Simple Sunday Supper: Crockpot Posole

When I bought my crock pot almost 3 years ago, the very first thing I made was posole. My friend sent me a recipe, and I thought “hey, I’ll throw this in the crock pot!” Yeah…that didn’t work so well. Little did I know that crock pot or slow-cooker cooking was different than stovetop and needed no more than one cup of liquid pre-cooking! My first shot at posole ended up overflowing all over my counter, making a delicious-smelling mess.

“What’s posole?” Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.

According to southernnewmexico.com,

At holiday time people throughout the world honor traditions, and New Mexico is no exception. One tradition many here look forward to on Christmas Eve is a steaming bowl of posole (po-SO-lay), a spicy corn stew that is known as the ceremonial dish for celebrating life’s blessings.

New Mexicans have been enjoying posole for centuries. The cuisine here springs from three cultures: Native American, Mexican, and European. The Rio Grande Pueblo Indians, and their ancestors, the “Anasazi,” or “ancient ones,” relied on corn, beans, squash, and chiles for sustenance. These early crops became firmly entrenched in the culture, forming the foundation of New Mexican cuisine even before the Spanish arrived.

Corn has been and is the major food plant of the Native Americans. Red, yellow, and blue corn are cultivated in New Mexico. The corn is ground into meal and flour for use in breads and tortillas, and it is processed into posole corn.

Posole corn is prepared by soaking hard kernels of field corn (traditionally white, although blue is sometimes used now) in powdered lime and water – a method thought to mimic the ancient preservation of corn in limestone caves. After several hours, when the corn kernels have swollen, the liquid is allowed to evaporate and the kernels to dry.

Posole is different from hominy, another kind of processed corn, which tends to be softer and more bland. Compared to hominy, posole’s flavor is intense and earthy, its consistency more robust. Since posole corn can be difficult to find, hominy is often used as a substitute in posole stew.

The variations for posole are many. Some make it with chicken rather than pork; some prefer to use vegetable protein rather than meat. While posole in Southern New Mexico is always made with red chile, it is not uncommon to find Northern New Mexico posole made with green chile.

If I were to make a truly traditional posole, I would’ve needed to cook massive amounts of pork with dry hominy and tons of liquid for hours on the stovetop. I’m fairly lazy on Sundays though, and something that labor-intensive didn’t sound appealing. I went the “Northern New Mexico” route, and made a “posole verde” in my crockpot, loosely based on the recipe from Heather’s Recipe Site.

Simple Crockpot Posole

Ingredients

1 large (2 lb) pork loin, trimmed and cut into 1″ chunks

1 12 oz. jar recaito (a thicker-than salsa Mexican cooking base. I used green, there is also a red one)

1 4 oz. can chopped jalapeños

1 32 oz. can white hominy, drained

1/2 c. water

Directions

Combine the pork, recaito, and jalapeños in the crockpot. Cook on high 5-6 hours or on low 8-10 hours. When there is 1 hour remaining on the cook time, add the drained hominy and water, stir well, and allow to cook for the remaining time.

I served mine with fat free sour cream, but traditionally it would be served with thinly sliced cabbage and radishes, quartered limes, oregano, chopped onion, and fresh corn tortillas, but alas, I didn’t have any of that, and I wasn’t in a tortilla-making mood. It was still delicious! Next time I make it, I will be adding some more spiciness because the recaito really mellowed in the cooking process. This recipe can easily be made vegetarian with hearty vegetables such as butternut squash, zucchini, eggplant, etc. Chicken also works well!

In other weight/eating news: I had my official Weight Watchers weigh-in yesterday, and with all the excercise I did this past week on Tuesday and Thursday, I was expecting some weight loss. I got on the scale, and was completely bummed to see that I’d actually gained .6 lb this week. My reaction was different than my usual though! In the past, I would’ve held back tears (or not held them back) and been miserable. This week though, I know I worked hard. I ate fantastically, I worked my butt off (literally!) and just because a damn box of springs says I was up in weight, I know I’m doing things right.

In a discussion with Beadie, I came to the conclusion that my weigh-ins do not necessarily reflect what I did the week immediately before. Since I lost my “water weight” almost 2 years ago, I’m into what an old Weight Watcher leader called the “hard lard”; the fat that’s been there a while and doesn’t want to leave. Saturday weigh-ins probably reflect the work (or lack thereof) from 2 weeks before.

In the words of one of the best bands ever, I’m just going to

keep on truckin‘!

Today’s relaxing day was topped off with the adorable baby blanket that I finally finished!

I make these in grown-up sizes too… you can see a rumpled up one in the corner of the picture above, but baby ones are just so much FASTER!

Also, my friend Laura over at Hey, What’s For Dinner Mom? has started a cool thing called Pay It Forward. The first 3 people to place this image in their blog, and agree to the terms (just keep reading) will receive a cool prize from her. They, in turn (these are the terms) will do the same… pass the picture on and agree do give 3 prizes. So…will you pay it forward?

Make sure you check out Krista’s Great Giveaway too!

Have a great Sunday evening all, and don’t forget to be looking for (or creating) cute food for my Cute Food Saturdays!

xoxo,

Tagged as: accomplishments, crockpot, giveaway, Mexican, pay it forward, pork