Let me first share with you what a city girl I really am. WHY God put me here in the middle of no-where, Missouri where the favorite past times are hunting, fishing, floating or canoeing down rivers, and meth labs (oh, wait - that's not a hobby, at least not a GOOD ONE), I will never know - aside from the fact that the small towns really ARE a great place to raise kids. The activities are wholesome (well, not counting the making of illegal substances!); the people are nice (especially if you can get into a good-ol'-boy club); and it's cheap living since there is no mall in sight. But some days I just see myself as a misfit.
One of our school parents (bless their heart!!) wanted to do us a big favor - and he gave us some freshly butchered ham (IE dead pig). If you are my friend on facebook, you know that this really presented itself as a huge predicament to me! See, I once had food poison - and I googled the fact that improperly prepared pork can cause some really BAD things to happen to you --- to which my dear friend added she'd just seen a tv documentary about how you can get tape worms from pork that can go all the way up to your brain!!!!!!!!!
My husband grew up in Iowa - land of pork; his grandparents, though farmers, grew corn. His mom was asked for her hand in marriage by a pig farmer once, but she declined and married a state trooper instead. So, despite the Iowan connection, Dan really has no knowledge of pork products. And thus, he too was absolutely clueless.
After some researching on-line, I decided to go for it & cook this ham. OH MY SOUL - I now know the derivative of the saying, "bleed like a stuck pig."
["Bleed like a stuck pig" is a phrase used to describe profuse bleeding, originating from a hog slaughtering technique whereby the pig is stabbed in a main artery, usually with an anticoagulant on the device used for stabbing, and dies by bleeding profusely.]
That meat was still BLOODY. I was ready to walk out of the kitchen right then & there - but I rallied, donned my rubber gloves, and held my breath.
First, I thought I should wash the meat. So, I filled my sink with water, put in the meat, and watched the water turn pink. Meanwhile, I think I saw a shark circling by the drain ... No, not really - but I've always had this profound fear of JAWS. Anyway, then I BOILED the ham in clean water. While waiting for the water to boil, I scrubbed my sink with disinfectant (I've seen too many Lysol commercials where the invisible blood on the counters pose a hazard to the entire family's health!!).
THEN, I lined a baking pan with foil, put in the now-clean ham - and baked the fire out of it. In fact, to make sure I killed any and all threats of tape worms or food poisoning, I baked it a little longer even than I thought I should. I got out the handy-dandy meat thermometer - and was satisfied to watch the mercury rise to 190 degrees (labeled "poultry", and we all know how DANGEROUS undercooked chicken is!). Pork was labeled at 160 degrees, so I thought we were good. By the way, is ham supposed to be GRAY??!!
I let the meat "rest" ... that's just a concept I heard of on Food Network, so I thought I'd try it. About 30 minutes later, we cut the meat. It was dry. Very dry. We tasted it. It was bland. Very bland. None of us liked it; thankfully, the dog did.
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To end this random blog post, I have a few pictures from the season's first home ballgames. Andrew got to play in a Junior Varsity game - and he even scored 2 points!!! He patiently and encouragingly warmed the bench for the varsity game.
Anna's class made banners to wave, so she did her part to cheer our teams on as well.
Last minute instructions from the coach:
1 comments:
Poor little piggy ;-) Sounds like it needed some salt!
Wow! Is it early for basketball?
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