(no subject)

[which_chick]

I had pork and sauerkraut for dinner tonight. The one-person household being what it is, I'll be having pork-and-sauerkraut for several nights running. I'm pretty okay with that, really. Along about night #4, I'll dress it up as a pork-and-sauerkraut sandwich (drain sauerkraut well, butter bread thoroughly to prolong moment of extreme soggitude, eat rapidly) and pretend it's not the same damn thing as before. Right now, though, it is the sort of thing I can barely stop eating. Haven't had it in a while, see. Kind of an urge thing. I bought an expensive piece of pork, bone-in center loin. (For those playing along at home, you need the bone parts to make the sauerkraut taste right. Boneless pork does not work nearly as well.) Yes, that is the kind of pork you'd buy for a pretty roast pork with pretensions to class or Sunday dinner. That kind. And I threw it in a dutch oven with two pounds of "fresh" (bagged, not canned) sauerkraut and cooked it until it damn near fell apart. I don't LIKE the cheap, ugly cuts of pork in various shades of brown. I like the plain white meat (without icky bits) that is the pork loin and if I want to pay four dollars a pound for it, I'm allowed to cook it to death with sauerkraut. In times past, when I had an actual metabolism, I had pork-and-sauerkraut-and-potatoes. These days, there are no potatoes. It's almost as good without them.

I also picked up four bucks worth of chicken legs and thighs which I boiled for stock (to feed to the less preferred cat, as I am out of the stock I had frozen). Since there was no way I was going to eat the meat (I don't eat dark-meat chicken because I don't like it.) I put it in the blender with some of the stock and made puree to feed to the less-preferred cat. I froze most of that in ice-cube sized portions to keep it from going bad before I could use it all. The puree works pretty well in the syringe and the cat doesn't object horribly. Apparently pureed chicken meat made semi-solid by adding chicken stock is halfway palatable to cats. That's useful to know.

Comments

[ornery-chick.livejournal.com]

I hope the stock/meat-puree chow helps sort out your poor cat. He sounds like a wreck. That extra protein should give him a little more oomph, I'd think.

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

It does freeze rather well, Pork and sauerkraut. So consider putting some up for when you have the craving.

I am jealous. My family does not eat sauerkraut, and my spouse does not enjoy pork. I grew up eating that in my German family. So we usually settle for boneless pork chops (bones are an issue) with honey mustard or peanut sate glaze and mashed potatoes. Can't get them to eat sauerkraut, except on New Years, and can't get them to eat red cabbage.

The mashed potatoes (or as the spouse's New England family calls them bah-day-dahs) started out as oven roasted, with olive oil and rosemary and thyme, then got the heck mashed out of them with butter and milk. Turned out better than my previous attempts at garlic mashed potatoes. These do not freeze, but then you're not eating them anyway.

I want to make a ham. I'm just hungry for one, and the bone would be nice for split pea soup.