Wild Boar? Really? Can you buy that? Because, I thought you couldn't buy "wild" game, legally. I did a little research on the Internet (what did we do before Google, anyway?). It turns out that (at least in Minnesota), if you have pigs from a certain genetic group, and you feed them organic material, and they are "free range", you can call it Wild Boar. I searched for local sources. What I found was a site called Buffalogal.com. They apparently had pigs descended from some Russian breed and raise them in Houston, MN. Well, Houston was a little far for me to go before Wednesday (I was searching on Sunday, of course). There is also a store in Hudson, WI called Venison America. Both places sounded great, and I could drive to Hudson on a Sunday, but I looked at prices on both, and unfortunately, the cost was prohibitive. Someday, I would like to be in a place where that wouldn't matter, so we could truly enjoy pizza night in it's intended spirit - to try new things and evolve our palettes. Ah, but the lottery does not appear to be my friend, and my career ambitions (or lack thereof) have not led me to a position of affluence. The tenderloins at both locations was right around $30/lb, and I could not justify that purchase (and road trip), when I have a freezer full of $1/lb pork.
Boy, this seems familiar, doesn't it? We spent the rest of our evening vacuum sealing thighs in various sized packages.
As I have mentioned before, smoking meats is not my forte. I have never personally done it, and I am generally lazy. I know that somewhere in my garage, or my basement, or in my kindling box, there are wood chips specially marketed for the home-griller. That might be a lot of work for me to find those and figure out how to use them with my gas grill. That may even require me to find the long-forgotten smoker box (a cast iron box specifically designed to hold pre-soaked wood chips for grilling). Wow! And, to pile that on top of grocery shopping for said pizza, preparing for said pizza, and doing the regular day-to-day chores, like washing clothes and cooking dinner? Well, that was just too much to ask.
For Christmas, my secret Santa, Jean, gave me a smoker bag. I have never used such an item, but it highly intrigued me. I have read the directions several times since Christmas, but have never found the right occasion to use it - I kept thinking I should save it for a special occasion. How many special days go by without us realizing that they were truly special? How many place settings go unused waiting for a special occasion? Any day spent with my sisters is special. Pizza night, is always special. I would even dare to say that even the Pizza Nights where no one showed up, and it was just me, were special. Let's break out the special smoker-bag!
There were directions on the packaging with cooking times for various cuts, types, and sizes of meat. I had a two pound pork roast. The cooking times for pork included 1½" pork chops (1-2 pounds) or a 3-4 pound pork roast. I didn't think mine fit either description. The instructions were to season the meat as desired and place in the bag. Fold the end of the bag over twice to seal. Cook for the recommended time on the chart. It said 30-35 minutes for the chops and 50 minutes for the 3-4lb roast. I chose 40 minutes, since my roast was smaller. I figured it would be better to err on the side of rare than the other way around, especially since it was going to be re-cooked on top of the pizza.
I seasoned it with our favorite go-to seasoning: Harley's. It's garlicky and salty, and it just seems to make everything taste better. I put the roast in the bag and rolled up the end. I had been pre-heating the grill to medium-high, as instructed, and I then threw this on. I did turn the burners down to low at this point. I didn't really believe that the roast needed to be cooked on medium high. Low and slow has always been good for me. While that was cooking, I decided to go back in and work on the sauce. I was going to cut the recipe by a third, since the pizza recipe only calls for 1 cup of sauce (and I was only making one pizza, so I really only needed 1/2 cup), but I figured if I am going to go through all of this effort to make home-made barbecue sauce, I may as well have some extra to put in the freezer for another day.
I wanted to start by getting all of the ingredients together. I had to BUY green peppers at the grocery store, because my garden bell pepper plants are stunted. I am not sure what the problem is there, but they do not want to seem to produce peppers. The one Hungarian Wax pepper plant, though, has been giving me a pepper a week for a few weeks now. I had just picked my weekly bounty on Tuesday. I decided to add this to the barbecue sauce (along with one of my purchased peppers). Other than that, I pretty much stuck to the list.
Other than all of the chopping, this sauce recipe was really easy. If I had had to fry bacon for it, it would have been a little more involved, but I actually had pre-cooked left-over bacon (a HUGE rarity in my house). The best part of all was that I got to use the Vitamix 5200 Total Nutrition Center to puree the sauteed veggies and the rest of the ingredients together. This beautiful machine makes anything liquid after a few seconds with no lumps! This was no exception, and then the sauce went back into the sauce pan for its hour and a half bubble. And bubble, it did. I poured the sauce back in the pan and went to get the roast off of the grill. When I came back inside, the sauce was boiling and had blurped sauce all over the counter and the floor. I turned the burner down as low as it would go for the remainder of the reduction time. After an hour and a half, it was really thick. Meanwhile, I checked the roast. It had rested away from the grill for over 5 minutes, so I checked its temp. It was only 105º! I wanted it a little under-done, but that was a little too much. I probably should have extended the time, since I didn't use the recommended temperature setting. I poured the juices back in the bag and dropped the roast back in, sealed up the bag, and went back to the grill. I set my timer for another 30 minutes. When the timer went off, I opened the lid of the grill and didn't get that familiar rush of heat rising up out of the grill. I stuck my hand over the burners - no heat. I was able to grab the aluminum bag with my bare hands. Apparently, the propane had run out on the grill towards the beginning of the roast's second roasting. There should be some sort of buzzer for that sort of thing.
I brought the roast inside and took a peek. When I unfolded the end of the bag, steam came out. That was a good sign. I decided to just cut the roast in half. I didn't know how long it hadn't been cooking, so temperature would NOT be an indicator of done-ness. Cutting it in half would serve two purposes - I would be able to look at the color to determine how it was cooked, AND if it wasn't done, it would cook faster in smaller pieces. I held my breath and brandished my knife... I sliced right through the center, and it was perfect! Slightly pink, still juicy, and delicious! Jeff and I ate for dinner the half that wasn't going to be used for the pizza, and it was slightly smokey and very tender.
Next on my prepping agenda was the crust for the blue cheese pizzas. I already had a frozen crust for the Wild Boar Pizza. For the basic dough, I had debated about dividing the crust in half and freezing the other half, because every time I have made this crust before it seemed like too much crust for the rest of the ingredients. However, since this was little individual pizzas, it seemed like a good idea to just go ahead and use it all. If, at the time of assembly, we decided it was too much crust, we could just make more than six. Leftovers are always welcome in my fridge, and they make great parting gifts for the guests. Pam couldn't join us on Thursday: she was in Seattle. Jeff had zoomed down to Iowa on a raccoon-hunting spree. Raccoons were reportedly eating all of the sweet corn he and my dad had planted. The kids' softball/baseball season was over, so Jennifer and family could actually show up at a reasonable time. She asked what time that should be. I asked her to wait until 6. I needed a little wind-down time from work before I was pleasant and entertaining. I may not be entertaining anyway, just mildly amusing, but at least I wouldn't be crabby.
I was able to clean a toilet, sweep the kitchen, and mop up the barbecue sauce on the floor and counters (and wash my hands, of course). I also took a look outside at the gas grill that had petered out on me the day before. I lamented that it was out of propane. I knew we had another tank somewhere, but finding it was one thing, and I wasn't even sure that it would be full (this is something magical that happens at my house - usually - tanks go empty and magically refill themselves, but this was not the case today). I sighed and trudged into the garage in search of charcoal. That would probably be easier to find and set up than the propane option. I found the charcoal, found the charcoal chimney, loaded it with newspaper, and lit it. It was going pretty good, when I looked to my right and saw the extra propane tank right there on the sidewalk! And guess what? It was completely full. Oh well, we haven't tried grilling pizzas on charcoal before. It will be yet another culinary experience for us.
I had just finished rolling out the grill crust when they arrived. I assigned Jennifer the task of rolling out the dough for the blue cheese pizza. The kids heard this and asked if they could help. They seemed to have a great time stretching and flattening the dough. The end results were artistic and beautiful. Roger was our bartender, and he mixed up a beautiful drink with absolute precision. He measured everything! The end result was a pink bowl of deliciousness. It was fruity and somewhat sweet with a kick. We practiced the Minnesota version of the Last Goodbye, where you always have to say it three times before anyone actually leaves.
The kids also helped with the distribution of the ingredients. I was very happy to provide them with home grown tomatoes for this task! At last! When I handed the two smallest tomatoes to Jennifer to cut, she said "only two, really?". What?? This from the anti-tomato girl? I took the smallest of the two I had handed her and replaced it with a large tomato. There. Take that. And, she did. Hmmmm... Is there a change in tastes on the horizon?
We decided to pop these little beauties in the oven and cook them inside while we got the ingredients for the barbecue pizza. We wanted to snack on these while we were grilling the wild boar pizza. I was right about the dough being too much. It was supposed to make six 6" pizzas. We measured our pizzas, and they were like 7" by 9". A little too large to be called a snack, but we were going to go for it anyway. The crusts puffed up golden and pretty in the oven, and we actually remembered to add the Parmesan (in our case, Manchego, because I underestimated the inventory in my fridge) and parsley.
They were delicious! The Gorgonzola soaked up the juices from the tomatoes to balance out the salty and tart flavors. The green onions cut through the creaminess of the cheese, and the peppers didn't quite soften up, so they were little crunchy bursts of sweetness throughout the piece.
Jonah, even though he was part of the assembly, just realized that there were peppers and onions, not only on the pizzas he had helped create, but there were onions on the pork pizza as well, and he claims he doesn't like either. Rather disappointing, but I was once that picky child. So, we made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I didn't have any bread a kid would like, so we used hot dog buns.
Then, we moved outside to grill the wild boar pizza. I am still calling it that, even though it was probably a tame pig that gave itself for our pizza.
It was fabulous! The pork stayed tender, even though it was on its second (technically third) cooking. The Manchego was earthy and tangy, the sauce rich and gooey. I had originally thought it might be too much cheese, but it was perfect. It provided the perfect cohesion (no bits of food falling off onto the boob shelf or bouncing off the belly).
Unfortunately for Gracie, the "snack" pizza was too much for her, and she had no room for this pizza. I sent the last remaining piece home with her for later. Jonah saw how much we were enjoying it and couldn't resist trying it. I think he had three pieces of it! I guess there is hope for him, after all. It was all very filling and Roger had to take a little rest after the meal.
The kids decided they had to run off their consumed calories (ah, to be young and energetic again! Oh wait, I was never THAT energetic!)
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