Pork Sale = Chorizo and Dumplings

Last week I coarse-ground a 4lb chuck roast because I craved a fat, juicy cheeseburger. Instead of that, I made sweet and sour meatloaf immediately. It was so good that when it was gone the next night I made another one. And quickly froze all the rest of the beef so I'm ready for chili when the next cold front hits.
Friday night, with Christmas carols by dead people blasting from the radio, 3lbs of pork sirloin was handled more efficiently. It was ground coarse then ground medium to make chorizo and pork dumplings.

Today's lunch was a chorizo burger on honeywheat/oatmeal/chopped almonds/sesame seed bread that was spread with whirred pintos and mayo, topped with live Romaine and arugula. Mmmm-mmmm, this was my fat juicy hamburger.

All I forgot was some pickled carrots but chunks of them were cooked in the pintos. Will try some in chorizo and scrambled eggs in the morning.

Offensive as decorations and sales are this week, Friday's Christmas tunes helped with the next stage which becomes tedious (like old music redone by young people who scream the lyrics!). At 1 heaping tsp per dumpling, you can see I'm going to make 100. 80 will be frozen. Costco's are very good but why pay $20 for 60 of them when homemade are $6 per 100?

It's like a tamale line but less intense.

Dinner was a double order but I had to test a few. Yes, that's salsa in the ginger sauce. So?

Sunday is Funday

5 days til Thanksgiving, today's high was 80°, and rainfall for November is 1/2" over the average. Everything's back to normal! Even with a warm day I can tell it's Fall because this is the only sun the courtyard gets all day. But chair cushions can stay out all day (if it's not raining) with no worry about them fading.

Turkeys are 29¢ a pound with $25 purchase and so much else is on sale I'll make two $25 trips before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the garden is bountiful. The mustard, bok choy, chard and peppers below were sauteed and then piled with garlic on a pizza. Green beans steamed.

Tomorrow starts salad twice a day to keep up. Always with a garlicky Caesar dressing and three-day old bread toasted with herbs as croutons. Left, red tip lettuce, window box is cilantro, Romaine, arugula.


Harvest time for lemon basil. Too much lemon taste for pesto but dried leaves are a tasty addition to tortilla soup and pintos. Didn't plan ahead, tho. The humidity's so high lately the salt is clumped in my shaker and why didn't I think there's no place to dry basil leaves in this climate? (Also note how the weeds are back all over the courtyard with weekly rain. Arrggh)
The ceiling fan is on 24/7 but they're still moist. Wonder if tying the branches with twine and hanging them in my winter coat closet would be aromatic or a disaster..
For the longest I've wanted to make a seafood dish with cubed crab, tomatoes, cukes, mango, and avocado stacked in layers inside a can with the bottom removed so it can be pushed out in place on the plate. If you've noticed, almost all cans have rounded bottoms making it impossible to open the bottom with a can opener. Found the perfect cans for appetizer and entree sized seafood stacks.
One of the biggest lessons a farmer learns is patience. No one rushes Mother Nature. I planted 24 garlic bulbs a month ago. None were sprouting so I didn't expect them to break ground until Dec. One came up within a week and 3 weeks later, still the only one, was 10" tall so I feared they had been treated with a non-sprouter I'd heard commercial growers use. I can fix that. I searched the bin and came up with these three sprouters to plant next to them (not on top of them because Mother Nature bats last and loves little tricks).

On this morning's walkaround I found 11 of the bulbs have now broken ground. I have plenty of room elsewhere (those bell peppers will stop bearing eventually) and one can never have enough garlic.

Yes, I Went There

I bought this 4lb can of tuna (equals 11 regular cans of tuna) at Costco. The price matched a sale price - but it didn't slosh with liquid when I shook it! For 3 months I put it on the counter when someone came to visit. Priceless.

Remember when you were little and cans of chunk tuna were just that with some liquid to keep it moist? Nowadays there's as much liquid in the can as there is tuna mush. This is a can of chunk tuna like the old days. I had to break it up to make tuna salad.... which I did for the next two days. It was marvelous with only mayo, onion and celery, no relish or hard boiled eggs.

Here's what it looked like after I'd made 2 bowls of tuna salad from it. I vacuum packed and froze the rest of it. Girl Scout Tuna Wiggle is in my future!

Score!

• Love the Bangkok Blend so much I bought the 4 oz size and an empty bottle to store the half that doesn't fit in my previous bottle.
• Added Turkish Seasoning to a pkg of dry garbanzos I crockpotted to freeze for hummus whenever I wanted. It's so good I've eaten half the garbanzos and will have to start over.
• Mixed the Chili Powder with water, lime and oil and rubbed a spatchcocked chicken I grilled Friday night. Stupendous - nice warm flavor without too much but that was only 1 T for the whole chicken...
• Italian Sausage Seasoning is because I make 3#s of sausage a month and it's just too much easier than keeping fennel seeds and all the other ingredients.
• The Wall of Flavor? Mural of Flavor? was free with this order and haven't looked at its contents. Vanilla is the same price as pure vanilla, 35% alcohol, at local stores so what the heck.
• Chinese Five Spice Powder is because so many on my cooking group use that as an ingredient I didn't want to try their recipes without it.

Penzey's says their whole spices are good for 4 years (!) and ground spices for 2 years if not more. If I'm going to be eating the cheap parts of animal carcasses and more and more veggies, this seems like a good investment over a 3 yr period. If they're all as good as the Bangkok Blend I'm afraid I'm in trouble. I learned the first visit not to walk into their stores; it's safer to order online and check your total every time you add something!

How I fell in love with bread machine loaves again

I've used only my bread machine's dough cycle for about 6 years. It's an original model (donated when Willie and Julie transferred to Denmark in '97) and the bread was great but I didn't care for the vertical shape with a hole in the bottom and a bulb on top.
I use a baking sheet or a restaurant supply loaf pan. Boy, I defy you to burn bread in one of those things. I've slept an hour past "done time" and the top was really brown but the insides were perfect. Guess it's because the sides and bottom are two layers with air(?) in between.

There honestly have been a few times - with overnight guests and all - that I've used the delay timer so fresh bread is ready at 7am without waking the entire house. A couple of weeks ago I was so busy I didn't want the distraction of setting an alarm to take the dough out before the second rising, form it, and set another alarm for when it was baked. So I went full force with the machine.

It smelled so good the last half hour of cooking that I took butter out to be ready when it was. This looks a little under-done but it wasn't when cooled and sure was good slathered in butter.

The big discovery was when I split the bread in half vertically (I did start letting it sit a half hour before this step). I had two loaves, the bottom hole/slash was not so much a problem, and they were the perfect size for a half sandwich for lunch. Add the fact I pour in all ingredients then Set It And Forget It and it's how I've baked my bread the last two weeks. This will probably change when daily temps get down in the 30s... or maybe not.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... shopping wise

This is the week for shopping and stocking!

Penny bought 2 HEB turkeys at .77 last week. I told Harry she shoulda waited...

This week, HEB Houston has turkeys for .29lb with $20 purchase. I'm going twice.... and should go three times. Last night I made a Fiesta run and got a .57lb turkey with $10 purchase. My fatal mistake was greed. I bought a 15lb turkey. When you intend to put 4 turkeys in your freezer, they gotta be 12lbs or less. Also in the mix: Harry has a 12lb turkey he took from my freezer during The Ike and keeps saying he's going to return it.

Cream cheese, which has skyrocketed to a sale price of 1.19 pkg, is .88 everywhere. The sellby date on all is Apr 09. Not only is that 6 mos away, it's the sellby date which gives another 3-4 months afterwards which means it doesn't have to be frozen. Tonight one block is dedicated for Robb Walsh's Atomic Deer Turds on the grill.

I use HEB's online shopping list which allows a list on the right side for your "needs" shopping list and the left side is from their sales circular (by location). The weekly sales disappear as expired and the month-long sales stay. This not only consolidates all, it focuses on my most favorite store - the HEB at Beltway and Beechnut. I call it the Asian HEB since that's their market there and the types of seafood/veggies have a definite Asian influence - and they open at 6am. The back of the printed list gives plenty of room for specials at other stores for the week. I store it in my purse because in the next 6 days I'm near any of the other stores for a dropin.

Also checking out Costco this weekend, where I haven't been for 6 months. Scallop recipes (both sea and bay) abound on the internet lately and they're the only source I'm SURE doesn't add water/chemicals to their scallops. And it's time to replenish my "hospital size" olive, feta, and sun-dried tomato stores.

More reasons to love Foodsavers

This cilantro was purchased Oct 28 and immediately sealed in a vacuum canister. I opened it last night. Can you imagine cilantro lasting 1 day short of a month and all it has is a couple of yellow leaves? I cannot tell you how much liquid cilantro I've dumped in my compost before I bought my Foodsaver.
I bought this lettuce the week before Thanksgiving 2007. No! I didn't open it last night but I did open it (by the photo timestamp) Dec. 22. That's a month! Nothing brown but the stem where I'd already cut some leaves.
Leaves require a canister, not a vacuum bag and you are NOT to wash them first. I'll try cilantro and lettuce in the same canister next time. This will be handy when all my lettuces are ready to harvest at once.

I bought mine at Costco after researching and hearing owners discuss them for a year and saw their price drop. I realized later it was $129 only because a new model was coming out but it was a good deal and included a huge roll of plastic to seal and 3 sizes of containers. The 1/2 qt size fell out of the fridge and cracked in two a month later and the 1.5 qt size suddenly has a crack one year later (sure no vacuum packing with an opening in the container...).

I've since bought a set of 3 square, squat 24 oz containers that are good because they're stackable in the fridge. I don't have to eat leftovers every day when I do a mass cook-in because they'll keep for much longer than a week. One thing doesn't keep a week: bread with no preservatives - but it does keep freshly soft for 4-6 days.

Changes in sizes and pricing

Yah, everything's going up in price and no one likes it but I've noticed people can't agree on how manufacturers should keep their costs and profits level.

Half feel they're being cheated when the price stays the same but the container or portion size shrinks. The other half asks why the price has gone up again on the same size container. I didn't mind either way but have decided the huge number of people in the US on fixed or low incomes, able to pay one price, would be better served if sizes decreased and pricing stayed the same.

A box of cornstarch lasts me years so I've no idea when this happened. Argo has changed to a resealable plastic container. I passed over it three times looking for a cornstarch box that hadn't changed in decades. It seemed like a great idea to add this safety feature to compensate for a smaller size. Whoa! Both of them hold exactly 16 oz. It has a larger footprint but easily supports another box or can on top. I'm sure the price is higher (it's corn-based, isn't it?) but this is a fine example of why you must read labels.
Coffee, not so good. When the old 16 oz cans went to 13 oz, I switched to the 39 oz size. Well, about the time the new 13 oz decreased to 11 oz, the 39 oz decreased to 34.5 oz (left). Now I see it's down to 27.5 oz (right) and the price has gone up a dollar! I won't switch to lower quality (my sister-in-law is laughing at me saying that right now) but if I can cut back to no coffee after 11am, I could pay the same and buy good quality coffee beans.

Breakfast Sausage

SCORE! Fiesta had .99 lb family packs of pork sirloin. Made a batch of Homesick Texan's Breakfast Sausage on Day 3. I've tried four different online recipes and hers is by far my favorite. Only used 2lbs of the pork for this recipe so have enough left to freeze for stirfries, to grind for a freezer stock of dumplings,* and make more sausage.

So glad to have access to my food processor again.

Grind the pork, mix in the spices and it's done! I add 4 T water, as Nathan Lau suggests. He actually says water or wine which will be an interesting experiment.

Delicious, preservative free, and half the cost. I think this is what my Mommy and Daddy ate as breakfast sausage when they were young. Tomorrow is biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast.

* Did you assume, like I did, that wonton skins must be refrigerated because they'd get moldy? Ike taught me THIS is what happens when they're not refrigerated!

Brisket Burger

Grinding the point of my 87¢ lb brisket was a resounding success. I'm grinding the rest of it tonight and vacuum packing most of it for the freezer. My processor manual says add diced onion and Worcestershire sauce before grinding!

This isn't a great photo but it's a burger I've been looking for since Saturdays in the 50s when Daddy took us to Hymie's in the East End. Hymie would be appalled that 87¢ lb for ground beef is a great price!

Homemade Bacon Bits

My last 5 lb box of Smithfield bacon ends was over 1/3 large chunks of pork bellies, and the rest was bacon meat and fat. A real deal as trendy as pork bellies are now.

The last 2lb needed to be used or frozen so I decided to try what an Austin guy does. He's so frugal he makes me look like an amateur.

He put his whole package through a meat grinder. This produces a gross pile of mostly fat, kind of like that wagon of chicken fat Oprah pulled onstage.

One thing that looks worse than ground bacon ends is food processor bacon ends. Didn't expect this at all. It looked like tuna fish but I forged ahead and fried it all.

Fabulous! I've sprinkled it on salads, I've spread it on bread with mayo and topped it with sliced tomatoes. My next box of bacon ends will go this way from the first, after I pull out the pork bellies.

I realize a lot of those crispy bits are fried fat but after straining and draining here's what didn't go in my body. The next morning, of course, this was a solid block of white fat. I can't believe my mother saved all this and put it in fresh food she prepared. Ah, the Fifties.

Cornucopia

I broke three basic rules Monday: completely ran out of staples so went shopping at 5pm on a weekday and I was starving. In my defense, I'm in week 3, or 4? of city crews pumping from a main at my driveway through a giant hose to the next main 2 blocks away.

First annoyance is the hose crosses my driveway for usually 6 hours a day. If I must leave, they say tell them and they'll be glad to uncouple and let me come and go. Did that once. Uncoupling spews sewage at the end of my driveway and into the street. When I come home, I'm supposed to pull into my garage and leak all that in there? So I'm trapped 6 hours a day/7 days a week. Second annoyance is my office and bedroom are at that side of my house and the noise puts me in the mood of Michael Douglas in Falling Down. First weeks it put me to sleep at 1pm daily; this week I'm trying a tv and radio at the same time to dull the noise. I can't think!

Monday they knocked off suddenly at 4pm. After 8 days of slowly running out of rice, potatoes, oatmeal, flour, tortillas, cheese, and eggs, I made a grocery list. 2 places had great sales that required a $10 purchase and I planned to hit both. After an hour at Fiesta, I decided to get everything necessary there. Not shown in photo below is 4 lbs rice and 10 lbs russets.

Like everyone else I'm nervous about rapidly increasing prices but read a newsgroup post that said egg prices, adjusted for inflation, are lower than they were in 1997. Huh. Check it out http://www.westegg.com/inflation

First BumbleBee tuna I've bought since the 90s when the cans were more water than tuna. This week there was far less sloshing in the BB cans than COS or SK.

Use 1T dry milk in every loaf of bread but only brand/ only size was almost $7.

Jim Dandy grits at HEB have been 50¢ for years. Fiesta is 77¢ box.

I was buying sale chickpeas 4 cans at a time so grabbed a bag to cook myself. Fresh garbanzos are around so will sure plant some.

For 10 years I've never paid more than $3.29lb for basic cheese. Sometimes required buying a 2lb pack. Now? No brand is under $4lb! Kraft sharp cheddar was two 8-oz packs for $3.99 so I grabbed four.

Hot dogs are for dog training - cheapest in the bin.

Never buy salami but knew I'd need something fast when I got home. And all that sharp cheddar...

Here's the money shot. 2 turkeys (59¢ lb), 2 chickens (69¢), and at the bottom an 87¢ lb brisket. My accidentally smartest move in years was a side-by-side fridge (just like Alton Brown's). All of this fit easily and it was already at least 50% full. Happily, VIP frozen veggies are back down to sale 88¢ lb. The okra? Found 1lb of shrimp in the freezer and need gumbo.

The brisket is my next experiment. Using the food processor to turn the flat into hamburger - for 87¢ lb. If it works as I've seen it described and photos, the rest of it will become meatloafs galore!

Eggplant, zucchini, dry mealy tomatoes, pineapple, and a few yellow onions are all slated for grilling. Last 3 are going to be salsa.