My Raw Meat Rant

In light of my recent experience with raw meat this week, which I will explain in detail, I felt the need to vent. Get all my disgust out. Let me just start out by saying how much I hate dealing with raw meat. It's slimey, bacteria-ridden, smelly and guh-ross. This past Friday, I had the day to spend at home getting things done and hangin out with Cam, and I decided that I really needed to cook the whole chicken in my fridge that had been defrosting for a couple days. See, back in April or whenever, I had bought a pack of 2 roasting chickens at Winco for dirt cheap, and stuck them in my freezer for later use. (Besides, did you know that you save money by keeping your freezer full? It takes less energy, because all the food keeps each other cold. You can even fill a milk carton with water and freeze it when you need to take up space). Anyways, last week I decided it was getting time to defrost those puppies and cook them before they were no longer useable. P.S. I don't know about you, but it seems like things should be able to last forever in the freezer. That's what my cute little Grandma Willes believes. She freezes everything known to man, and has NO wiggle room in her 2 freezers whatsoever. She pulls out a dish or unknown package and thaws it out and cooks it for supper, and it's like a surprise to find out what you're eating and to guess how many years it had been in the freezer. It's a fun game. I don't know that I would recommend it. She really is a good cook- I'm not knockin on Grandma- but it's funny to hear stories from my siblings about what they were given from Grandma's freezer. My brother was given a frozen packaged something that looked like banana bars, but it turned out to be some kind of meatloaf. haha.

So I started reading on the internet about how long you can keep a whole chicken in the freezer, and it said up to 3 months! ONLY? That's like nothin! It had been in there longer than that, so now I felt that I needed to cook both of the chickens that day to get it off my conscience. So now the frozen solid one would have to go in the microwave...for 30 minutes. Yuck. But it did, and it ended up tough and hot on the top and frozen in the middle. Oh well. No time to waste. I got a recipe online from my favorite recipe website, allrecipes.com, for whole roasted chicken. Well, kind of combined a few and made up my own method. And the time came to do the worst part. Hold that raw chicken body and peel back the neck and reach inside the "cavity" and pull out the giblets, AKA little purple slimies that reminded me of my BYU Anatomy class. Bluggghhh. You're supposed to rinse off the chicken and pat it dry and season it and stuff the cavity with good things. They make it sound like such a pleasant process. The 2nd microwaved chicken was frozen in the middle so I couldn't get the giblets out and hoped that they wouldn't kill me if consumed. I know you have to do the same process with turkey at Thanksgiving, and it's probably even worse, so I dread the day when I will have to do it.

The thing I hate about working with raw meat the most is the fear of contaminating EVERYthing. I touch the meat, but then I need to season it with salt so I have to wash my hands good before I touch the salt shaker. Then I touch the meat to put something in the cavity and have to wash my hands before I touch the butter to go in it, ETC. But on cooking shows they just do it all in one easy swoop and you wonder what is lurking on those counters and towels that they touch. Call me paranoid. But it's just so tedious! The counter space, the faucet handle, the sink, the dishwasher handle...are all contaminated because you had to prepare some stupid meat.

Which brings me to the question: Is it really worth it?? Vegetarians might be on to something. I've contemplated the idea, but I don't know that I would ever be truly satisfied without some good cooked meat every now and then. Sometimes it can be SO tasty and juicy and yummy. Yesterday at Costco, we enjoyed some samples (because let's be honest, who doesn't love free food samples) and they were almost ALL meat. It was crazy. It was like a carnivore's feast. But they were mighty tasty. On the other hand, there are always those occasions where meat can really turn you off. Like my bad chicken experience at the mexican restaurant, or a tiny bone found in my hot dog, or the fatty unchewable pieces of ham in my Subway sandwich. These are the things that I could do without.

In the end, my whole chickens cooked for a couple hours in the oven after I was confident that they were good and done and turned out rather tasty and juicy. I picked off all the good meat and shredded it into pieces and froze most of it for later use in recipes. (You can re-freeze after you cook it, by the way. For how long? Who knows. I'll try to use it soon). Meat is a tricky thing....I have a like/hate relationship. I totally get the Word of Wisdom and how it says to eat meat sparingly in time of need...we don't need nearly as much as what we eat in America. Holy carnivores! But I don't think I can give it up all together. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to the homemade corn dog that I'm going to eat at the Utah State Fair next week. Mmmmmm.