Country Style Pork Ribs Pastoral

First off, I want to apologize. I have been cooking quite a bit for the past month, but have neglected to post a thing. This is partially because I have been going back through and revisiting old recipes. This is primarily due to the fact that I have been too lazy to bother taking pictures. Sometimes video games leech all semblance of ambition from my soul.

Fortunately, my ambition was recently bolstered by the Friends & Family Market here in Ellsworth. This fantastic store is a combination gas station, corner store, produce market, deli and butcher. The butcher offers meat packages at a discount. For $30, I completely stocked my freezer with this...

I told my sister that it felt like Christmas in April, unwrapping all of these delightful packages.  Her response... "It's Meatmas."

Meatmas indeed.

In the lower left of the above picture there is 2.5 lbs sweet italian sausage. Along with that came:

3 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 lbs. boneless pork country spareribs

2 lbs. chuck stew beef

Some other options for this meat package were:

• 2 lbs. london broil steak
• 2 lbs. bottom round roast
• 2 lbs. beef cube steak
• 3 lbs. pork sirloin cutlets
• 2 lbs. italian meatballs
• 2 lbs. slab bacon
• 5 lbs chicken thighs

And many many more. At various price points, you can pick 4 - 18 different selections from the list. As you can imagine, I'm already planning my next package... though I won't need one for another two months at least.

In homage to my mother, I separated and re-wrapped individual portions of everything to make "freezer shopping" all that much easier.

Of all of my selections, the only one I had never cooked before were the pork spareribs. Unfortunately, the internet falls woefully short on imaginative recipes for this particular cut of meat.

Sear-Roasted Chicken Breast

When I was grocery shopping two weeks ago, I came across a large package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts that were only $1.99/lb. This was cheaper than my beloved chicken thighs. I hemmed and hawed, having avoided these pale, flavorless pieces of white meat for years and years. Then I said, screw it, they're freaking cheap.

I'm glad that I did. After two weeks, I've realized why everyone loves this culinary chameleon. I've put it on salads, of course. I've eaten these on sandwiches, in tacos, over rice, on pizza and straight out of the refrigerator. And the best part, I've cooked them almost exactly the same way every freaking time. It's so easy!

Ce n'est pas un blanc de poulet.

This is not a chicken breast. This is part of a chicken breast. Cheap-o grocery store chicken breasts are generally gigantic. Also, they tend to be lopsided, being crazy thick at one end and skinny at the other. When I got mine home, I sliced each one diagonally so each one was turned into a round, fat hunk of chicken and a thinner, flatter tail piece (shown above). If you're using these instructions to cook a fatter piece, just leave it in the oven an extra 2-4 minutes and check the center of it before gobbling it up.

Accidental Grandpa's Chicken #1

I wasn't going to blog about this. In fact, I should apologize to my family in advance. I may make historical errors in this post. I am working entirely from memory. Feel free to add to the story in the comments section!

It was late, about 8 o'clock. I had a large chicken breast thawed. I was considering my options, thinking maybe I'd caramelize it like the pork from the other day. I then decided that I wanted to use up the last package of instant potatoes and that can of sweet corn that I had in the pantry. The caramelized version wasn't saucy enough for that. I wanted a sauce to pour over the corn and potatoes, so I decided to cook down a lot of onion and garlic and make a basic pan sauce. I didn't start taking pictures until it was almost done. (It's hard to get good pictures in this house with no natural light. The fluorescents just don't work as well.)

My grandmother taught me to mix my vegetables with my potatoes. This works with peas, beans, carrots. etc.

Mustard-dill Pork Chops and Green Beans

I often try to plan ahead when I think I'm going to have enough free time to make a good meal. Case in point, the other day I thought I was going to be home from work before 8pm, so I wanted something quick but delicious because I knew I could have something ready before 9 o'clock.  Before leaving for work, I scanned the options that I had in the freezer.

The sausage was already earmarked for something special.
I'd been eating chicken thighs quite a bit recently.
Fish sticks were fast, but not fancy enough.

Then I noticed a bag with two pork chops, each about 1/3" thick. That was going to be the perfect protein to make a quick an easy dinner. I took them out, popped the bag in a bowl and set it in the refrigerator to thaw while I was at work.

Sadly, I did not get home that evening until late.  Like, 9:30 late. I was certainly in no mood to make anything too involved, so the pork chops were left in the fridge overnight. Luckily, the next morning I was hungry and I didn't have to be to work until 1:30. This was when I decided that lunch would be my fancy meal of the day. (Also, I wasn't scheduled to get home until after 10 that night anyway).

So here I was... searching for pork recipes at 7:30 in the morning on a random weekday.

First, I looked at this recipe. While it looks simple at first, it requires the triple-dredging technique to make the pork crispy.

I love crispy.

I love crispy long time.

Recipe Recycling - Chinese Chicken and Broccoli

My favorite trick for cooking from my pantry is to take the ingredients I have on hand and drop them into an existing recipe that does not necessarily call for those ingredients.  Substitutions do not necessarily need to give similar flavors, textures, etc. to a dish to make something tasty.  For example, when I see a delicious looking mustard-dill pan sauce designed to go over lamb chops I will readily grab chicken out of my freezer and go to town.

Two days later, I tried it with some pork cutlets, yum. And even now, I'm envisioning it reduced a bit more and spooned over roasted asparagus and fennel. (I promise, if/when this happens I'll post a picture or two.)

For today, however, I need to figure out what to make myself for my birthday dinner.  Yes, today I turn 33. Being the youngest of 6 kids, birthdays (particularly ones this close to a new school year) did not garner a huge amount of fanfare. Sure, there was a ridiculously dense and moist fudge cake that I still dream about from time to time. Sure, everyone was forced to pay just a little bit more attention to you than normal. But the absolute best thing about a birthday in my family was that it was the one day of the year when you had the right to choose what was for dinner.

Think about it.  We had so many people eating dinner together every night that some of us had to sit at the kitchen counter because the kitchen table was not large enough to seat 8. If mom made something for dinner that you didn't like, you either sucked it up and ate it, or you poured yourself a bowl of cereal. (I've heard stories from the early years when my parents tried to force their children to eat what was made for them, but by the time I arrived, they had given up all hope.)

So, you can imagine how exciting it was to know that you could have mom make whatever YOU wanted for dinner, older brothers and sisters be damned.