Homemade Pork Rinds

Today's post is a quick primer on how to make home made pork rinds. I've never made pork rinds before, so this was a first for me. Pork rinds are useful as a breading when frying foods and can add some crunch to a fairly crunchless paleo diet. A lot of store bought pork rinds have a ton of salt added and some are even fried in vegetable oils.

All you need is some pork skin and an oven.

From Pork Rinds

Lay it out on a cooking sheet. I laid down some parchment paper to help ease the cleanup.

From Pork Rinds

Preheat your oven to 325. When the oven is hot toss in the skin and wait 3 hours. Pull it out and let it cool. That's it. You may need to place them on some paper towels to help wick away some of the grease. We used a cooling rack and just let the grease drip out. These pork rinds will probably be a little bit harder than what you're used to, but if the skin manages to bubble up a little, you'll get some more tender pieces worth snacking on.

From Pork Rinds

You can salt them if you want, but it's probably best to avoid seasoning the pork rinds since you'll more than likely be using them as breading and we don't really need too much salt to what we eat anyways.

Carnitas Wraps

I'm hoping to get a decent number of recipes put up on the site. I'm sort of a cooking novice, but I've learned how to make a few dishes pretty well. One of my favorites and easiest to make is Carnitas. Carnitas is Mexican stewed pork and is perfect for a cheap, convenient paleo meal. I kind of make up the recipe as I go, but here are the basics:

Start with 2-3 lbs of Pork butt or shoulder (they're the same thing) and set it in a crock pot. Next, in a bowl, mix the juice of a couple oranges, a couple tablespoons of cumin, and about a tablespoon of annatto. I didn't know what annatto was two weeks ago. It's a berry that adds a nice sweetness to these types of stewed dishes. A little goes a long way. It can be tough to find, but if your grocer has a decent Mexican spices section, you should be able to find it. Blend those together with a hand blender or whisk. Combine all of that in a crock pot with the meat, a few cloves of garlic and a chopped onion and put it on high for five or six hours. I like to take the lid off after a few hours to let the water evaporate and allow the juices to thicken. It will fall apart after about five hours and that's how you know it's ready.

I'll eat this wrapped up in Boston lettuce. I've found Boston lettuce to be the perfect vessel for almost anything I would normally eat with a tortilla or any other type of bread. I like to make individual bite sized wraps with some tomato, cilanro, lime juice, and my new favorite condiment: Labna. Labna isn't strictly Paleo, but I've found it to be a good alternative to sour cream as it adds the same flavor, but has some healthful probiotic cultures as well. I generally try to keep my dairy extremely limited, but if you like to indulge occasionally, this is one good option.