At hand was the issue of converting a solid piece of pork
butt into ground pork. That ordinarily would not have been a challenging
situation but this was no ordinary situation.
Taking advantage of a pork butt sale, the piece of pork
was boneless and slated for five meals. One meal required ground pork to be
incorporated with ground chuck and transformed into meatloaf.
Other ideas for this meat was to use part of it for pork
stew, part of it to simmer and flavor spaghetti sauce, one part was designated
as pulled pork and the last part to go into the freezer to be used at a later
time.
With a price point between $1.19/lb and $1.49/lb, this
piece of meat came in on the lower end at $1.19/lb. With the right equipment, $7.81
of meat had the potential to cover a week’s worth of dinners. Consequently,
having to purchase equipment to transform a solid piece of pork into ground
pork would have defeated the purpose of frugal meal dining.
The situation arose as Old Grandmom Frugal’s kitchen was
lacking a food processor or blender. Once upon a time, her kitchen was equipped
with such a device. In an attempt to find it, an exhaustive search throughout
her house was conducted to no avail.
The next best thing would be to grind this meat “old
school” style with her old fashioned meat grinder. It was a heavy, steel
kitchen tool that screwed onto her kitchen table and with a long handle, she
would churn the meat by hand. It had to be somewhere in the house but endless
hours later, that turned out to be another unsolved mystery.
Confronted with two unsolved mysteries, it was time to
develop a new strategy. One strategy was to purchase a small food chopper or
borrow something from someone that could grind meat. Quickly, the idea of
purchasing new equipment was eliminated; it would have elevated the cost of my
inexpensive meal.
Only needing a cup of ground pork, borrowing equipment
for a few pulsations was the answer. From a good neighbor, a mini-chopper was
there, in the kitchen, in short order.
The mystery of the missing kitchen equipment was never
resolved but resolve produced a very tasty pork and beef meatloaf dinner!
SOUND
THE BUGLE!
Today’s tip: Before spending money on a new kitchen tool
or piece of equipment, borrowing the item is a good way to determine if it is
worth your while to purchase the item.
