Day 3... FIESTA !!

  Back in November, my local market had beautiful pork loins on sale for $1.29 per pound. That's a pretty good deal. I'm guessing you know what I did. I bought about 35 pounds and canned it. Pork loin and chicken breast are 2 must haves in my pantry. They are easy to can (although they do take a while) and they are an indispensable pantry item.  The possibilities for meals is endless.

  Today is Day 3 of the eating out of my pantry challenge.  I had some avocados in the fruit bowl that were ready to use, so I knew I was making guacamole tonight.  Stands to reason that tonight's supper would be some sort of Mexican theme, since I have plenty of tortillas, about 40 jars of homegrown, home canned salsa and tortilla chips as well. Not having to think too hard about supper gave me lots of time to get other stuff done, like laundry and vacuuming and ..oh, you know. All the fun stuff.

 Breakfast  was sausage and eggs and bagels for himself and bacon, eggs and bagels for me. The hens are laying a steady 3-4 eggs a day, so we have about 4 dozen eggs in the fridge. We slept in a little today so breakfast was a little late. We skipped lunch and had an early supper.


 I decided to keep supper pretty simple, so I pulled a jar of pork loin, a jar of home canned pintos and some black olives out of the pantry. I sliced an onion and some red and yellow peppers and sauteed those together, added the jar of pork and the jar of beans and some spices...cumin, garlic, black pepper.  Put a lid on the cast iron skillet and let it simmer a while. I buy pinto and great northern beans when they are on sale and then when I have a lot, I can them.  Beans are such a powerhouse nutritionally, and they take a lot of energy and water to cook. They're great to have already cooked and sitting in the pantry--you can just heat them up quickly because they're fully cooked. Like canning meat, it's easy, but takes a lot of time.  Lucky me--I'm retired and have more time than sense. 

    I made some beautiful guacamole. Heated up some tortillas and made burritos out of the whole shebang...with black olives, sour cream and salsa on top of the pork mixture.  It was delicious. Filling, nutritious and tasty.  Opened a bag of chips to serve chips and salsa and guacamole on the side.

  Didn't take any pictures of the meal itself.  Too busy eating it. 

  Trying to estimate the cost of this meal (and there are enough leftovers for another lunch) is difficult. I grow most of the ingredients for the salsa. I  spend varying amounts on beans to can. I would estimate that the guacamole was the most expensive part of the meal, and they were .69/each at Aldi's. I'm going to guesstimate that the cost of this meal was about $5.00 per person. You can't eat out like this for that !  And there it is--all pantry supper.  


  Tomorrow is usually a leftovers day as we are both gone for a big part of the day and I never feel much like cooking. We have a lot of stuff in the fridge that needs eating--so it work out pretty good. 


  Time for bed--busy day tomorrow.   Hasta la Vista, muchachos....