Apparently, I'm in a stocking-up-on-meat frame of mind. I bought a lot of meat the week of Feb. 4 -10, and then more again this weekend.
One of our local stores had pork picnic (shoulder) roasts on special at $0.98/pound, so I bought two. They were quite nice roasts, and huge. I cooked one roast, divided up the cooked meat for future suppers, and froze it. I broke down the other roast into cubed meat, which also went into the freezer.
I'll probably buy a couple more of these roasts this week and cube them too. I'll thaw the cubed meat from the freezer, then can the whole lot in one go.
Trimming meat for canning necessitates removing as much visible fat as possible (fat can interfere with the seal on the jars), and shoulder roasts are not a lean cut of meat. I ended up with about a pound and a half of trimmed fat from the roast I cubed. I'm a waste not, want not kind of girl so I rendered the trimmed fat from the roast for use in cooking. If you want to learn how to do this too Joybilee Farms has provided excellent instructions on how to render fat into tallow or lard.
I also saved the hide from the cubed roast and cooked it into cracklin's (crispy pork rind) for my husband to enjoy, and I browned the bones from both roasts in the oven, then used them to make stock.
All in all, good value for our food dollar.
Here's what we spent last week:
|
Date
|
Item
|
Amount
|
|
Feb. 13/13
|
500 g/1.1 lbs specialty bacon
|
$8.45
|
|
Feb. 16/13
|
1.15 kg/2.54 lbs broccoli crowns
|
$2.24
|
|
|
1.47 kg/3.25 lbs tomatoes
|
$2.21
|
|
|
4.54 kg/10 lb navel oranges
|
$5.98
|
|
|
4.54 kg/10 lb Gala apples
|
$5.00
|
|
|
Gas
|
$41.00
|
|
Feb. 17/13
|
9.88 kg/21.78 lb pork shoulder roast
|
$21.34
|
|
|
canning jar lids
|
$2.69
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Coupons Redeemed
|
-$1.50
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
|
$87.41
|