The bark was left in the pan. I had just mixed this moments before cooking and I’m wondering if letting the meat rest might have made the difference. It’s like the brown sugar was liquifying out of the meat and caramelizing in the pan and preventing the maillard reaction from happening on the meat surface.

I am from the internet. I’m here to help.

I’m trying to have a good faith conversation here. Are you?
Canning is completely safe if you follow the basic rules of tested methods. Don’t water bath can foods with a pH above 4.6. Use a pressure canner instead. Don’t try to pressure can dense things like pumpkin puree, instead you can can pumpkin cubes and puree it at meal time. If you have multiple ingredients in something use the canning time for the item with the longest time requirement. Pints and Quarts have different canning times but cups (aka half pints) have the same canning time as pints. Canning dairy will almost always result in disappointment. Never let ignorance or hubris let you take shortcuts that could end your life. You know, basic stuff.

Yeah. I’m definitely more about the getting food on a plate than plating food. Because of back pain I’m usually just wanting to sit down by the time I’m taking the picture.

Do as I say. Not as I do.

Properly flash frozen and vacuum sealed stuff is less likely to go freezer burned and chest freezers don’t have frost free function which also dramatically decreases freezer burn risk.

I hesitate to call anything lasting centuries a fad. When you and your grandfather 10 generations back are into the same thing that’s tradition, not a fad.

I recommend any of the modern Ball handbooks for the basics.

But I can’t recommend boiling for hours. Botulism spores do not die until they reach 250° or reach 240° for an extended period of time. Water boils at 212 at sea level, 158 on Mount Everest and, 212 at the Dead Sea. 212 will never kill botulism spores. Doesn’t matter if you do it for 5 minutes or you do 4 hours. Steam can only reach above 212 in a pressurized environment. This is the concept behind a pressure canner. Creating an environment that allows water to achieve temperatures at 240° while still being at sea level.

“so far so good” is survival bias. People that aren’t so good can’t speak for the dead have no voice.

If that pH is greater than 4.6 then steaming or boiling isn’t going to prevent botulism. And it’s orderless and colorless. There is zero way to tell if something is off by with any human senses.

Pain is certain, suffering is optional. – Gautama Buddha

For long term preservation of cooked food I prefer canning. Most of the stuff in the freezer is factory sealed.

I love a good food poisoning mystery and am constantly warning people in canning groups about unsafe practices. Even if it gets me banned because some groups have very strict rules about warning people they could die from doing things like water bath canning unpeeled fermented beets. True story.

No. Neither was the steak.

I feel like I get enough birds in towels at home. And don’t even get me started on cats in towels.

Cows do outnumber people on my block but I don’t have any.

I’m inclined to agree. But they make you put a subject on posts.

I get all my owl content from here.

A lot of the freezer meat shows up frozen and in tiny quantities. Like “gotta combine two to get fried rice out of it” small. So it sits there.

There is a thing where you see an ad or post about "20 ribeye for $20”. You go to the parking lot of your local Tractor Supply at the appointed time. Some guy tries to sell large packages of frozen beef, poultry and seafood, all from his farm. 800 miles away and deep inland so the seafood portion is sketchy. They only have like 6 of the ribeye deal. They are the thinnest cut possible and like three ounces of won’t-hold-themself-together when thawed. But it’s cheap protein so you get them. The more you use them the more stingy you get about using them until there are just two left in the back of the freezer hidden behind the emergency chicken nuggets that are $13 for 5 pounds in the freezer section of the local meat store.

That’s how it happened.

The cheesiest.

These don’t start showing up until the 300s CE but those areas were occupied since 100 BCE. So that’s a 400 year gap. And they are always found in the presence of Romans, not indigenous locals.