1 Chunk Pork, 7 Delicious Meals

The other day my Mom and three brothers came up to visit. The increase in people meant a quick, unplanned, trip to the grocery store. While there, we came across a huge bin containing giant cuts of unseasoned pork loin for $1.39/lb. Since I try to buy all my meat for less than $3/lb (except salmon cause that's never going to happen around here) this was a huge find. It was the highlight of my day, other than seeing my family of course!

I didn't really feel like dealing with this huge thing when I got home but since throwing the whole chunk in the freezer at once would mean cooking the whole freakin' thing at once later on,  I decided to take the time to pre-portion it for the freezer. My husband put the groceries away once  few months ago when I wasn't feeling well and didn't divide the meat up... we had pork for like a week straight. 

In the end, it didn't take very long to deal with. I cut half of it into three chunks for pork roasts or pulled pork later on, grabbed some good freezer bags, labelled them with the date and tossed those in the deep freezer. Here are a few recipes to try with your pork roasts:

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Applesauce Pork Tenderloin

Pork, Vegetable and Gravy Roast

The rest of the meat I cut into strips to make pork and broccoli, which I will most likely serve over rice or noodles. I used this recipe for beef and broccoli from mommysavers.com, (obviously replacing the beef with pork) and just tossed the marinade ingredients together in a bowl then poured over the meat in the labelled freezer bags. I separately bagged the broccoli in smaller ziplocs, since it doesn't need to cook as long, and added that to the bigger freezer bag containing the meat. It made four good sized packs, leaving me with a total of seven future meals from the one, $11 pork loin. 

I think that I am most excited about the pork and broccoli meal packs as they are a head start on all the pre-baby freezer cooking that I'm hoping to get done. They are something simple that my husband or I can throw in the crockpot without even having to add anything! Seriously, do not be afraid to buy large chunks/portions of meat at the store. They are usually cheaper and don't take very long to divide up and freeze, plus it means less trips to the store for meat as your freezer will get stocked up more quickly.