Something wonderful happened a few weeks ago – a box full of fresh (frozen) meats showed up right on my doorstep ready to be packed away in our freezer and supply us with delicious meals for months. That actually sounds a little questionable if I leave it at that, doesn’t it? I’ll explain further. We have some awesome family members involved with the company Farmers to Families; they work directly with farmers and family owned and operated butchers to provide single steer and swine meats. We received a quarter pork a few weeks ago and it nearly got ruined. If that would have happened, yes I definitely would have lied about it to my brother and sister in law and just raved about the meat they graciously sent us! See, it was delivered while my husband was traveling for work and before he left he told me a lot of packages would be delivered that week since he ordered several parts for a razr he’s working to rebuild. (my car is looking really out of place lately in our garage that resembles a shop more than a place for our vehicles to sleep at night!) So when this box of meat showed up (the one delivery my husband forgot to mention) I promptly brought it inside, sat it in our front room with the others and started walking away. Luckily, they have really good looking boxes and the logo caught my eye as I was leaving the room and helped me realized what was actually in this particular box!

To our tiny freezer we went and to my surprise I was able to fit all of the meat on one shelf. This was a big deal because not only do we just have one of those skinny freezers attached to our fridge, it was also right after cookie baking and our freezer was already overflowing with around nine different types of Christmas cookies on top of the ‘regular’ foods! We’re currently beginning the house selling and hunting process – larger freezer has been added to the wish list…the wish list is getting a bit long 🙂

We cooked up a few of the meats right away, but had been saving this roast specifically for our traditional new years day dinner. We were excited to not have any real obligations this new years eve and talked about a handful of fun ideas for things to do over the past few weeks and then new years came, we got sick with colds and after managing to at least go out to a nice dinner ended up in our comfy clothes on the couch at 8:30pm! Is it midnight yet? because we’re ready for bed! haha Maybe next year we’ll finally do something exciting! The year before we binge watched WestWorld on HBO new years eve since we had just brought our poor pup home from having leg surgery. By the way, that show was amazing and it made for an awesome new years eve!

This roast made the perfect meal for us on New Years day. Not only did it require minimal effort, it was truly more delicious than anticipated and I credit that to quality meat; we didn’t overdo it with seasoning. And the mashed potatoes we had with our sauerkraut were most definitely Bob Evans. You can’t bother with peeling and mixing when you’re under the weather! I don’t have an exact recipe this time, because I didn’t actually measure anything so keep that in mind when you read the “recipe” below. If I can encourage anything, I’d suggest looking into ordering meat from Farmers to Families; this meat does a lot of work for you by tasting great on its own.

Luckily, after a week I’m finally starting to get back to normal and over this awful cold. Hopefully that means I can get back on track this weekend with the yummy recipes I was hoping to make for you all during my time off around the holidays. First up is a bacon brussel sprouts salad I’ve been craving since I made it for the first time Christmas weekend! Yum! Seriously. if you need a reason to come back and visit my blog that will be it.

And if you want a box of meat to show up on your doorstep too, click here and place your order!

Happy New Year, friends!

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SImple Roasted Pork

A guide to roasting a 3-4 pound Boston pork butt

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours 25 minutes

Total Time 3 hours 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 3-4 Ib Boston Pork Butt or roast
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 Tbsp minced Garlic
• Salt and Pepper
• 1/4 cup Chicken Stock plus extra to use during cooking

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Add more pepper than salt. Set aside.
   

2. Trim away excess fat from the pork. I chose to keep some of the fat and place it on the bottom of the roasting pan to cook with the broth and juices and add flavor to gravy I made.

3. Place the pork in a roasting pan and on a rack in the pan if you have one. Brush the olive oil mixture over the entire pork butt/roast. You can also make a few slits in the meat to rub the mixture in.
   

4. Pour 1/2 inch or so of chicken stock in the bottom of the pan. Place pork in preheated oven and bake at the 425 temperature for 20 minutes.
   

5. Reduce oven temperature to 325 and remain baking until pork has reached an internal temperature of at least 165. Generally speaking, this will be about 40 minutes of baking per pound at this point. Add more chicken stock or water as needed.
   

6. Once cooked, remove from oven and allow to rest for at least 15 minutes. While it's resting you can make gravy by straining the broth from the pan, adding the drained broth to a small saucepan and gradually adding flour or cornstarch to thicken, whisking constantly.
   

7. Keep any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
   

Have a beautiful day!