Pulled Pork, Using the Aldi Fresh Meat deal

Ingredients:

• Pork Roast (I used a 10lb one)
• 1 Jar Leftys, plus refill the bottle 3/4 full of water, shake well, and add it 

I set the crockpot to cook on high for 4 hours. Before I went to bed, I  switched the crockpot to cook on low for 10 hours. In the morning before I left, I switched it to warm.  At lunch time I shut it off completely, but let the roast sit.

At 4pm, roughly 24 hours after I started cooking the pork, I pulled the meat from the juices in the crockpot.  It looked a lot like soup- the liquid came almost to the top of the crock.  The meat fell apart as I pulled it from the crockpot into a large bowl.

The Longer Version - 

I'm transitioning to shopping more at Aldi, now that we don't always need the bulk amounts from Sam's club.  So of course I started this week by buying a 10lb pork roast.  Because everyone scaling back on the amount of groceries they buy should buy a 10lb pork roast....

But it was $1.49 a lb!  How can you pass that deal up?  I looked it up online to type up this post, and found this:

"Every Wednesday, look for our incredible Fresh Meat Special Buy* item. When you see the sign, you'll find an extra-low price on one of our very best cuts of meat. But hurry…because at these low prices, our weekly supply is extremely limited. "

I usually shop on Wednesdays, because I'm already in this area for BSF on Wednesday mornings.  I can't believe I've never noticed this before?  I really should be more observant.  :-)

A few months back I had made this recipe, from Kevin & Amanda.  It's called Perfect Roast Pork.  And it was good.  But I didn't think it was perfect, or really worth all of that effort. Ok, so it's really not THAT much effort, but it involved mixing spices, and brining the pork...  basically, more than 3 steps, so it exceeded my attention span. :-)  If it has truly been our idea of perfect (Did you know that 40 years ago students were taught never to use the word perfect when writing? Because nothing is truly perfect, therefor it was an improper use of the word.   some older women in my BSF group shared that they were taught never to use that word.  My, how times have changed...)  I'd have repeated the steps. But although it was good, we just weren't wowed by it.  (It's apparently one of the most popular recipes on their site, and they have a LOT of great recipes, so my opinion is obviously different than that of many others.  Nothing new there.

I put my 10lb pork roast in my crockpot, dumped in a jar of Lefty's BBQ sauce (I found it cheap at Wengers, but apparently Wal-mart carries it), refilled the bbq sauce bottle 3/4 full with water and shook it up good, then dumped that into the crockpot too.

I set the crockpot to cook on high for 4 hours. Before I went to bed, I  switched the crockpot to cook on low for 10 hours. In the morning before I left, I switched it to warm.  At lunch time I shut it off completely, but let the roast sit.

At 4pm, roughly 24 hours after I started cooking the pork, I pulled the meat from the juices in the crockpot.  It looked a lot like soup- the liquid came almost to the top of the crock.  The meat fell apart as I pulled it from the crockpot into a large bowl.

Using two forks, I "Pulled" the pork.  

It was so moist, so flavorful, and so good, that I really didn't have to do anything else.  For me, this came out SO much better than the brined recipe.  

It made a LOT of pork.  I filled one gallon bag, and one half gallon bag, for the freezer, and still had about half a gallon or more that I added Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce to to make Pulled BBQ Pork sandwiches for dinner.  (Served on Ciabatta rolls, also from Aldi)

This is really, really good. I won't call it perfect. But it will be my go to recipe for pulled pork from here on out.  :-)

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Freezer Meals For Teens - Chicken Week

Chicken in enchilada sauce, 2 bags of Hawaiian Chicken, an extra bag of cornflake/ranch breading (went in my pantry) 3 bags of chicken cordon bleu, 2 bags of parmesan ranch chicken.

Last week I made up a bunch of meals with a log of hamburg, this week I brought home two packs of chicken breasts to make freezer meals.

The chicken breasts from Sams Club were huge.  Ridiculously huge.

 I started by cutting them in half - through the middle, so they were half as thick.  Each pack had 5 breasts in it, I bought two packs, so I had roughly 20 breasts to work with.

But even then they were so large that I ended up cutting them in 4ths - so I actually ended up with a lot more.  

making the chicken cordon bleu

Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chicken cordon bleu is one of my favorite meals, and it freezes well.  

Pound the chicken thin
spread with mayo & mustard
top with ham and cheese
fold in half
Dip in egg
Dip in italian bread crumbs

Flash freeze

Except, these were really really large. So after they were in the freezer for about 30 minutes, I pulled them out, cut them in half, sprayed the exposed edge with cooking spray, and dipped in more bread crumbs.  If the kids are still hungry, they can always have seconds, and they will cook better at the smaller size.


Crockpot Hawaiian Chicken
When I cut the chicken in half, not all of the pieces were "neat". The ones that were that were misshapen (about 3 or 4?) I cut into chunks for Hawaiian Chicken. I'll serve this over rice.  

1 can of pineapple chunks
      (pour half the juice into each bag, then half the pineapple into each bag)
1T soy sauce in each bag
3T brown sugar in each bag
2T corn starch
cut up peppers and onions (I used one bag, half in each bag)
baby carrots

I'll cook this in the crock pot, and make rice to go with it.

Parmesan Ranch Chicken

Parmesan Ranch Chicken
For this recipe, I cut the remaining chicken breasts in half again, which is actually 4ths.  I think it will cook better at the smaller size.

1 packet ranch dressing
1 cup crushed corn flakes
1 cup parmesan cheese
      Mix in a ziplock bag  (I doubled this recipe)

1/2 cup butter
       Melt in a small bowl

Dip the chicken in the butter, then drop 1 piece at a time into the ziplock bag, shake to coat.

I placed the chicken in a pan lined with foil and flash froze them before putting them in zip lock bags for the freezer.

Enchilada Chicken
This was 3 of the smaller pieces of chicken in a ziplock bag, with a can of enchilada sauce.  That's it. 

 I'll pop this in the crock pot one morning, then in the afternoon I'll pull the chicken out, shred it, and add cheese, black beans, diced onion...  Fill the tortilla shells, roll, top with the enchilada sauce and more cheese, and bake.  It's a little more work than most of my crockpot meals, but having the chicken ready to go makes this pretty simple and quick any night of the week.

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Feeding Teens - Eight meals from a 10lb log of Hamburg

8 hamburgers, 2 containers of cheeseburger soup, 1 meatloaf, 2 bags of taco meat & 2 bags of seasoned hamburger for goulash & chili

I love the idea of freezer cooking, but dislike all the chaos it creates.  So I scale it down.  Rather than spend hundreds of dollars and hours in the kitchen, I come home with one meat in bulk, and spend about an hour  (or less) prepping it into meals.  

This week I came home with a 10lb log of hamburg from Sams Club, and I turned it into:

1 large meatloaf
2 crockpots of cheeseburger soup (will need milk and beef broth)
8 Hamburgers
2 qt bags of precooked seasoned beef, destined for chili & goulash
2 qt bags of taco meat for taco nights


How many meals you get out of this will vary greatly by family.  I can't even know how many meals I got out of this, since with a house full of older teens, you can never be sure too far in advance how many will be home for dinner.  8 hamburgers might be one meal, or I might get two meals out of them - depends on the night.  When I say "Eight Meals" - it's really just a guess. 

A list of all the "extra" ingredients I used is at the bottom of this post.  Here is what I did step by step:


Cut the log of beef roughly in half.  Start browning about half  of  the hamburg in one pan (dutch oven sized works well)
 Season with:
Garlic
Pepper
Salt
worcestershire sauce

I put half a stick of butter in a frying pan, and then put an entire large, sweet, onion in my ninja to dice very very fine - almost pureed.  Saute the onion in the butter while browning the hamburg.  

Remove the onion into a bowl to cool, add another half stick of butter to the pan. Put a bag of pepper and onion strips (Wengers in Mifflinburg often has the bags for 99 cents, they are great to keep on hand) and dice. Saute the peppers and onions.  Set aside to cool.

The first batch of beef should be browned and ready to set aside to cool now - I just moved the pan to a cold burner.

Hamburgers

Add about 3lbs of raw hamburg to a mixing bowl.
Add:
  Egg, Salt, pepper, garlic, worcestershire sauce, shredded cheese, the sauted onion, and shredded cheese.  Mix.  Use and ice cream scoop, heaped, to measure out into 8 hamburgers.

Meatloaf

There's a lot of hamburg left in the bowl.  
Add: Oatmeal (or bread crumbs) parmesan cheese,  another egg, 3/4 a can of tomato paste and a lot of italian seasoning. Mix thoroughly. Shape into a meatloaf, top with the rest of the tomato paste, italian seasonings, and coarse sea salt.

You can put this in a pan in the freezer, on saran wrap, flash freeze it,then remove the saran wrap and wrap in foil.  

Cheeseburger Soup

I bought a case of cheap french fries at Wengers.  Using just part of one bag, I fill the ninja about 3/4 full, and pulse, just to roughly dice the french fries.  I put them in to saute in a frying pan, with just a bit of oil. Meanwhile I put carrots in the ninja and dice them very fine, then add them to the pan to cook with the french fries.

In a large mixing bowl I add about half of the cooked ground beef,  I add about a two cups of sour cream, the peppers and onions I sauteed earlier, then the french fries and carrot mixture,and a generous amount of shredded cheese.  I scoop the mixture into two larger rubbermaid containers, and set them aside to cool.  (When I make this, I'll add a little beef bouillon and water to the crockpot, enough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Some milk - maybe two cups?  And this frozen mixture.  I'll leave it in the crockpot on high for a few hours, or on low all day.

Seasoned Beef for Goulash And Chili
The seasoned, browned, beef left in the pan I split into two qt size freezer bags, to use in chili & goulash.  My pantry is well stocked with beans & pasta, and I canned a lot of tomatoes this summer. I keep Tones bouillon on hand all the time too, so these are meals I can now throw together in minutes.

Taco Meat
I put the last of the beef into the pan with taco seasoning, and brown that while cleaning up the kitchen.  I let it cool quite a bit (I typed this post while it cooled) and then put it in ziplock bags.

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Extra Ingredients:

Seasonings:

• Garlic Powder
• Italian Seasoning
• Salt
• Pepper
• taco seasoning
• Worcestershire Sauce

Misc:

• Parmesan Cheese
• Bag of shredded cheese (I used about 3/4 of one 16 ounce bag of mexican blend cheese, from Sam's club)
• 1 can tomato paste (or you can use ketchup)
• 1 onion
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 cups of sour cream
• 3 eggs
• oatmeal, or bread crumbs, or whatever you use for meatloaf
• Pepper & Onion strips
• french fries, or diced potatoes
• carrots

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Other Ground Beef Recipes:
Shepherd's Pie
BBQ (sloppy joes)
meatballs
White Castle Style Sliders

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