Cheap, Delicious Meat

As a low carb paleo homemake on a budget, I've come to find the cheapest pieces of meat you can buy in the store.  Things like chicken thighs and hamburger have become staples in our house because they're both cheap and easy.  But sometimes you want a break from those cuts of meat.  So this weekend, I bought another cheap piece of meat I knew was delicious.

I bought....  a really massive pork shoulder.

In case you can't tell, that's not a small crock-pot.  It's a pretty big one, or at least a pretty decent sized one.  And thank goodness it just barely fit in there, because it's been 80+ degrees in our area and I didn't want to have the oven on all day long. 

The pork roast ended up weighing almost 8 pounds, but it only cost me about $10.  At our local Wegmans store, you can buy meat in club packs that have a lower per-pound price, which is almost always how I buy my meat.  Strangely enough, the pork shoulder only comes in club packs, so even if I wanted a smaller shoulder, this is all I'd be able to get.

Not that I'm complaining.  After 6 hours on high, and then an additional three hours on low, the pork was finally done.  And it was beautiful.  Pork shoulder, when properly cooked, is what they make pulled pork out of.  After you cook it, you can do so much with it.  We've had it with low carb bbq sauce, with sauerkraut, in wraps, cold, in soups.  It's delicious.

This is before pulling it.

And the best part is, it freezes really well.  So if you're feeding just one or two people, you can cook it all up at once, and then repackage it into small freezer bags so you can pull out one serving at a time.  A large pork shoulder like this one should give you 5-8 meals for two people.

And it's easy, too!  Just stick the whole roast in a slow cooker, salt and pepper, and add a little (1/2 to 1 cup) broth around the sides.  Depending on the size and the power of your crockpot, it should take anywhere from 4 to 8 hours.  You know it's done when the meat pulls away in delicious strands.