free meal ideas soon. Enjoy!

Serves : quite a few
Cooking time: a long time - about 4-ish hours (maths was never my forte)


Ingredients

Couscous or quinoa (for a gluten-free option)

1kg lamb shoulder, boned, rolled and tied
5 tomatoes - can be cored roma tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
8 small round pita breads
2 cucumbers - I find that lebanese ones are sweeter and less bitter
2/3 cup (100g) black olives
200g fetta cheese, crumbled
1 red onion, finely sliced 2 tbsp fresh oregano
1/2 cup (or more) finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup (125ml) extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp good-quality red wine vinegar

How to:

Lamb

Preheat oven to 200C (180C if fan forced). Place lamb on a roasting tray and season well with salt and pepper. Place the tomatoes on a roasting tray and season with salt and pepper. Cook lamb and tomatoes at the same time but remember to remove the tomatoes after about 15 minutes unless you like the taste of charcoal - my family were almost subjected to burnt tomatoes. Almost.

Continue roasting the lamb for another 30 minutes. Remove lamb, wrap the entire tray tightly with foil and return to oven. Make sure you reduce the oven temperature to 150C (130C fan) - let it roast for another two hours. Apparently, by this stage, you will be able to push your finger through the meat. And burn it to shreds no doubt. I just stuck a knife in it. When ready , remove from oven and let it sit for approximately 30 minutes. Pull/ cut lamb into bite-size pieces. Yum.

Salad

Prepare a cup of couscous or quinoa as per packet instructions. Chop up the cucumber and mix with couscous/ quinoa, fetta, olives, sliced red onions, oregano and parsley. You can choose to throw in the lamb at this point or serve it separately. Drizzle with oil and vinegar and Bob's your uncle (or Jose in my case).

Serve with pita bread and watch everyone have fun as they make a complete mess of themselves. Provecho!