Alternate title: when you buy ten pounds of pork belly…
…you have some options.
For 2/3 of the portion (about 6-7 pounds?) I made a rub and Kyle grilled it for 70 minutes keeping the grill at 300 degrees.
The rub had 2 tsp chili powder, 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, 2 tsp smoked paprika, 2 tsp salt, and 2 tsp brown sugar.
I attempted to score the fat side, but I didn’t really know what I was doing so who knows if I successfully did that. In any event, I did try to cut a cross hatch pattern into the fat, but basically left the rub on the non-fat side.
Kyle said he flipped it at 20 minutes, then again after another 30 minutes, and then again after another 20 minutes. At the very end, he 2 minutes fat side down on high direct heat and then just barely over 1 minute on the other side before taking off the grill. It measured ~155 on the meat thermometer when he took it off the grill but we let it rest for a long time before serving (because we made it in advance) so I’m sure it got higher (I think it’s recommended to reach 160 degrees F).
So there you go. If you’re interested.
The rest of the week we spent trying to use up the leftovers in a variety of ways.
– in our Caesar salads
-as tacos (paired with lime juice and avo and tucked into a corn tortilla)
-sautéed with kale
For the other portion that wasn’t grilled or vacuum sealed and frozen for later, I turned to the crock pot.
I made the rub portion of this recipe for Asian pork tenderloin and then added a few tbsp of coconut aminos in the bottom as well. Cooked on low for 6 hours. The next day I added broccoli and served it over rice. HOLY MOLY this was so good. Gonna do a full recipe post of this later so others can make it. It’s repeat worthy and it is the first time I managed to make an Asian flavored recipe that P can have (usually soy or sesame is called for in that food genre that prevents him from trying it).
On Tuesday, I made a vegetarian dish to change it up (also my sis was in town and she doesn’t eat pig, which was all we had).
Enter quinoa salad. Since I hadn’t yet been grocery shopping (we hit up Costco over the weekend but didn’t go to the regular grocery store, and there’s only so much you can do with bulk stuff), I had to get a little crafty.
I searched through the pantry and fridge for what we could piece together and decided on something revolving around chickpeas, mango, and snap peas. Sadly the avocados weren’t ripe yet because that would’ve been ideal.
Like I said, my sis was in town for this meal, so I left out bell peppers because she’s not a fan (otherwise I bet those would be good too). Same with cashews (although P is allergic so I mostly just swap tree nuts with something he tolerates, like pumpkin seeds).
The dressing was a lime vinaigrette. Super tasty.
By Thursday I was so over pork belly. I made Kyle pasta (fresh with our home grown tomatoes!) and salad for myself. I am in SUUUUCH a salad rut. I have them every day for lunches with my home-made crackers, and since I never did make it to the grocery store, I had salads for both Thursday and Friday’s dinner.
The one on the left (Thursday) is my new obsession (cabbage, radicchio, broccoli and brussels slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and poppyseed dressing with avocado. The one on the right (Friday) was a fridge scraping meal with greens, carrots, mayo dressing, avocado, and figs. We were going out of town for a bit so I didn’t want to go shopping and I wanted to use up all the perishables…
Kyle had pasta again. I made a ton because we had (have) SO MANY tomatoes.
Seriously with the tomatoes.
I vacuum sealed and froze the rest of the cooked pork belly for later because we still had a few pounds left. I’m all about throwing stuff in the freezer before they go bad (or vacations). In fact, I’d say wasting food is something I’m crazy good about avoiding. We have basically zero food waste in our house to be honest. Even with a toddler. I find a way to save and repurpose e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Drives Kyle bonkers some time. In the end, I am pretty proud of myself for making it through the week without going to the grocery store!
