dinner

I looooove pizza! Melted cheese with a delicious crust smothered in tomato sauce?! Yes, please! Making pizza during the summer months is so fun, especially with the kids. They love to roll out the dough and put all the toppings on. This particular day, Jack shaped his pizza dough into “Mickey Mouse” and his excitement was so sweet. He was especially interested in showing his sister, who is obsessed with all things Mickey Mouse, that he’d made a “Mickey Mouse pizza! haha!” Isn’t that one of the best parts about pizza? Each person can have a pizza as they like it, with whichever toppings they enjoy, in whatever shape they want! Square, circle, rectangle, Mickey Mouse shape – it’s creativity and personal preference at its food finest!

When it comes to the pizza dough, we’ve always been partial to store bought pizza, because it’s easy and good. Safeway and Trader Joes make the best, in my opinion. We tried the Whole Foods dough on this day, and it was good – but didn’t cook quite as well as the Safeway and TJ’s dough. Maybe it was user error and we should try again? Either way, Chris got this book for his birthday a few months ago and I’m looking forward to making our own dough later this summer! Rebecca makes a pretty incredible looking Beer Crust Pizza we should try as well, yes Beer Crust! It sounds amazing. Honestly, making our own dough seems so intimidating, and time consuming because what if it fails? But I’m pretty sure we could pull it off, and in the event it doesn’t work out, I’ll make sure to have a bag of store bought dough hidden in the fridge 😉 … To be continued…

See those cute little Mickey Mouse ears? 🙂

No tomato sauce no cheese, add guac pizza! 😉

Cheers!

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DISCLAIMER: I’m not going to guarantee that these are “no mess” pulled pork tacos. But they are quick, easy to clean up, and a crowd pleaser on a hot Tuesday (or any day of the week) when the last thing you want to do is worry about turning on the stove, let alone the oven!

Mexican food has always been one of those things that I enjoy going out for much more than I enjoy making for myself or my family. There’s something fun, and almost comforting about going to a Mexican restaurant. Perhaps it’s because when I was a kid my brothers and I would always request to go to Chevys for our birthday dinners. Each of us always got a batch of tortilla dough to play with while we waited for our food to arrive, and at the end of the meal the waiters would all stand around your table and sing you the most fun, loud, exuberant, hands-clapping Happy Birthday! And pop a big ol’ sombrero on your head at the end! Sometimes, if we went on a Friday or Saturday night there was a balloon man who would stop at each table offering to make any animal figure/sword/doll/whatever out of his balloons. Our parents always obliged – how could they have said no?! It was incredibly fun; celebratory, really. And made our birthday feel special because these strange waiters would sing happy birthday to us!

These, and many other Chevy dinners were my first experience with Mexican food. I believe that since it was such an enjoyable experience it made me fall in love with Mexican food. Fajitas, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, tortilla chips and salsa, guacamole!! You name it…

With these tacos I wanted to recreate, the simple, festive feeling of going to a restaurant right at home. We make this BBQ Pulled Pork every now and then. We should make it more often because it’s so easy! This time we turned it into tacos, and I wish we were having it for dinner again tonight.

INGREDIENTS:

2 lb pork shoulder
salt to season
1 can of your favorite BBQ sauce – we used Kinder’s Mild BBQ Sauce
1 medium white onion, diced
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Guacamole, I prefer to make my own – though store bought would work fine
favorite salsa, we used Casa Sanchez Fire Roasted Medium salsa
1 package of tortillas

INSTRUCTIONS:

I lied, you will have to turn on your stove for 2 minutes. Get out a big pan and put it on medium high, place your pork shoulder on the pan to sear the sides. Season with plenty of salt.
Immediately transfer into a crockpot. Pour a 20oz bottle of BBQ sauce into the crockpot to coat the pork shoulder. Put the lid on and set on high for 6-8 hours.
Meanwhile, chop your onion, cilantro, and salsa. Place in individual ramekins. If you are making your guacamole, prepare no more than 20-30 minutes before serving so that it stays fresh!
When your pork shoulder is done, remove and place on cutting board. Using two forks begin to tear the meat off the bone. It will literally fall off the bone into delicious pieces.
Enjoy!

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