What to do when you can't have Mexican food

For the first time in Five Long Years, I was able to be home in San Diego for Christmas. Got to spend a lot of time with the family, especially Mom, and saw some good friends while I was there...although I didn't get to see as many as I would have liked. I was only there for a bit over a week, so there's a limit to what can be done. I finally got to visit the USS Midway-highly recommended, by the way-and hit Casa De Pico and Mardi Gras Cafe, before a bit of a mishap.

The crown on the root canal I had done this year has apparently come loose, which cause OUTRAGEOUS amounts of pain. Enough that if I bumped it while I was asleep, I was no longer asleep, and in fact was awake for a couple of hours before the pain was knocked back to where I could go back to sleep for another couple hours. Why this matters is that if you know me, you know I have proven without a doubt through long experience that there is no Mexican food in Kentucky. Here I was in Mexican Food Heaven, and I could hardly eat any because I couldn't chew. That's true agony.

Because of this, I've been exploring the Intardwebs for authentic Mexican ingredient sources, and cashed in my Christmas gift card on a deep fryer. The bottom line is that I HAVE to have some fish tacos. I'm a native SoCalifornian. They're part of my DNA. I've simply found that if I don't have fish tacos at least about once a year, I may experience spontaneous combustion. I'm sure having them more often than that is good for my health, too.

A few weeks ago, I found a pork roast "kit" that (IIRC) Tyson makes. It comes with a couple pound pork roast with a spice packet, and onions (big chunky hogs of onions. Awesome!), carrots, newpa tatoes (red skin potatoes, sometimes called New Potatoes, or Newpas if you enjoy funny sounding words like I do), and celery. All ya need is a cup of water (Helpful hint: I don't use tap water; our water here is awful) in the Crock Pot, put in the roast, arrange veggies around it, and mix the spice packet in a bit of water and pour over the pork. Let it go for six hours. Ten might be better, but I can't stand to wait that long, so I do it on high for six. It's delicious.

That got me thinking about how easy it'd be to do carnitas, so some exploring the Webz again came across several variations of how to do it in a crock pot, then fry it a bit to crisp it up. I have some ideas to try, make no mistake. I have no doubt that this project will be explored completely throughout 2011. My New Year's Resolution: make killer Mexican cheap and sleazy taco shop food at home. My only concern is getting so fat I can't get through the door anymore, and I'll just have to stay home and make more. It's gonna be a good year.