Friday, November 16, 2012

Oh my god I bought so much pork

Hi friends. I have an admission to make.

I bought a LOT of pork.

Which, given my heritage is sort of amusing, but given our pastimes makes total sense.

If you just limit our pastimes to smoking meat and then eating it. Which we love to do!

Because, obviously.

So, yeah, we were about 3/4 of the way through our second split half of grassfed beef when Chestie started to feel lonely.

Empty inside if you will.

And then, handily, my local blogger buddy, IMQTPI, emailed me to see if I wanted in on a hog.

Like, do I want half of one.

DUH YES.

So we did some splitting up of logistics (she goes to the fair to bid on our hog, I go back out to Fair Land to pick it up from the butcher and deliver it) and now we are the rightful and proud owners of half a hog apiece.

Though I will also admit that our half is slightly less than half a hog already because, yes, we dug right into that tasty beast.

Nothing but First class pork for us, thank you.

We are not vegetarians around here. I forgot to warn you. Sorry, meat fearful people - this is a meatful post. Please come back another time when I'm talking gardenblahblahblah and your eyes will be safe from LOOK AT ALL MY PORK:

Why Spreckles, you look different somehow...

Sorry, that might have been scary. But still - you want to know where your food comes from - there you have it. In our house, it comes from Spreckles and YES PLEASE and also thanks, buddy.

Filled to the brim with tasty meats. And also tomatoes, hops and chicken stock BUT NOT ON THE PORK SIDE.
Perhaps more impressive is my anal retentive divider to keep the pork on ITS side and the beef on the other. It's very technological and advanced what with the box from somethingorother that I sliced in half and wedged in there, but nonetheless - it keeps the squabbling meats separate.

MOM! THE BEEF IS TOUCHING ME!
Can't have them mixing together, now can we? That would be wrong. And not kosher at all.

SARCASM, people. Sarcasm. No need to add your corrections to the comments because I'll just roll my eyes and call you retarded from my side of the computer.

Also, fun and anal retentive (yes, these things exist together in my world)(all the time) is my new Pork checklist that is taped to the inside of Chestie's lid above the Pork section of the freezer.

Yes, that DOES say 15 packs of pork chops - two to a package, thankyouvermuchandalsoBACON.
The Beef Checklist is a bit more worn, as you can plainly see.
Notice that the Beef side has its own checklist. ON ITS OWN SIDE.

That's right - we segregate the red meat from the (other, other) white meat. But we love them both the same, which is to say A LOT.

And we have already loved the pork A LOT since it arrived on Wednesday night, as I immediately made some of that hot Italian sausage into the most badass soup (recipe down there, just keep scrolling) and then I made the Burn The Fuck Out of My Left Hand pork chop recipe without WITHOUT burning anything at all.

No hands were irretrievably scorched in the making of this pork chop.
Que milagro.

Now, let me just say that I took some piss poor photos of this soup, so please do not judge me because all I wanted to do was eat the effing thing because by this time I was starved.

I wanted the pork inside of me.

Enjoy that one.

Badass Pork and Kale Soup
Recipe by moi

Ingredients
3 spicy Italian style pork sausages, cut into 1" slices
1 lb of kale, ribs removed and ribbon sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, whites chopped (compost the rest)
6 fingerling potatoes or a normal sized potato equivalent, peeled and cut into big chunks
1 quart of chicken stock
Salt, pepper as you like
2 T Olive oil

To make
In a good sized stock pot, heat oil over medium heat until shimmering and add your onions, leeks and garlic.Saute until soft, about 2-3 minutes.

Add potatoes and stir to coat everything all nice like.

Add your chicken broth and a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are super soft.

Heat a large skillet on medium high heat and add your sausage to brown it thoroughly on both sides. Keep this browning and cooking while you do all the soup stuff. Keep a friggen eye on it though - if it burns, I will spank the ever-loving crap out of you.

Turn the heat off and, with your stick/immersion blender, go to town blending that soup right in the pot. If you only have a blender for this, pour portions of the soup mix into your blender and puree until smooth. 

Also, I'm sorry you have to contend with that hateful task. It was the A#1 reason I wanted an immersion blender and BOY HOWDY do I love that thing and thank you, mom, for giving me your old one - best gift ever. Never again with the muther effing blender and shooting hot soup all over my kitchen.

Or whatever! I hear that happens. To other people.

Bring your newly pureed soup back to a low boil and throw all that frightful kale in there, stir it up and put the cover back on so the soup can simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Check on your sausage, if you haven't been all along (SPANKING SONG), and make sure all pieces are nice and brown on both sides. 

After 10 minutes with the kale in the soup, turn the heat off on the soup, add the sausage and whatever pan spackle-y goodness exists in there (there should be some and it is THE MOST. Scrape that pan if you have to. It's worth it.) and stir it all into magic in your soup pot. 

Give it a minute to mingle and get to know one another and then AFTER COOLING IT A LITTLE BIT GEEZ taste the soup and add salt and pepper if it needs it.

It probably doesn't, but I shan't judge you since I'm a salt addict and can't be stopped. 

I'm puffy and defiant!

Whatever.

Now go enjoy your soup with some warm bread or a crisp salad or just whatever the hell else you feel like having. A dirty gin martini? Why, yes, I hear that's quite the accompaniment. 

15 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. This is me too--too many google accounts!!

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  2. I love your divider, high tech or not! I have tried to devise a system of corralling all my frozen stuff without anything getting lost but I don't know how is the best way. Share, oh wise one. I like the list too but the sliding and hiding drives me mad in mine.

    HELP! I'm getting a 1/8 of a cow in 2 weeks!

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  3. Okay, I am TOTALLY NOT posting a picture of my freezer now - which has no dividers nor checklists - thankyouverymuch!

    BTW - We're having pork chops for dinner tonight (SURPRISE!!!)

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  4. Oh man, I am SO JEALOUS. The MiL was going to buy a whole pig (we go whole hog) (sorry) for the family Christmas present this year, but there aren't very many people raising them around here anymore (goddamn enormous dairy farms EVERYWHERE) and so they were prohibitively expensive. And now my husband says he is going to put an ad on Craigslist for a pig so he can pick it up and bring it to the butcher himself. Which should happen sometime, oh, NEVER.

    Sad. Please have a ham steak in my memory. Those are the best.

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  5. I cannot wait for the days where we can have meat-filled freezer goodness again. As it stands, we don't have much of a freezer and we don't want to buy one until we're out of apartment shitholehell. So...maybe in a year or so.

    And then we, too, will have all the meats.

    It will not, however, be as anally organized (ha) as yours.

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  6. Ever since I made friends with a pig at the shelter I haven't been able to eat pork. This is one of the dangers of shelter work. I can't eat cats either.

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  7. That last line made me snort really unattractively. Nicely played. Congratulations on your plethora of pork!

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  8. I have a friend who raises porkers and then sends them to a USDA processor so he can sell them legally. Mostly to his friends, who are happy to get reasonably inexpensive meat with a specific known history.

    He's talked about bringing home his own share, and what he has done to make the bacon *really* bacon...smoking, or salting, etc. Did they do that for you, or is your bacon just ...meat? Not that there's anything lesser about meat meat meat meat meaaaaaat.

    (He's also talked about rending the fat and lots of other stuff you can do when you happen to have a whole pig.)

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    1. We had the bacon thick sliced and smoked. We were going to do the smoking ourselves, but had plans to fill it with turkey for Thanksgiving and didn't have room.

      It's goooooooooooooooooooood.

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  9. OK here's what you add to that recipe to make it even better: a humble can of cannellini beans. I am serious. I am always amazed how a can of those beans can add happiness to any meal.

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    1. Ooohhh! You're right. I love cannellini beans. Good call, smartie.

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  10. Hey there! I just love reading your blog (we must have the same sense of humor) so I am spreading the blog love and nominating you for a Liebster Award....not sure if you have ever gotten one before. Check out my post for the details!

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  11. Congratulations on your fabulous pork purchase! But I'm sorry to say, you're still in the minor leagues. We bought two whole hogs last month. ;) Of course we do have a large room in our house called Freezerland (due to the four chest freezers that live in it, 2 of which are 25 cubic feet each). And we might, ahem, still have another 15 cubic footer still living over on the Shack's covered porch. Of course I have no idea what the heck is in that one, lol.

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[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.