Souper Bowl Sunday!

I made a Mexican posole (pozole?) today for our Sunday dinner.  Larry found the recipe in the paper last weekend and asked me if I'd make him some for the Super Bowl.

Posole/pozole means "hominy" and there's lots of hominy in it.  Three cups!  Now being the southern girl that I am, I know hominy grits are made from hominy but I don't have any recollection of eating hominy before.  It's nasty.  Bland.  I think you'd remember if you'd had it.

Anyway, I made it and it was too hot for me to eat.  It was PERFECT for Larry. He loves hot spicy stuff.  That's why he married me.  Ha!  He gave it two thumbs up and ate two bowls before his forehead busted out in sweat and his tongue caught on fire.

Here's the recipe if y'all want to try it.  Along with some pictures of a few steps in the process.  It's time consuming because nearly everything has to be minced or chopped.  It's here that your food processor will come in handy!

I think next time we have it, I'll use pinto beans instead of hominy and call it Pinto Combustio soup or something like that.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dried hominy (or canned hominy, drained and rinsed)
• 3 lb pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1½-inch cubes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 3 Tbsp canola oil
• 2 large yellow onions, minced
• 1 fennel bulb diced
• 1 serrano chile, minced
• 6 garlic cloves, halved
• 1 cup freshly ground mild red chile powder (or a mix of mild and hot)
• 3 Tbsp dried mint
• 3 Tbsp Mexican oregano
• 2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 2 cups halved fresh tomatillos
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes
• 3 Tbsp minced chipotles chiles canned in adobo
• 4 quarts chicken stock (preferably homemade)
• Minced red onion, cilantro leaves, diced avocado and quartered limes, for garnish

Directions

1. Place hominy in a large container; cover with cold water. Refrigerate 24 hours. Drain; reserve.
2. Season pork with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large (8-quart-plus) pot over medium heat until smoking and hot. Working in batches to avoid overcrowding pan, brown pork 5-7 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Transfer pork to a large plate. Add onions to pot; saute 3-5 minutes or until golden. Add fennel and serrano; saute 3 minutes. Stir in garlic; saute 3 minutes. Stir in chile powder, mint, oregano and cumin; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in tomatillos, tomatoes, chipotles and pork. Add stock; bring to a simmer. Stir in hominy; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a very gentle simmer. Cook 2½ hours, stirring every 30 minutes or until pork is almost tender and hominy almost perfectly chewy (kernels will have burst open for the most part by this time).
3. Season and continue to cook 15-30 minutes or until pork is fork-tender. Add more stock or water, if needed (posole should be looser than stew, but sturdier than brothy soup). Serve in bowls accompanied by garnishes.

Super weekend

Saturday was Ami's birthday and we had a little party for her at Mama and Daddy's house.  We stopped off at The Party Store before we left town and picked her up some birthday balloons and Larry picked out a Birthday Girl ribbon for her to wear.  He'd already been to Books-A-Million and got her the entire set of V. C. Andrews' Flowers In The Attic books.  I read them as a teenager and passed them and the story down to her.  She mentioned wanting to read them again as an adult, with adult perspective, and I thought that was a great idea.  I might do that, too.

Before we got to the party, I took Larry on a little tour of Montezuma and Oglethorpe and showed him a little bit of my hometown(s).  I was born in Montezuma but raised in Oglethorpe so I claim both of them.  I love that Montgomery Gentry song, My Town.  I agree with Eddie Montgomery.  No matter where you go in this world, you always take a little piece of your hometown in your heart.  I couldn't wait to show Larry where I keep all my yesterdays.  I've been telling Larry about Troy's for 25 years so we had to go there, even though we were going to eat and have cake and ice cream at Ami's party!  I ordered two double all-the-way, two double chili cheese and a chicken breast dinner.  You just ain't lived until you've had a double all-the-way Troy Burger.  Larry's now a believer  :)  I took him to the high school, too, and when I saw the condition of it, I almost cried.  Nobody is taking care of it and parts of it are in horrible shape.  What is going on in Montezuma?  When I went there from 1981-1985, we took pride in that school.  Coach Peaster demanded it.  We were angsty teenagers and naturally we hated school and couldn't wait to get out of there but we respected it, both the building and the people inside it.  Something is terribly wrong now and it makes me very sad.  And the sign outside the football field that prohibits "excessive walking around" during a game??  What??  That's what you do!  You walk around during the games.  We sure did.  That was the best part!  I've said a thousand times that I would have loved to have lived in simpler times, in better times.  Well, I DID.  I did live in simpler, better times.  When I was a kid, growing up in Macon County, Georgia.  I didn't appreciate it then but I sure do now.  

We enjoyed having our LizzieBean with us Saturday!  Here she is in Larry's lap.  He was blowing in her face and she loved it!

Since Sunday was the Super Bowl and since I couldn't care less about the game but I love my Larry more than life itself, I made him some Super Bowl snacks.  He didn't really care about the outcome but he was pulling for Denver because he's a big fan of Peyton Manning.  Well, we all know how it turned out.  It was actually painful at times to watch.  And the commercials were a huge disappointment for me, too.

Anyway, I made a spread!  Chili cheese sausage dip and little smoked sausages in the crock pots, a bacon ranch cheese ball and crackers and lemon pepper and buffalo wings.  And we had our Sunday Cake.  Larry wanted another German chocolate so that's what we had.

Super fun, super yummy weekend!