Today we are having Act II of the oven meal of yesterday that consisted of a pork roast, carrots and onions.
When we were in Mankato last week and I had purchased the pork roast at Cub’s grocery store; I had bought some produce as well. I noticed that there were containers of pre-cut items. Anticipating that there would be soup made at some time in the near future of the leftover roast, I bought a container that was one third diced onions, one third diced carrots and one third diced celery. I mean to tell you these individual pieces were no more than one third inch in size of that. My hands don’t do a lot of chopping well. I bought the container and popped it into the freezer when we got home as I didn’t really know when the roast would go into the oven. I knew there would be a huge amount of flavor from this container that would add to what I would put in the soup pot.
Last night after supper and when the roast had cooled I diced up the meat and took the time to get rid of as much fatty trimmings as possible and popped the trimmed and diced meat into the refrigerator. The drippings from the roaster I let set out as I knew I would skim off the set fat this morning. I checked with Dennis this morning as to what would suit him for supper and he bought into the soup idea. I did take three peeled and diced potatoes and they were the first thing in the soup kettle with a container of Swanson’s vegetable broth. What better way to get them into the same consistency as the leftover carrots.
When the potatoes were tender to a fork I added the frozen container from Cub’s that had carrots, onions and celery as well as the carrots and onions from the oven roast. In went four bullion cubes, salt and pepper, with the roaster drippings with the meat added last. I left the burner on a fairly low setting as I knew the finely chopped items wouldn’t take any time at all to cook through. I checked several hours later and the flavors were great.
I admit, it was a luxury to purchase the prepared chopped vegetables. With my arthritic hands it was well worth it for this pot of soup. When we are in Mankato again, I will most likely purchase the prepared container again and pop it into our freezer for the next time there is an offering of soup . . . maybe several other options of prepared items that would freeze well.
With not having to wear out my hands chopping items for the soup, I went on to making a pan of lemon bars and still felt like working a bit on my quilt blocks. Dennis stirred up the powdered sugar frosting for the lemon bars . . . a win, win situation.
Light snow off and on. Could have guessed that when the wind switched to the south this forenoon. Tomorrow is a new week with new thoughts and energies.
I know our Act II will bring several good meals of soup or even perhaps freeze a container for another day.
We have had the Christmas tree up since Thanksgiving and it had been out in the west porch. I decided to make room for it in the living room and today it was decked out with decorations. A pencil thin, seven foot tree is not the easiest to decorate and the branches are not very long. I think it turned out great. Many of my decorations will have to wait for next year when they get to take a turn. I am short of flat spots for my Nativity sets. 
