Pork it Out

Those of you who’ve been following along here on the blog, or who’ve bought the Three Dollar Dinner cookbook, have possibly noticed that one key to eating healthy, organic, cheap food is to chill out with all the meat eating. Besides being the #1 contributor to water pollution and soil degradation (Al Gore, I love you, but your cattle ranching background made you skip that point in your film), there’s also a lot of ethical issues with how animals are raised and prepared for us to eat.

However, I love meat. There I said it.  I don’t cook it much at home, but I love it. I’ve tried being vegan and vegetarian, and while they were appropriate ways for me to eat at certain points in my life, I just love meat and so does my body (yeah yeah, I know, you’ve got proof I’m wrong, buzzkill!).  So, when I come across a fantastic recipe for a meat dish that can be made at home, organically, quickly, I’m in. 

This one requires a slow cooker. Slow cookers in the four quart size can be had for under $20 new, and I’ve used mine enough to more than make it a worthwhile investment. I’m not saying go out and buy a slow cooker to make this meat (that would make it more than a three dollar dinner) but then again…  I will tell you this – as winter goes on, you’ll be hearing a lot more about slow cookers from me.  And if you check out that link above, make sure to eyeball that sweet little CrockPot travel bag – you’ll be the talk of the function if you show up with your slow cooker all nestled in that black matte finish nylon goodness.

And if you want me to pretend to be a 70’s housewife instead of a 00’s dude, I’ll call it a freakin’ Crock Pot. There I said it (shout out to Craig Shepherd and Mom) it’s a freakin’ Crock Pot! You can get one of these bad boys (Crock Pot aka Slow Cooker) for $10 used if you look around.

Sorry vegans, this is one of the few Three Dollar Dinner situations you are just going to have to watch from the sidelines. You could do this with Gimme Lean I suppose for a sort of BBQ sloppy joe thing, but I don’t think you’d need to bother slow cooking that. Unless you just want the full carnivore experience.

Here’s how you turn this one out Three Dollar Dinner style.  First of all, use about one to one and a half pounds organic butt pork roast. This should run you about eight bucks max, or get all natural if you can’t find organic.

You’ll need a little thing of Liquid Smoke (NOT toxic, as you’ll learn in the article below – totally natural), and a bag of organic hamburger buns (three bucks). Some spices you should already have on hand or can get cheap if you don’t.  Done.

Get some pickles if you want – but not required.  I am the lucky one who lives one block from the Lower East Side Pickle Guys, so sue me if this turns into a four dollar dinner courtesy of a big fat sliced up gherkin.

Courtesy of The Splendid Table, here’s the recipe so you can Pork it Out.

And a smoky tip o’ the hat to Boing Boing writer Maggie Koerth-Baker (twitter @maggiekb1) for turning us onto the truth about Liquid Smoke and this great recipe.