Monday, April 13, 2009

Slinging Hash

Today was my day for making hash. I like corned beef hash, but usually only get it on those rare occasions where I have breakfast at a diner. Or, sometimes, when I am in Minnesota and we have it for breakfast at the Fishing Opener or when I am visiting my friend Bruce up in International Falls. For some reason it never occurs to me to fix it at home. And my favorite just comes out of a can, Mary Kitchen by Hormel. Hey, you just know the people who brought the world Spam would have to make good hash.

Today, however, it was pork hash made with some of my pork shoulder leftovers. First step was to cut up a big carrot, half an onion, and some garlic.

The Ingredients, Pre-Preparation


After Slicing And Dicing


The left-over half a potato lurking in the background was already semi-cooked from making my fried potatoes the other night. It will have its moment on the stage in a bit.

Of course the next step was to fry up the carrots, onion, and garlic.

Frying It All Up


While that was all frying over a low heat, in the grease from last night's cooking, I broke out the leftover pork shoulder and whacked off a few slices.

Plenty Of Pork


Then I chopped up the pork and the half of my left-over potato.

Ready To Go


Next I threw the chopped up potato and pork on top of the frying onions, garlic, and carrots and fried it all up together.

All Frying Up


After it was all fried up I threw it on a plate and had a mighty fine breakfast. Almost as good as what Mary makes.

Dan's Kitchen Hash


I made enough for two breakfasts so the remainder would be set aside for breakfast tomorrow.

The Leftovers


For lunch I simply toasted up a slice of bread, heated up the other half of the steak I ate last night in the microwave. Okay, to be perfectly clear, I heated the steak in the microwave, I didn't eat it in there.

My Luncheon Sandwich


I supplemented my vitamin intake with a grapefruit for an afternoon snack. I need to start eating them because I had five of them left and they are starting to shrivel a bit.

Dinner was just leftover rice and beans along with some broccoli that I heated up in the old reliable microwave. What would we do without them? Microwaves, not broccoli.

Leftovers For Dinner


Tomorrow I will undoubtedly have some leftover pork for dinner, maybe with a sweet potato. Then I think I will have to slice off as much as I can from the bone and stick what I cut off into the freezer. I will make stock out of the bone and then, inspiration struck, use the stock and some of the pork to make pea soup. I love pea soup and use a variation of a recipe from Emeril Lagasse's Every Day's A Party cookbook.

I have to say, so far this eating on a food stamp budget has been kind of fun.

Tomorrow I will have to hit Trader Joe's again to replenish my supply of bananas and peanut butter and then hit Key Food for some more onions and garlic, a few cans of tomato sauce, and some green peas. I will also check out the price of chili powder to see if I can sneak it into by budget.

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