Elderberry pear pie.....oh, my!

Busy day, and I wanted pie, so I went back to my new "fall-back" meal of green beans and leftover pork.  It'll be a while before I'm tired of this one.  I found a quart of green beans in the freezer from last summer's garden and grabbed a hunk of this year's salt pork, pulled some cooked pork out of the kitchen freezer and I was good to go.  A quick meal that would allow time for the other major and oh-so-important food group:  PIE!

At this point I will tell you all that in the past couple of weeks, without trying, I've lost 2-3 pounds.  Yep, all the fat we've added to our diets lately is having the desired effect.  More fat, less carbs, equals jeans that fit.  And more energy in spite of the short, short late December days.  Our bodies can utilize the energy from good fats much more efficiently than that from carbohydrates.  If our diet is in the correct balance, we burn fat and store carbs.

Notice how few refined carbs were in tonight's meal.

I started by dicing up the salt pork (with one of my new razor sharp knives!  Yeehaw!) and putting it into a cold cast iron frying pan.

The cold pan is thus greased as the salt pork begins to release its lard.

While this is slowly cooking over a med-low flame, I made the pie.  I'd picked up a few over-ripe pears on clearance (the best for cooking with, but have to be used right away) and thought they'd go nicely with some of the elderberries I had in the freezer from this past summer's walks with the dogs.  I try to always have my picking pail with me....doesn't everyone?  *snicker*

The berries died the pears a lovely, yet strange, shade of hot pink but this pie goes down in history as one of my personal favorites.  The hubster likes the mock cherry (cranberry/raisin) pie best, but he liked this one, too.  I used about a third of a cup of sugar for this pie, along with a couple droppersful of stevia extract.  It was perfect.  The crust was all whole wheat, fermented for 24 hours at room temperature.

Meanwhile, the salt pork was slowly browning and sizzlin' on the pan.  Click this link for a quick mouthwatering tour of my stovetop.

I put half the crispy bits and rendered fat into a sauce pan with the frozen beans and covered them to cook for a while, then added the frozen pork meat to the frying pan along with some garlic and lots of salt and pepper.  Fried it a bit crispy this time....yum!

More details on how to make your own salt pork coming soon!