Last Monday evening was pork roast night! Cooking the roast was all up to me. All SP did was get it out to thaw and then put it in a baking dish with the meat thermometer stuck into it. I really wasn't sure how to season it - I wanted something easy but yummy but I just couldn't figure out what! Finally, I remembered a 'Honey Marinated Pork Chops' recipe in one of my binders and I decided that even though it was for pork chops, it could be used on a roast.It also made use of some of the CSA honey we've received. It's a very simple marinade:
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon ground mustard
This recipe is one I cut out from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette long, long ago. Salt & pepper seasoned pork chops are marinated for 5-10 minutes then cooked in a bit of oil in a skillet.
I tripled the marinade recipe for the roast. I stabbed the roast with a knife to make 'holes' for the marinade to seep into and then salted & peppered the roast. Next I drizzled about 3/4 of the marinade over the roast and then put it in the oven at 350 (around 5:30 pm).
With the pork in the oven and the meat thermometer set to 'Pork - Medium' I moved on to the potatoes. We had a bunch of different kinds of CSA potatoes in our potato 'bin' (a large plastic container). I decided to use them all! I washed the potatoes and tried to pluck of some eyeballs that were sprouting while I washed them, but quickly decided to just peel the potatoes since they were a bit older, a bit too eyebally, and a bit bruised/brown in some spots.
I do not enjoy peeling potatoes. We have 2 peelers. One seems to be slightly duller than the other and of course there's no way to tell them apart and of course I grabbed the dull peeler. I struggled and of course peeled the knuckle on my thumb. This resulted in cursing, a trip to the bathroom for band-aids, and me grabbing the other peeler. It worked much better.
After I peeled and cubed all the potatoes, I chopped some onion and added it to the casserole dish. Then I seasoned it all with salt & pepper, sprinkled in dried rosemary, and drizzled in olive oil. A few quick stirs with a large wooden spoon to make sure the oil coated everything and the potato & onion dish got plopped into the oven.When I put the potatoes in the oven (at 6:23 pm), I also drizzled the rest of the pork marinade over the top of the pork.
Next up: brussel sprouts. Far from my favorite veggie. But we received some in last week's CSA box so I figured I should do something with them. Roasting sounded good!! This was my first time cooking fresh brussel sprouts. My mom only served the boxed frozen ones when I was growing up and I dreaded brussel sprout night. Many years later, I found out that mom & dad never really liked brussel sprout night, either. Mom was just looking for variety and wanted us to try a lot of veggies.
I wasn't sure how to prepare them. As I washed them, I decided that chopping off the hard stem bottoms seemed like a good idea and peeling off the outer leaves seemed like a good idea. I plopped them in a small casserole dish and thought a bit more. I had read online that brussel sprouts should be well salted, more than you would normally salt a veggie, so I salted away and peppered away and drizzled on olive oil and then thought that lemon would be a nice addition.Unfortunately I was running behind schedule and I feared the sprouts wouldn't cook in time so in the interest of saving time, instead of washing and zesting and squeezing a fresh lemon, I grabbed a jar of dried lemon peel that we have in our spice drawer. I guessed and just dumped some lemon peel in. I got a clean spoon and stirred it all up and plopped the sprouts in the oven at 6:39 pm.
Since I figured I wouldn't really like the brussel sprouts and since SP really likes veggies and since I feel like we haven't eaten enough veggie lately, I decided to make a salad, too. Spinach salad. We have a big container of spinach from Costco and it'll probably take us all week to use it. Even though we used a large bowl of spinach on Sunday for the polenta pizza and a side salad, it looked like we hadn't even opened the container of spinach.
I washed the spinach and added the last of the CSA goat cheese feta and some of the jarred roasted red pepper. We used the homemade olive oil-red wine vinegar dressing that was in the refrigerator.
SP got home around 6:55 pm and the roast had just hit its target temperature (160). We took it out and covered it with foil. While it rested, the potatoes & brussel sprouts continued roasting. They were still firm.So we ate our salad while the pork rested and the other stuff roasted. We sliced the pork around 7:15 pm. It was still quite juicy and it was very tasty with the caramelized honey. Yum! But I also couldn't help but wish the marinade had a bit more zing to it - maybe a Dijon mustard instead of ground mustard? Maybe add an herb like rosemary?
The potatoes came out of the oven at 7:20 pm - so almost an hour in the oven. They could have roasted a bit longer - they were still a bit firm for my liking and not browned enough plus the onion I added wasn't browned/caramelized, it was just white & soft. I was disappointed and mad at myself for not getting the potatoes in the oven sooner. Then again, I hadn't factored in time for peeling because I didn't realize they were so sprouty and I hadn't factored in time to deal with my peeled & bleeding thumb knuckle not once but twice since the first band-aid quickly fell off. I had to go back in the bathroom to wash it and apply a fresh band-aid. I wrapped bandage tape around the second band-aid to ensure that it stayed in place!
The brussel sprouts. SP said they were done after about 35-40 minutes roasting. He liked them. I tried a half of one. And then washed the taste in my mouth out with lots of water and pork!
This is one veggie that I am not changing my mind on as I get older. I still think they're gross, just like when I was a kid. Good thing SP likes these little leafy balls of grossness!As usual, making lots of food gives us leftovers for 2 more dinners so easy dinners during the week! Hopefully the potatoes & onions will cook more and get crispy brown when they get reheated. And happily, the brussel sprouts are gone.
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