Follow-up on 8 lb. pork picnic thread

Cafe Society
1

About 6 weeks ago, I asked for your help with a big hunk of pork.

Well, it’s nearly gone, and I thought you might want to know what we did with it. It was a rewarding project, especially at 99 cents a pound.

June 16- Pork and rice, sorta oriental
17- Chopped pork, frijoles, lettuce on flour tortiillas
18- Food at the ballpark
19- Pork stir fry; savoy cabbage, peppers, onions, baby corn, garlic, rice, mushrooms, ginger
20- Pork, pasta primavera
21- Chopped pork w/BBQ sauce, pickles on big buns, potato chips
22- Fish, peas, rice
23- Chicken fajitas
24- Spanish rice, smoked sausage
25- Curried pork, rice, cabbage, peppers
26- Chicken & noodles
27- Pork, peach sauce (ginger, br. sugar, curry powder, chopped banana pepper), corn on cob
28- Tuna hot dish
29- Veggie pasta, marinara
30- Ball park food (cheese steak sandwiches)
July 1- Filet mignon, asparagus
2- Sm. sausage, mixed veg.
3- Pastrami sandwiches, raw carrots
4- Hamburgers (w/ onions, mushrooms, and worcestershire sauce mixed in), sweet corn on cob
5- More burgers, fries
6- Store-bought borsellini (stuffed pasta) in pork broth
7- Ballpark food
8- Filet mignon, salad
9- Me to bar food, her to a dinner meeting
10- Pork, broccoli
11- Chicken, pasta, red sauce
12- Tuna, rice, cream-o-something soup sauce
13- Huge Mexican dinner at El Maguey
14- Steak, fries
15- Fettucine, chicken, white sauce, spinach, parmeggano reggiano
16- Hot dogs at the ball park
17- Tilapia, lightly floured, sauteed, and served with a pan sauce (butter, lemon juice, toasted almonds, homegrown herbs), broccoli
18- Island grill chicken in-a-box over rice + pineapple, spices
19- Ribs in-a-vacpac, fries
20- Pizza from Papa Murphy (take ‘n’ bake)
21- Grilled Indiana pork loin, Indiana sweet corn, sliced Indiana tomatoes
22- Cajun turkey sandwiches, sweet potato chips
23- A big mess of green beans, potatoes, and quartered onion, pressure cooked
24- Pork chunks, rice, chopped onion, in pork broth

There’s still 12 ounces of pork, and 5 one-cup bags of pork broth in the freezer. We skimmed off about a cup of pork fat, which is dandy for sauteing and starting sauces. The ball park is Victory Field, where the Indianapolis Indians play.

The Picnic roast is most of the front leg of the hog. The bones are the entire humerus and most of the radius and ulna. This was new information to me. Maybe the “wrist” ends up in the “pigs’ feet.” I have no experience with pigs’ feet.

My wife and I trade weeks for menu planning, so we write all the meals on a calendar on the refrigerator. It helps to know what groceries to buy. Neither one of us is allowed to kibbitz on the other plan week. That’s why I can remember what we ate for 6 weeks. :cool:

2

Here’s my one bump.

3

Well I think it’s pretty neat, even if everyone else is disinterested!

I love working out how to get the absolute most of out my food, especially expensive meat. I feel so “frontiersey” when I make a pot roast one day and cold beef sandwiches the next and then vegetable beef soup out of the remains, as I did this week. Fed two of us the pot roast and sandwich meals, and then I got 40 cups of soup (at 2 Weight Watcher’s Points a cup!) out of an $8 piece of meat!

Soup is the main way I use up leftovers, since I’m the only one in the house that will eat them. One day a week (usually Friday, because that’s my busiest day), almost everything leftover in the fridge gets dumped into a pot and broth and seasonings added to it. Sometimes, it’s orgasmicaly good, sometimes it’s really awful*, but mostly it’s just darn good. Let it simmer until heated through (since everything is already cooked, it doesn’t need a long cooking time) and serve with a crusty whole grain bread. And leftover Leftover Soup freezes in 2 cup servings in my deep freeze.

*note: don’t try to mix Chinese leftovers with Western flavors: bad things happen; however Chinese leftovers can be made into a good hot and sour soup on their own

4

There’s not much to say, really.

Sounds good. I think some people get intimidated by large cuts of meat, but they’re a lot of fun when you get going.

You eat a lot of ball park food.

I’d also try some chopped fresh mint in that peach sauce.

5

The Indians offer partial season ticket deals. We got tix to 14 games this year. By the time my wife gets home from work, there’s no time to eat before driving to downtown Indy. So, ball park food it is.

I’ll try mint in the next peach sauce. Thanks.

6

I visited my brother and his family this past weekend. Sunday Dinner consisted of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and peas.

A second chicken was roasted at the same time for the purpose of having cooked chicken for various purposes to be determined later.

I’ve never roasted a chicken. And I’m not as good as sis-in-law is at getting all the meat off my chicken bones.

But I do have to agree that roasting a chicken like she did seems to be not terribly difficult or time consuming and a good way to produce cooked chicken for various other purposes.

7

:dubious:
For me, on day three, it would have become dog food. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Your dogs must eat high on the hog. :cool:

We had enough for about three meals in the refrigerator, The rest went in the freezer, in usable size bags, to be pulled out one or two at a time. That’s pulled (from the freezer) pork. :wink: A digi scale is useful for weight-labelling the bags. Some was big hunks, and some was bite-size pieces.

We like to buy a whole pork loin when it’s on sale, have the butcher cut up inch-thick slabs, and freeze 'em for later grilling. Between the corn-to-methanol trend and the drought’s shortage of hay, it’s suddenly expensive to raise meat. Many farmers are thinning the herd. There are meat bargains to be found.

Our freezer has no ice cream nor frozen pizza, so we have lots of room for meat.