Slow-Cooker Chili Verde

Okay, now I'm just starting to feel guilty.  Nothing in life is this easy.  Dinner shouldn't taste like it took hours to prepare when it only took minutes.  Ten dollars at the grocery and ten minutes of my time shouldn't yield something that serves six and tastes like it was ordered from a restaurant.  Meat shouldn't be so fall-off-the-bone tender that you can literally eat it with a spoon with next to no effort put in to preparing it.  In a city where even something so simple as parking one's car can be a blood sport, how can anything be so darned easy?

I'm talking, of course, about my beloved slow cooker.  I can't seem to stop cooking things in it, and each dish is better than the last.  As a blizzard pounded Boston yesterday, I decided it was the perfect day to make Chili Verde.  I do declare, this is the easiest thing to make yet that I've prepared the SC.  For those of you who are saying, "Listen, SMJ, I don't care how cool this slow-cooker doo-dad is, there is just no way I'm chopping onions at 8am, period", this dish doesn't even demand any chopping (but for mincing some garlic, which frankly you could do the night before while you cook something else, or you could buy a jar of minced garlic if you must).  I had my butcher cube the pork when I bought it, so all I had to do yesterday morning was open a can of green chiles, dump everything in the SC, push a button and walk away.  

When night fell, I chopped some cilantro and avocado and grated some cheese for a garnish, and that was that.  We had an amazing Mexican dinner and lunches today to boot.  The pork was so tender you could cut it with the side of your fork, and the depth of flavor was incredible.   If we weren't scarfing leftovers for lunch, they'd be phenomenal shredded and re-purposed into homemade carnitas burritos.  I am actually embarrassed about how easy this is; it hardly belongs on a food blog. If only everything in life took this little effort and yielded such tremendous results...  

Chili Verde

From the Williams-Sonoma Food Made Fast: Slow Cooker Cookbook

Ingredients

1 can (8 oz.) roasted whole green chilies

3 lb. boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 cups chicken broth

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 1/2 tsp. salt, plus more, to taste

1/2 tsp. freshly ground white pepper, plus more, to taste

Steamed white rice for serving

3/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1) Cook the stew: put the chilies and their liquid in a slow cooker, tearing the chilies into coarse strips with your fingers. Stir in the pork, broth, garlic, oregano, the 1 1/2 tsp. salt and the 1/2 tsp. white pepper. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 8 hours according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

2) Serve and garnish the stew: taste and adjust the seasonings with salt and white pepper. Ladle the stew over steamed rice and serve immediately, passing the sour cream and cilantro at the table. Serves 6 to 8.