Variety meats

Truly, when it comes to meat in the freezer, this is the land of plenty.  Cliff and I shouldn't even be eating much meat; lately we have gotten back to measuring portions and, once again, changing our relationships with food.  

As a side note, let me tell you how great Cliff is doing!  When we started this business of "getting back on track", I gave him a stern lecture:  "It's up to you how well you do.  I am not going to be your mother or your jailer this time, telling you what you can and cannot have.  If I see you eating something that isn't what you should be eating, whether at home or away from home, I am not going to say a word."

He has exceeded my hopes!  He's on-board with me this time.  Any time he's lost weight in the past, he always gives me the credit for it.  This time he can pat himself on the back while he's at it, because he is making a gigantic, successful effort to police himself.  And now, back to the topic at hand.

We do go ahead and have meat most days, because what are we going to do with it?  Somebody has to eat it.  We do share with various relatives sometimes, but right or wrong, we are eating it.

Yesterday I was digging around in the freezer and, as usual, kept tossing beef hearts and tongues and liver out of my way while I looked for ground beef.  (At least I used up the ox-tail in some soup this week, so I didn't encounter any of that.)  

Years ago I cooked some tongue and canned it in the pressure canner.  It was delicious, actually.  It tastes like (get this) beef.  If we didn't have half a cow in the freezer, we'd appreciate it and eat it more often, but when you have lots of meat, tongue and organ meats go to the bottom of the list.  We love fried liver, but someone with heart issues shouldn't have it very often.  For that matter, people with weight issues shouldn't be having much of fried-anything.  

I decided to grab a tongue and do something with it, even if I had to freeze it after cooking.  While I was at it, I picked up a package of liver... do you know how many packages of liver you get when you butcher just one cow?  A LOT!  "If nothing else, I'll boil it and feed it to Titan," I told myself.  For those who don't know, Titan is the next-door grandson's dog.  

I pressure-cooked the tongue for an hour and put it aside to cool.  By the time I was ready to do something with it, the liver had thawed and, searching the Internet for a recipe, I settled on liver loaf, something I've never tasted... but do you know any other ways to use liver?  I don't.  

Judging by the recipe ingredients, it's definitely not diet food, but I thought I'd slice it and freeze it in serving sizes (if it was any good) for quick sandwiches sometime when I don't want to cook.  Here's the recipe, which I'm pretty sure none of my readers will be trying:

LIVER LOAF

1 lb. liver, slices 3/4 c. boiling water 1 med. onion 1/2 lb. pork sausage meat 1 c. dry bread crumbs 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp. lemon juice 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. celery salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 2 eggs 4 slices bacon Pour the boiling water over the liver and simmer 5 minutes. Remove the liver and grind with the onions through the meat knife of a food chopper. Add to the stock with the remaining ingredients except bacon. Place in loaf pan, top with bacon and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Now, by the time this stuff was ready to come out of the oven, it was four o'clock.  Cliff walked in the house just as I was taking a bite to see if it was any good, and said, "What's that?  It smells GREAT!"

I took a moment to chew and swallow and my little bite and answered him. "It's liver loaf.  Surprisingly, it tastes very good!  It's not as liver-y as I expected."  

And I gave him a small bite to sample.  

Now friends, when we are eating properly we are very hungry at 4 P.M., but we know it isn't long until supper.  If we're too hungry to wait, we go for an apple or banana.  But the smell was killing us, and the tiny taste only made things worse.  So we agreed to have a liver-loaf sandwich at five o'clock with one slice of bread.  It was delicious, although I'll admit at that point almost anything would have tasted great.  

Later I wrapped the rest in foil.  I'll probably put it in the freezer today.  I intend to slice the tongue and put it in the freezer in portions also.  If it were just Cliff and me, we'd have some for dinner today, but there's a possibility we'll have company.  I would never offer liver or tongue to guests.

Stay tuned for our next adventure in eating:  Pickled Beef Heart.