You say that you'd rather be really poor than scratching, saving, scrimping all the pennies

[venta]

At the weekend, I was trawling the aisles of Sainbury's. And, while it wasn't what I was looking for, their own-brand "Cooks Ingredients" range turned out to be exactly what I wanted.

In effect, it's packets of cooked meat - nowt hugely inspiring there, you'd think. But actually, they're packets of shredded ham hock, shredded beef brisket, shredded cooked chicken... in fact, they're packets of leftovers. Which is great, because sometimes you want the leftovers without having had what is referred to in our household as the firstovers.

Obviously, if you want shredded ham hock then the ideal thing is to have already had a meal or two involving ham hock that week - it's probably nicer, and it's very probably cheaper. However if, for some reason, you have failed to have the requisite foresight then being able to buy leftovers is a very good idea indeed.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Not seen those, but it's been possible for a while to buy miscellaneous ham scraps by weight from the deli counter. (They're useful, but I feel they should be cheaper given they're basically waste.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha! That is useful information, which I didn't know. Ordinarily I buy my meat from a butcher, and I'm frequently in supermarkets at strange hours when the deli counters are closed.

It's been possible for ages to buy ginormo packs of Tesco value bacon pieces, which are a real grab-bag of smoked/unsmoked/rashers/chunks/steaks. They're great... if you want enough bacon to feed a family of four for a fortnight. Which I often don't.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

You could break the packs up and feed a family of two for an evening and a freezer for a couple of months.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Those sound perfect for my Indo-French lentil and bacon curry (which I cook in bulk and freeze.) I'll keep an eye out - there's no big Tesco near me, but Asda may have similar.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I recently heard exspelunca comment that she wished she knew you well enough to ask you for the recipe for this.

I have no idea what degree of acquaintance is required to ask someone such a thing on LJ, but am probably just about impolite enough to do it on her behalf anyway :)

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to type out the recipe, I might as well make an lj post on it. If I do, I'll make it a public post and drop her a comment where to find it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, excellent. Thank you very much.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

That's actually a marvellous idea :)

Now if only it were happy ham hock...

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Does anyone sell happy ham hock? I've seen happy bacon and even occasionally happy sausages, but never a hock.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Suspect you'd need to find a decent free range butchers that cures their own.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked, but I reckon I could find some. Not in supermarkets, though :)