Brine, the secret to moist and juicy meat!

Last time I bought a lean pork loin roast I swore I would NEVER buy that meat again!  I buy the large pork loin at Sam’s Club or Costco then cut it down into chops and a couple of small roast.  Every time either me or my hubby cook it, it is always dry!  Makes me so mad, because I take care not to cook it too long!

Last time I swore I would never buy this meat again!  So my hubby the true chef of the house did some research and discovered about making a brine.  I had heard of making a brine for a Thanksgiving Turkey, but had always thought that salt would draw the moisture out.  Boy was I wrong!

A couple of weeks ago my hubby made the brine below for a couple of chops.  He put it in a baking dish 9 x 13 (baggies are good also) for approximately  1 1/2 - 2 hours.  They plumped up, they were tender, they were juicy.  They were delicious!!!  We will never make this type of meat again without the brine, and we are totally going to brine our Turkey next Thanksgiving!!!

1/4 cup of kosher salt

4 cups of water

Just dissolve the salt in luke warm water then add the meat for 20 minutes up to 4 hours.  You may have to double or triple the brine mixture to cover your meat.  Add herbs to enhance the flavor.  Have fun, it’s pretty easy and so, so good!  Next time I will take pictures of before and after and update this post.

Pork Chops?

Just got this in an email thought it might brighten your day :)

I guess there is controversy on where story actually takes place, but the photo’s and the facts are real, so who cares, it’s wonderful!

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triple tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only “orphans” that could be found quickly were a litter of wiener pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.

Would they become cubs or pork chops????????????? Take a look…….. you won’t believe your eyes!!!!”