Longtime readers of this blog have seen me rave about the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast. This is something the Jennie-O company makes in two forms. One is an offering to retailers. Your local market can get these in, heat them up and then sell them in the same display case as the hot rotisserie chickens. This is not a great way to experience a Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast but it's better than nothing.
Much, much better than nothing is the way I like 'em, which is the refrigerated version. You take them home and keep them in your refrigerator until you want/need a quick 'n' delicious meal that serves many and is high in protein and taste. A Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast is slow-cooked dark meat turkey. You pop it in your microwave for, the package says, 12 minutes. I leave mine in for 13. This is just to warm it because it comes fully-cooked.
Once outta your microwave, it's a big load of tender and moist dark meat turkey that shreds easily so as to resemble pulled pork. I suppose some folks use it in recipes and make elaborate concoctions but I usually eat it straight with a side dish and later I make sandwiches out of it. You can get a lot of sandwiches out of one.
I like them 'cause they're handy. At times, my life gets chaotic and I can't always plan meals far enough ahead to buy the proper fixings to cook or have something around for dinner that may be time-sensitive. But I can realize at 6 PM that I need to fix dinner here and by 6:20, I can be dining on a pretty good entree. I also like them because they're cheap. And I especially like them because they're high in taste and low in calories.
But I've said all this before here. What's new is that I no longer have to hunt and phone and search to find a source for them. I originally discovered them at Costco but after a while, the Costcos around here stopped carrying them. The Customer Service folks at Jennie-O, while I'm sure they're fine at telling you how to stuff your bird, were of zero help. At first, they didn't seem to know their company even made this product. At one point, I directed a lady on the phone to go to this blog where I'd posted the above photo. She looked at the image and exclaimed, "Oh, we make those?" Later, I found a Customer Service person there who was of a bit more help. She told me they only made them for Costco and only when Costco ordered more. She didn't know if Costco had lately but said that if my local Costcos weren't stocking them, there was nothing they or I could do.
Apparently, that was true at one time…the part about only making them for Costco. Soon though, through the help of smart readers of this site, I found out that the Fresh & Easy market chain had begun carrying them and for a time, I bought them there. Then Fresh & Easy stopped stocking them and when I called their Customer Service department, I think I got that first lady who used to work for Jennie-O. She told me they had decided not to carry them again. That was apparently not the case.
Eventually, I connected with a nice and efficient executive of the Jennie-O company who was thrilled that I'd been promoting their product in this blog and she was eager to assist me. She explained that it wasn't that Costco and Fresh & Easy had stopped carrying them. It's that Jennie-O had stopped making them between June and September. The product sold great during the other three seasons; not so great in summer. She gave me the dates when my local Costcos and Fresh & Easy outlets would again be stocking them and darned if they didn't show up there just when she said. Since then, I've had enough of a steady supply to eat at least one per week. Since one lasts me 2-3 days, we're talking about a pretty significant portion of my diet. Could it get any better?
Yes, I think it just did. Early Sunday AM, around 2:30, I drove over to a nearby Ralphs Market to stock up on the things I eat besides Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roasts. And what should I find in their meat display case but Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roasts?! They had four there and I bought three. The checker lady had never seen them before and I wound up telling her all the things I just told you. "Oh, this is great," she said. "The hours I work here, I can never arrange to cook anything." As I left, she was going over to the display case to buy the one I'd left behind.
I don't know if this is test marketing or if they've become a part of the regular Ralphs repertoire. If the latter, it might mean they'll be turning up in Kroger stores, as well. Should you see them on sale anywhere, give 'em a try. I want this product to be so successful that markets everywhere carry them and I can buy Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roasts wherever I go.
