Going Hog Wild

I've been going hog wild all last week and probably will be most of this week.  A week ago Thursday I went to the grocery store hungry, and my cupboards were very bare.  Plus, they were having a "meat truck" sale at the grocery store.  They had pork ribs on sale.  Pork loins were on sale.  I purchased some meat (actually, a lot of meat):  two whole racks of ribs, a whole pork loin, and a package of fresh pork sausage.  The crock pot has been getting a workout.  First it cooked some dry rub ribs.  Then it cooked about half of a pork loin.  Yesterday it simultaneously cooked more ribs and a smaller piece of loin.  I had the oven fired up to cook some pork chops too.  If I had a dog, it would be living high on the hog (just like me).  Now that I have it all cooked, tomorrow evening I'll have to freeze some of it or else it'll be going to waste.

To cook the ribs I didn't use Linda D.'s recipe, although I do plan to try her homemade sauce again some time.  Here's how I've found to make the best ribs so far.  Put them in the crock pot on low for 8+ hours.  Then remove them and put them on a flat pan.  Lightly brush them with BBQ sauce, and bake them in the oven for half an hour or so (I put them on 350).  That way they're fall-off-the-bone good while still having a little bit of crunch on the outside.  I cook the ribs in the crock pot mostly dry (maybe a little juice or a can of pop in the bottom with some rub on the meat) because I'm not a huge BBQ fan.  I've read recipes that say to do it both ways, so do whatever suits your fancy there.

Two weeks ago another female engineer started in the group I work in, so now we're up to about 15% of the engineers in the group being female.  I think that's slightly better than the average in the industry.  The main reason I mention this is to tell you what my co-workers like to tell new people about me.  One of the favorite things to tell the newbies is that I'm from Canada (because I grew up in ND).  Let's just say the people at work are geographically challenged.  The Canadian thing is a believable enough fib that lots of people get taken in by that one even though I don't say "eh" all the time.  The other one they like to tell new people is that I'm really unique because I'm the first Amish electrical engineer.  The new person believed the Amish tale this time.  I'm not sure if she believed them because she knew beforehand that I didn't have one of those "moving picture boxes", or if she thought I really did have that Amish vibe.  Oh well - I suppose there could be worse things.