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.

Easter Sunday Chow Down

No baskets of Easter eggs today, in fact no eggs at all. I just had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with my usual raisins and dried bananas.

Easter Oatmeal


I didn't have the traditional ham dinner, but I did have plenty of pork.

Lots Of Leftovers


I guess if you kind of turned the pig around you could say I had a front ham.

Just Turn The Pig Around


I just lopped of a few slices to make myself a sandwich.

Slices, I Had A Few, But Not T00 Many


I made some toast, heated the pork in the microwave, and slathered on some mustard.

Looking Good


The next step was the tricky one, I had to put the top piece of toast on the bottom part of the sandwich. Now you will notice that if I just flopped the top piece down it wouldn't line up right. I actually had to rotate the top piece of toast 180 degrees before it would match up.

I Diagrammed It First


I had taken one of the "steaks" out of the freezer last night so that it could thaw in the refrigerator. I figured I would have it with a potato and some leftover spinach.

The Dinner Fixin's


I wasn't going to do anything special with the steak, just fry it up and see how it came out. I browned both sides and then fried it over a medium heat until it was medium rare. You can tell by poking it. If you put your thumb and middle finger together a medium-rare piece of meat will feel the same as if you poke the base of your thumb.

Put your thumb and first finger together and poke and that would be a rare piece of meat. Ring finger and thumb, medium. Little finger and thumb, well-done. Try it, you will see.

Nicely Browned


I microwaved the potato and then sliced about two-thirds of it to make fried potatoes. I decided to slice up half an onion and threw that into the pan as well.

Making The Fried Potatoes


I stuck the spinach into the microwave for a minute or so and then plated everything.

A Nice Dinner


Here is how the steak came out, medium-rare, just the way I wanted it.

Just Perfect


I wanted to fix it this way just to see how it would be. It wasn't as tender as a rib eye, my favorite cut of beef, but it was plenty good. Not nearly as tough as thought it would be, and quite flavorful. I will probably fix the rest of them the same way unless I thing of something else. Maybe I will cut one of them up and make a batch of chili. I think I can afford some chili powder.

I ate as much as I wanted and still had enough leftover steak either for dinner tomorrow or one heck of a steak sandwich for lunch.

My Leftover Steak


I still have a couple of chicken legs left, and with all of the leftover pork shoulder and the beef that I have in the freezer there is no way that I will need to buy any additional meat this month. I am in pretty good shape with my eggs too, so as far as protein goes I am pretty well fixed. My next purchases will probably be some more peanut butter and bananas, a few of cans of tomato sauce (lots of pasta left), and some chili powder. Oh yeah, and another bag of onions and maybe some more garlic.

A Slow Cooking Saturday

I didn't feel particularly ambitious this morning and I didn't feel like oatmeal either. I just scrambled up a couple of eggs in the leftover chicken drippings and had them with a piece of toast. Nothing fancy, but quite tasty.

A Simple, But Satisfying, Breakfast


I had another peanut butter and banana sandwich. Normally I wouldn't bore you with yet another picture, but this one was so beautiful that I couldn't resist.

A Work Of Art


Today was my day to roast my pork shoulder, which is always kind of a fun project.

Getting The Cold Shoulder


The last one was tasty, but a bit bland. I figured I would try to kick this one up a notch. Of course, with the limited spices available to me, I relied heavily on garlic.

Garlic, Of Course


Ah, but what to do with it. I chopped it up and threw it into my little mortar with some salt and pepper.

Prepare To Be Mashed


And Mashed It Was


Next I broke out a long slender knife and made several deep penetrations into the pork shoulder. I am glad I didn't buy a pork butt because talking about penetrating the butt would probably get my blog censored.

Maybe Incision Is A Better Word


Then I poked the garlic, salt, pepper mixture into the incisions.

No Comments, Please


This wasn't quite enough, though so I sliced up a few more cloves of garlic.

Sliced Garlic, How Exciting


Now, where should I put it. I made a deep pocket between the layer of skin and fat and the meat and stuffed it in there.

Here Is Where It Went


And, finally, I slathered the meat side with mustard.

All It Needs Is A Bun


I didn't use the dutch oven this time. Instead I just placed it on a rack over a roasting pan and stuck it into the oven. The oven was heated to 325 F and I let it cook to an internal temperature of 180F. It came out perfectly.

Camera Ready


I set it aside to rest for a bit before cutting into it. This is very important because it gives the juices time to be absorbed into the meat. If you cut into it too quickly they tend to run out.

While it was resting I cooked up some beans and rice. I cooked the rice like I usually do but just as the water started to boil I threw in a couple of spoonful's of the drippings from the pork. It adds a nice color and flavor.

A Nice Caramel Color


I did the old broccoli-on-top-of-the-rice trick to just steam it a little bit. When everything was done I sliced several pieces of the pork and plated it with the rice, beans, and broccoli.

Another Delightful Repast


I ate until I could eat no more and then put the beans and the rice that I couldn't eat into a container to have another day.

Leftovers


And, as you can imagine, I have a hell of a lot of pork left over as well. I would have some more tomorrow, but I am thawing out one of my "steaks." I think I will have a potato with my steak and then use the leftover potato with some of the pork and some onions, garlic, and a chopped carrot to make hash for my Monday breakfast.

My one big regret is that I can't have rabbit for my Easter dinner tomorrow.

I watched an interesting special on the restoration of the Beacon Theater. I couldn't figure out why it was on MSG until I realized that James Dolan was behind it. Sheesh, now I actually have to kind of like the guy a little bit, despite him ruining the Knicks (on their way to another 50 loss season). I will have to make a point of going to a concert there. The last time I went it was to see the Pogues and the place was a bit of a dump. From the special it looks like they did a hell of a job with the restoration.

Oh, did I mention that over the last five years the Knicks have the worst record in the NBA. You have to give them credit for this, they are no flash-in-the-pan.

A Good Good Friday

Started the morning with a nice bowl of oatmeal with my usual dried bananas and raisins.

My Steaming Plop Of Glop


For lunch I changed my routine and had something a little different.

Can You See The Difference?


Very observant, it was the end of the loaf so I had the heel with my meal. If you are Observant, would you be allowed to read this today?

Taking A Bite Out Of Hunger


For dinner I decided to have a chicken leg and thigh and some pasta. To flavor the chicken I used some garlic and ginger.

The Ingredients


I broke out the Global knife that the Mysterious Chinese Woman gave me for Christmas one year. It is uber sharp, I one time sliced off a bit of my finger and didn't even feel it. I only use it for special occasions, like finely chopping stuff.

Finally Chopped Ginger And Garlic


Then I gently separated the skin from the chicken and stuffed in the chopped ginger and garlic.

There Really Should Be A Funny Caption


Next step was to simply brown the chicken and then lower the heat and let it fry.

Looking Good


Nothing special for the spaghetti sauce, just some garlic, onion, and some leftover pork fat that I chopped up.

Toss It All Into The Pan


I had half a can of leftover tomato sauce so after the onion and garlic were translucent I tossed it in.

The Sauce Is Almost Done


While the sauce was simmering I cooked up the pasta and when every thing was done it looked like this:

My Dinner


And, when it was all over, I had another bone for my bone bag.

Stock Worthy


I hit Met today to stock up on some more supplies, and here is what I ended up with.

Mostly Protein


I think I have all the meat that I will need for the rest of this month. I bought another pork shoulder, 6.89 pounds at 79 cents a pound for $5.44 and beef bottom round roast, 4.69 pounds at $1.99 a pound for $9.33.

I figured I could use a little beef in my diet and I cut off six steak sized slices from the roast.

Staking Myself To Steaks


These are pretty big cuts so it wouldn't surprise me if each of them lasted me for two days. They might be a little tough if I just fry or broil them. I think I will broil the first one and see how it turns out.

After cutting off the "steaks" I still had a good sized chunk that I will fix more like a traditional roast.

A Little Roast


I also bought a couple of sweet potatoes and a couple of Idaho potatoes for a total of $1.93. I kind of messed up on the bread though. I could have gotten two loaves for $5 but I just bought one and it cost me #3.44.

The total that I spent was $20.14 bringing my total expenditures to date to $99.62. Again, it might seem that I am over-budget, but when you figure that I probably have more then enough meat to last me through the month and, as I posted a couple of days ago, a lot of other stuff as well, I think I am in pretty good shape. I am one up on my grapefruits because I never got around to eating one today.

Tomorrow I will roast up the pork, even though I am hankering to try one of those steaks. Guess that will have to wait until Sunday.