Meatpiphany

This is really weird, but I was just thinking about how I lean more towards meals that are light on meat. I’ve got some ground pork and I was thinking up ways to make it.
Maybe dumplings, Swedish meatballs, Bolognese sauce, tacos … basically dishes where you eat a little bit of the meat with the rest of the ingredients.
When I thought of meatloaf, my initial reaction was “Woah, that is a lot of meat. It’s a loaf of meat! Hey, that reminds me of my meatcake, which was an epic amount of meat.” I mean, you can stretch meatloaf with fillers, etc, but only so far.

When I eat at home I cook with meat more as a flavoring method now than as the center of the meal. You can eat a lot of dumplings, but dumplings don’t have a ton of meat in them to begin with the way I make them (I like a large ratio of skin : filling). I like my meatballs saucy, so I’ll generally have sauce + pasta + 2-3 meatballs. I mean, how can you really resist sauce?

I think affordability is also an issue. Do you know how much meat costs? Wow, my head sometimes spins thinking about how much was spent on food for my bro, sister, and me growing up to have meat at just about every meal. (Thanks for feeding me by the way, mom and dad!) Personally, I don’t know if I could afford to eat meat at every meal the way I used to!
Actually, not eating a lot of meat kind of has a catch-22 effect: since I don’t eat a lot of meat I want the meat that I do eat to taste really good. The beef and pork from the supermarkets just don’t really cut it with me any more, especially when my alternate option is having a definitely tasty veggie based (or lightly meaty) meal. I want my pork porky and my beef beefy!

Another effect not eating a lot of meat has is that Albany John and I definitely savor our meat more and don’t really feel the need to eat a piece of meat each. Like, we’ll split a steak for dinner instead of making two. Growing up, I could easily put back a steak or two at supper. Oh man, I just realized it’s been a WHILE since I’ve eaten a pork chop. That has got to get rectified this summer. I will totally eat a whole pork chop by myself.

And OHMYGOSH, thinking about pork, I realize I have bacon fat in the fridge and I keep forgetting about making biscuits and white gravy. Which is also light on the animal product.

Sorry, anyway, thanks for making it through this ramble of mine. I guess in sum, I just realized I don’t eat a ton of meat, at least in comparison to Old Albany Jane (or would that be young AJ?). It’s definitely interesting to catch these moments of thought, where you think “Oh, that’s too much XYZ… wait, what did I just say?! Hunh, neat”

I’ll just let myself out now. Turn the lock to the left? Wait, did I just lock it? Oh, to the right? No, I think it’s stuck or someth… oh, ok, you got it. Any way, have a great day!