First off, I’m totally going to do the limeade for Halloween.  Upon a simple review of everything, it’ll be a nice shock to guests.  Also, I imagine someone will probably have fun turning it into a mixer for some drink.  Plus, I really only have to modify my lemonade recipe a tiny bit, so it’ll be a fairly quick make.

Limeade

1 cup lime juice (probably about 12 limes)
1 cup sugar
Water

In a pot, mix together the sugar, the lime juice, and one cup of water.  Mix well.  Stir over low-medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved and the volume of the mixture is reduced anywhere from 25-50%.

Remove from heat.  Pour into a half-gallon container.  Fill the rest of the container with water, and stir well.  Chill, then serve.

For later this weekend, I think I’m going to experiment with making my own carnitas – maybe it’s remembering too many family outings to Mexican places as a kid, but nothing quite beats the versatility of a good batch of carnitas – you can treat it like pulled pork, taco or fajita meat, or do any number of other delicious things with it.

The tricky part, though, is carving up the pork shoulder.  I used to use a chef’s knife for it, but I actually found the curvature of the knife a pain to use in such a fashion.  That said, I now have a santoku knife imported from Japan.  I probably shouldn’t be so obsessed over it, but it’s such a nice blade.  Feel like I’m Miyamoto Musashi or Sarutobi Sasuke (well, if the latter really existed) when I’m using it to chop through food.  Plus, I got a blade with excellent heft in the handle – it always feels weird when I use kitchen knives that have light handles, like I’m going to apply too much pressure to the work.

I don’t know what I’ll include in the carnitas yet – that’s a recipe that just begs to be freestyled.  I’ll post more when I figure that one out.