MPM--In Like a Lion Edition

Apologies to anyone whose feed showed a blank post here earlier. My four year old decided to delete what I'd written and publish a blank! Hopefully not an editorial comment on his part.

So last week went well. We had our first snow fizzle (fo'shizzle) for which I was very grateful. It was fun to watch all day and didn't stick until the sun went down. We had a bonus snow day on Friday and three day weekends are never a bad thing. But, that did trigger the "must buy meat" instinct, which is a little less...um...practical during Lent. First, I bought a brisket because I could not resist this recipe on The Bitten Word. I used too much bacon because I misunderstood the recipe, and honestly, it didn't smell great while it cooked. It smelled ok, but not the nose-tickling aroma I was hoping for. Maybe it's because I couldn't bring myself to pay for fancy bacon (pancetta) when I had defrosted bacon in my fridge from the freezer incident and it was too chemically treated for this. Then suddenly, a little after hour #3 started, the aroma was fabulous. But I appreciated the chopstick suggestion; while it didn't work for them, I still had plenty left over from the sushi fest the night before, and I found that with deep-enough cuts in the brisket, the chopsticks really helped nudge the bacony goodness on in there. And oh, mercy, they are not kidding about the onion-bacon jam at the bottom. It was truly addictive and the rest of the family is lucky there was any left for them.

Of course, in my snow addled state, I forgot completely about the brisket (hard to do with the price of meat at our store, but apparently I just blocked that right on out) and bought pork shoulder to make this slow cooker carnitas recipe, straight from the crockpot365 site. Knowing my kids probably wouldn't eat it, I also had a little taco kit, but wow, that was a lot of meat. So we teamed up with another family to eat it all, which was a lovely way to spend a winter Saturday. I know I just raved about pork a week ago, and that one was maybe just a smidge better, but this was SO easy and SO good. We will have this again and soon.

This week:

Sunday: brisket, baked potatoes, broccoli

Monday: leftover tacos

Tuesday: pesto-sundried tomato chicken roll-ups, noodles, salad

Wednesday: brisket leftovers plus freezer additions; there are some veggies and other side dishes in there

Thursday: spaghetti and meatball bread

Friday: shrimp with feta recipe from Glorious One-Pot Meals

Have a great week everyone--and check out what's for dinner at I'm an Organizing Junkie!