365 Project #43 Pork Sirloin Chops

We love Miiller's Smokehouse and Market in Llano, TX.  The quality is excellent, the prices are competitive and it's a great advantage to know what's in everything they sell.  I went in to get some of their breakfast sausage and found they had a great deal on pork sirloin chops, $1.49 per pound, and asked for ten pounds.  The clerk repeated it to make sure I meant it, and indeed I meant ten pounds.

At home, we generously seasoned each chop with ground Knuckle Donny's Super Seasoning Mix, put them back in the plastic bag they came in and refrigerated for 2 days (company coming for dinner).

Don keeps a special firewood rack that holds seasoned oak and mesquite.  Once he has a good oak fire going, he puts on the faster-burning mesquite for smoke and flavor.

Once the fire has burned hot, he puts the grill on to sterilize and burn off old deposits.

All the meat goes on at once to cook and smoke.  You can see what a beautiful, crisp winter day it was.

We had two chops that fed 3 people served with baked potatoes, pickled beets, and sauteed mushrooms and onions.

Later we processed the cooked meat by cutting it into cubes, measuring it into eight 8oz. packages (plus one 5 oz. pkg.) wrapped in waxed paper and freezing it.  That's a whole lot of meals almost half-ready.  The bones are in a pot on the stove to make 24-hour stock for soups and sauces.