The Dinner Dilemma

A few days ago, my Dad made chili verde. Our version is cubed pork with yellow hots, onions, and green chili's. Green chili's and yellow hots are roasted on the grill or in a pan, and they make you cough real hard and your eyes water and all around feel like you're in a germ warfare arena. Especially with 500 degree air baking you off of the grill and the sun beating down on you. It's enough to drive a man to suicide.

There are two ways to make it: the good way, roasting the peppers, then blending them up in the blender, or the bad way- cutting them into rings and just making a soup out of it. This way is easier but it tastes like crap. He uh, made it this way, then added shredded roast. Weird. Weird.


He took out about 12 pounds of pork. Why he did this, I do not know. He only used 6, so there were 6 left over. I cut that 6 pounds up today, and decided to grind some of it.


I found another use for those wonderful gloves I may have mentioned. They make everything better. The picture is one of them over the pusher for the Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment- I don't want pork, or chicken, on the pusher. It is made of wood, and wood soaks stuff up and becomes waterlogged, right? Right. We don't want it to become porklogged.

And here is a trick I learned watching Good Eats. You put bread through your grinder and it does most of the cleaning for you. It works pretty good. Definitely less "yuck." And yes, that particular part of the kitchen *does* scream "axe-murderer-lives-here."


Ground pork is like the drink Sex on the Beach. You can say, "I'll take a pound of ground pork- either the drink, or the real thing!" to a burst of laughter and applause.

So, what to do with this precious bit of pork, I thought. I made 3 pounds. "I know!" I answered. "I'll make meatballs!"

"No, no! that will never work!" I cried. "What do I do with them once we've made them? Throw them to the dogs?!"

"No! Make spaghetti for dinner! You can make that sauce, and make some meatballs, and everyone will love you!"

"I'LL DO IT!" I answered excitedly, anticipating the thunderous applause I would receive...


So, I got the sauce started (Giada De Laurentiis' awesome, easy recipe, which I ). Now I realize, I do not have any spaghetti. And it's too late to make it from scratch. I am up against a wall, very much like Sarah Conner was before the terminator was killed in the first movie. My only hope is that my Mom will read this post and pick up some spaghetti from the store. That would make everything better forever.




As a bonus for you, my valued slave friend, here are a few pictures I took last night. If you must know, I was...uhh...I was...on a date ... with...Jack LaLanne's daughter ... Jackie LaLanne...yes, that's it. I was on a date with Jack LaLanne's daughter Jackie. What a clever excuse! That's the cold, hard truth. Flash Tag because that's a-some nice-a scenery-a. Ah, Mama Mia. Pepperoni. Ah-ravioli.