The husband and I spent our college years in Southern California, and we frequently find ourselves craving authentic tacos. We’ve identified a few local establishments over the years, but I’ve also discovered it’s fairly easy to make great carnitas (roasted pork) at home. The main ingredient is time, but other than browning the roast in the beginning and then shredding the meat part way through, all the work is done in the oven. (Or on the grill, if you like.) You can also cut the meat into cubes, but I prefer it shredded. If you finish the carnitas the same day you roast the pork, it will keep a couple days in the fridge to make an easy weeknight meal — I had enough to freeze half for another time too.

The boy loves Mexican food, but typically sticks to quesadillas and burritos. He insisted he didn’t like tacos, so I made him a “taco pocket” instead … a.k.a., burrito, with veggies on the side. I suspect I may get him to warm up to tacos if we make fresh, kid-size tortillas, but that’s a project for another day.

Recipe: Pork Carnitas Tacos (& Taco Pockets)

Ingredients:

• 1 3-4 pound pork shoulder, roasted as in the previous post
• 1 cup salsa verde

for tacos:

• tortillas
• shredded romaine lettuce
• thinly sliced red peppers
• salsa verde
• sour cream

for “taco pockets” (a.k.a. burritos):

• tortillas
• brown rice
• black beans
• shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Transfer the roasted pork to a shallow roasting pan. Shred the pork, using two forks, into large segments. Trim excess fat as you shred. Top with the salsa and roast for 1 hour, turning over once. Top should develop a crisp, carmelized crust, while interior remains moist. Remove from oven and serve with warmed tortillas, sour cream, sliced bell peppers, lettuce and any other desired accompaniments.

Kid-Friendly Taco Pockets: For the taco pocket, warm a tortilla in a skillet over medium heat. In the center, layer rice, beans, pork, and cheese. Fold in sides, then ends, to make a rectangle-shaped pocket. Place back in skillet and warm about a minute on each side to melt the cheese. To avoid toddler troubles, I serve the veggies next to it but you could certainly add peppers inside if that’s not an issue in your house.

For more on pork carnitas, read David Lebovitz’s (a fellow Cali ex-pat) tale of serving carnitas in Paris.

After getting through the first trimester of my pregnancy, where we relied on take-out dinners far more frequently than usual, I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of daily cooking and adopting some new strategies that’ll make it easier to get dinner on the table when dealing with two kids underfoot. My favorite trick: cooking a Sunday supper that can be re-purposed into different quick meals during the week. This has the added benefit of stretching the budget for local, pastured meats.

First up, Cuban roast pork. Pork shoulder is a less expensive, higher fat cut of meat that benefits from a long cooking time. Once prepped and placed in the oven, you can head out to the playground for a while and let it cook. I served the pork, sliced, with brown rice and black beans cooked with bacon and garlic. If you can’t find a blood orange, a regular one will do.

Recipe: Cuban Roast Pork

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4-pound pork shoulder (also called Boston butt)
• 1 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 blood orange, cut into eighths
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• smoked paprika
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 ounces salsa verde
• 1 bottle Mexican beer

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Season pork generously with salt, pepper and a touch of smoked paprika and set aside. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium high heat. Sear pork until browned, 4-5 minutes on each side. Spread onions around and under pork, and arrange orange slices around pan. Add bay leaves, salsa and the beer. Cover and cook in oven for 2 hours. Remove lid and cook 1 hour more, until pork falls apart when prodded with a fork.

Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes. Cut out excess fat, and slice a portion for the first night. Serve with rice, black beans, fresh cilantro and additional orange slices.

Prep for Night 2: Shred remaining pork, using two forks, and removing excess fat. Refrigerate shredded pork. Check back Thursday for the second recipe: carnitas!

Fish, and its magical omega-3 fatty acids, is really important for pregnant women and young kids alike.  But it’s important to eat the right fish, and canned wild salmon is both an affordable and sustainable alternative to some other types (looking at you, tuna). According to KidSafe Seafood, canned wild salmon contains four times the amount of omega-3s as tuna, as well as a generous dose of calcium and protein.

I made this simple salmon salad to top homemade bagels (stay tuned!). I can’t stand the taste of mayonnaise, so instead this gets its creaminess from sour cream and a little kick from horseradish and mustard. It’d be great atop salad greens, in tea sandwiches (for spring baby showers, perhaps), or rolled up in crispy romaine leaves.

Recipe: Mayo-Free Wild Salmon Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 7.5-ounce can wild Alaskan salmon
• 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup organic sour cream
• 1 teaspoon stone ground mustard
• 1-2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: Drain salmon of excess oil (makes an excellent treat for any cats in the home). Empty can into a medium bowl and use a fork to break apart large chunks. Add remaining ingredients, tossing with the fork to combine. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes and up to a day before serving. Makes enough to top 6 bagels. Enjoy!

Have you heard of Meatless Monday? We don’t eat meat every night. When do eat meat, it’s local, hormone-free, free-range/grassfed, etc. So on the whole I’m not too concerned about the carbon footprint of our protein choices, but I do think it’s important to have a varied, balanced diet and would like to expand my meatless repertoire beyond pastas and quesadillas. So I’ll periodically be posting Meatless Monday recipes that emphasize beans, whole grains and other (soy-free) forms of protein. Please suggest your favorites, too!

This week’s recipe was inspired by the beautiful piece of fresh ginger and two small acorn squash we got in our CSA bag from Potomac Vegetable Farms. Butternut squash would be a little easier to work with here, as its smooth skin can be easily peeled eliminating the extra cooking step with the acorn squash. But use whichever you prefer. If you do use the acorn squash, reserve the shells for a fun serving dish with high kid-appeal.

Recipe: Curried Squash, Potato and Bean Stew

• 2 medium-sized acorn squash
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 small yellow onions, chopped
• 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 fingerling or banana potatoes, chopped
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans,* rinsed and drained
• cilantro, optional

Instructions:

If using acorn squash: Halve squash and remove seeds. Place cut side down on lightly-oiled baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until slightly soft. Cool, then scoop flesh out and cut into 1/2-inch chunks.

If using butternut squash: Peel, halve and remove seeds. Cut into 1/2-inch chunks and add to stew with the potatoes.

Heat olive oil in dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and cook 4-5 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add ginger and cook 1 minute. Stir in seasonings and cook 1 additional minute. Add water, stir, then add potatoes and coconut milk to pan. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, until potatoes are fork tender. Add beans and acorn squash to pan and cook another 10 minutes. Makes 4-6 servings.

Notes: I served this stew over brown rice. I intended to use garbanzo beans, but didn’t have any on hand so navy beans stood in instead. You can garnish with cilantro, but it’s actually some spinach from our CSA in the picture.

Get more Meatless Monday recipe ideas from Kim O’Donnel at True/Slant … and please leave a comment with any meatless recipes you’ve enjoyed recently!

The Foodie Tot is not the only one excited about the opportunity to profess his love for the markets during National Farmers Market Week. There are not one but two separate online contests underway asking voters to chose their favorite farmers market. To me, that’s like asking a parent to name their favorite child. Sure, there are markets I adore (see: Oregon travelogues ‘08 and ‘09) that truly have it all — wide array of organic-certified products, cooking demos, kid-friendly activities, transparent management and communication — but the obligation of eating locally requires one to support the markets in your neighborhood, and there are things we love about each of them besides the simple matter of proximity and convenience. There are two farmers markets here in Alexandria that are between our house and the nearest grocery stores, so it is even harder to justify passing up the market in favor of flavorless supermarket produce. We love Bigg Riggs’ array of apples and peaches, Kuhn’s sweet berries and plums, Three Way Farm’s luscious melons, Smith Meadows’ grass-fed beef and handmade pastas, Tom’s cave-aged cheddar, Grace’s pumpkin loaf, and many more products and producers from across the region.

The Farmers Market Coalition, who notes that the number of farmers markets in the U.S. has increased by 170% in the past 10 years, recently asked “Why do you love your farmers market?” My response: “Because my son knows his cheesemaker, his apple growers, and his meat producers by name.”

I’ve written before about the many lessons kids can learn by shopping at the market, but the most important is an understanding and appreciation of where their food comes from. We certainly don’t have time to go to the farm every week, and together my son and I can’t even manage to keep an herb pot alive, so we will drag ourselves out rain or shine to support the farmers who wake up before dawn, after a hard week of manual labor, to truck their wares into town.

I do support any effort that makes people more aware of their neighborhood farmers markets, so go to the Care2/LocalHarvest contest (where the winning market receives $5,000) and the American Farmland Trust contest (winning markets get free No Farms No Food tote bags) to vote for your favorite markets, if you can choose just one. Of course you can share the love and vote for different markets in each, if you like. (The Care2 poll is open until Sept. 17, but the AFT contest ends at midnight this Saturday, August 8, so vote today!)

Don’t Forget! Submit a photo of your tot(s) at the market to the Foodie Tots <3 Farmers Markets Flickr pool during the week (August 2-9) and you’ll have a chance to win a kid-sized reusable market tote filled with foodie goodies. For an extra entry into the drawing, blog about your local farmers market with a link back to this post &/or retweet a link to the “Foodie Tots <3 Farmers Markets” contest. More bonus points for sharing why you love your farmers market.

P.S. Today’s market stop was the Upper King Street Market, for ground buffalo meat from Cibola (burgers coming up soon), Shlagel raspberries, Bigg Riggs peaches, Tom’s yogurt, and a muffin and fresh-squeezed orange juice (er, not exactly local) for an afternoon snack.

And it’s Real Food Wednesday, so head over to the round up at Kelly the Kitchen Kop for more real, local food ideas and inspiration.