Stock is prepped and now simmering.
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I’m trying a different method for carnitas (oven roast, then broil, no Coca-Cola), using the remaining half of the pork butt I froze from the first round.
Oven roasting is complete. This is for dinner tomorrow night, so I’ll finish it up at that time.
Inspiration:
I don’t have olive oil, as I rarely use it, so I subbed melted lard.
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I prefer the second method, immediately above.
Aside from ingredient differences (I prefer the flavor of the second version, without Coca-Cola), this cooking method yield a better outcome (texture) than shredding the pork prior to broiling it.
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Did a couple of NZ Venison burgers 8oz each with Ezekiel 4:9 Sesame seed Sprouted bread, Baby Swiss Cheese, Hatch Chiles, and Avocado Mayo
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NM chile makes everything better!! 
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Caramel hack.
Put a can of sweetened condensed milk in a slow cooker, cover with water, and heat on the low setting for 8 hours.
While this is actually prep for tomorrow, this morning I can report that it’s really good lightly stirred into a bowl of oatmeal. 
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I’ve heard of this - and I believe it to be a very old hack - but I’ve yet to try it.
I think I’m going to attempt homemade toffee for Christmas. I know its very simple but the cook is important… same with fudge.
A very old Russian trick, in fact.
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The finished product is a disaster aesthetically, but they taste really good.
On the plus side:
Lightly oiling, lightly salting and then roasting the pecan pieces first is a tremendous flavor improvement over using raw pecans right out of the bag.
On the minus side:
The caramel wasn’t stiff enough to properly hold the pecans together, so the chocolate was assigned that job.
The caramel side is too sticky to face down, so I had to put the chocolate-dipped side down while the chocolate firmed up.
I flipped these back over for storage.
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$47 original price… how many pounds was that bad boy??
Almost 10 pounds.
I cut it into thirds and froze the other two pieces.
So that is a good price then, with the savings. Cooked pork freezes quite well too fyi. I will usually smoke the shoulders into pulled pork and vacuum seal if I make a large batch.
Some of this will become pulled pork for sandwiches.
With the holidays approaching this has been a something of a culinary nostalgia week (hence the pigs in a blanket, and Grandma’s egg nog that I didn’t post about).
The aromas from the oven right now are reminding me of when Grandma would serve roasted pork with boiled potatoes.
I thank that’s what’s for dinner tonight. Lots of real butter on the potatoes.
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13.54 lbs 
Jk
lol
Technically 19 something…had two chubs and each were just under 10 Ibs. I still said the same thing as when I smoked just one last time “I thought it would make more” 
