So -- we bought a pig from the farmers and collected it in pieces from the butcher late last month. It currently resides in our chest freezer in the basement, in little paper-wrapped packages. The 20 lbs of bacon and 26 lbs of sausage are easy to identify and we've been gradually working our way through it, with the help of a couple of vintage pork recipe books from my Mom and Austin's. Sausage and Rice . . . Sausage and Sauerkraut Casserole . . .you can tell the age of the books by the fact that they recommend jello salads to go with each recipe.
The remaining several hundred pounds of pork is a little harder to figure out what to do with. It doesn't help that the stamped identification on the outside of every package is usually smudged, but even when it isn't we frequently don't know what it means. So we've been firing up the crock pot and dumping in a package of mystery meat about once a week, and it's always a surprise what we find! Last night it was a smoked pork roast that tasted a little like corned beef -- delicious -- it will make great sandwiches this week. If I did it again I'd make a glaze of brown sugar and pineapple but I'm not convinced I'll be able to identify another of these particular roasts!
If you have a good pork recipe PLEASE share! Especially if it involves sausage or ribs or ham. You are also invited to come eat pork any time -- though beware, we may not know exactly what we're serving. Fortunately we canned a lot of applesauce last fall and that's always good no matter what kind of pork comes out of the crock pot.
