I don’t mean to blow my own horn here (and, really, who amongst us is flexible enough for that anyway?) but sometimes I do like to brag…. thus:
So..I’m in Albertson’s and I do my usual patrol through the meat department. Sitting on the shelf are four pork whole tenderloins, marked down from $4.99/# to $2.99/#. Now, that’s all well and good, but Zero can do better. Those four (and keep in mind that number ‘four’) tenderloins are also marked down an additional 30%, knocking it’s per pound price down to about $2.09/#. Thats not bad for animal protein. But…Zero can do better.
Me: “Hey, you’ve got these pork tenderloins marked down 30%. If you mark them down to 50% I’ll take ’em.”
Him: “They’re already on sale at $2.99 from $4.99.”
Me: “I know, but Im the kinda guy who needs to feel like he’s really getting a deal, you know? Mark ’em down to 50% and I’ll take all of them.”
Him: “All of them?”
Me: “Sure. All of them.”
Here’s where the wheels flew off my grand plan. Remember that number four from earlier? Well, there were, in fact, four pork tenderloins sitting on the top shelf marked down to 30%. What I did not notice, were the other twenty packages sitting below it, also marked down to 30% off. And…I just committed myself to taking them all.
Uhm. Well.
The happy ending is that in the final analysis I wound up paying $1.50/#. The more interesting part is I wound up with almost 60# of pork tenderloin. The really interesting part is that I had one hell of a time re-arranging the stuff in my already overloaded freezer to accommodate it. I literally cannot fit any more food in my freezer. And, yes, I’m thinking about purchasing another freezer.
Can NOT be re-assembled to make a complete pig.
My normal procedure is to line a baking tray with foil, season one of these things with some sort of spice blend (Old Bay is actually rather nice), cook it up, slice it thin, and snack on it cold. But, lately I’ve noticed that glazing it with sweet chili sauce is actually pretty darn good.
Anyway, I think this counts as a pretty sweet score. I could literally stop buying meet for the next several months and be just fine. Oh, and mind you, there are two tenderloins in each of those packages. Yum.
This is exactly how I wound up with 160 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts in my freezer at $0.99/lb.
My mistake was freezing the whole 8 pound trays instead of breaking them down into smaller packages. Live and learn!
Commander – Such a deal!
Are you sure you are not telling porkies?
(for your American readers, in Cockney rhyming slang “Porky Pies” = “lies”.
But very well done!
Ya know, you could can all of that wonderful, cheap, pork.
(cue music)… “It’s Joe Albertsons – supermarket but the meat department is Zero’s” (end music)
…gawd, I’m getting old.
I can see a steady diet of porcine in Cdr Zero’s near future……………
I like putting them in a crockpot set on low, in water with a sliced onion on the bottom. A few minutes of prep, and it’s ready when I come home from work. Dump the water, rip it up with a fork, and you have pulled pork. Add your favorite barbecue sauce, some rice and there’s dinner, with lots left over for sandwiches.
Yummmm
Great find Zero. “Back in the Day” when I had a house and several mouths to feed I had a 20 cf chest freezer just for meats, a 18 cf freezer just for fruits and veggies plus an extra fridge and another 20 cf down in the shop we used as needed. Plus we canned meats for quick meals, then there was the root cellar. Ah, those were fun times.
Zero, you live in Montana. The outdoors is your big freezer. Could you store frozen food outdoors for a limited time in some protected space to keep animals from getting it during the winter?
The weather isnt anywhere near predictable enough for that sort of thing here.
When I get pork cheap like this I grind some into burger. It works great for spaghetti, chilli and sloppy Joe’s.
I also like smoking these little guys with some killer hogz rub. You can make kalua pork in your slow cooker (in the winter I use the woodstove and a cast iron lodge pot), mesquite liquid smoke, sea salt, slow cook 20 hours, add cut up cabbage and simmer 4 more hours.
Costco was running 1.99/lb and then 3$ off a package as a sale gimmick which worked out to be 1.50/lb a few weeks ago. Pork is super cheap right now because of the trade war, i.e. less pork demand from china and greater supply of feedstock (soybeans). It won’t last much longer once trade talks resume. Actually a lot of prices for commodities will start moving back up once china starts up their engine again.
congrats.
cut in half and maybe biltong strips, add 3.5% salt (spices optional), brine for 2 weeks in the cool, hang up on butcher’s twine to dry and mature for a few weeks.
butterfly and fill the roulade, secure with string. cook slow and low.
cut up into thin minute steaks, freeze as single steaks and then put the lot in bags. also fine when cut into small strips for stir-fries.
not much fat in them and no connective tissue to keep them moist, think of injecting a roast with a spiced up brine and cover with foil or bacon.
Marinate trimmed tenderloins cut into 2″ thick chunks in red wine vinegar, olive oil,lemon juice, salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic in a big ziplock bag for 3-4 days turning a couple times a day. Then skewer and grill or broil to taste brushing with olive oil with salt, pepper, oregano, and lemon juice added. Slice French bread and use as mitts to pull off the skewers and make sure you have plenty of COLD beer. Old recipe for Spiedies… Seriously good eating too.
Regards.
I like the way you think.
Damn man! I hope you like pork. That sounds like something that would happen to me. You did get a hell of a deal though. My wife and I were in the “scratch and dent” grocery awhile back ,and they had huge bottles of olive oil for under $3.00. I bought it all. Some old fart came up to me at the counter and said “you can’t use all that before it spoils” which shows how much he knows about long term food storage. In the end, my kids came home on a visit and hauled most of it off to Nashville. But a deal is a deal! Makes you feel good to save some green, whatever else happens.
Been slow cooking the tenderloins or loins as I get them on sale ( not Zero kinda sale lol) and slice and cube and freeze drying it and dry can in ball jars with an 02 absorber, had so many cases of ball jars empty in basement just begging to be filled lol