Fennel and Garlic Pork Roast

You know I didn't make this meal thinking, "This would be the perfect thing to blog about the week of Easter." But this would be the perfect thing to blog about the week of Easter.

It comes with a confession (don't half these posts come with a confession). I made it in the oven as a "real" roast, but next time I do it, it will be in the crock pot as an, um, "fake?" roast. It's not that it was that fussy or anything to do it in the oven. It's just that it had to be started 3 (plus a little) hours before dinner was to be served, and 2:00 in the afternoon is a really lousy time for me to be starting dinner (that last piece of quiet time before my school kids get home). And then you have to stay home in the hours in between. A crock pot meal could be done in the morning (when I have more time and energy), left to its own devices, and then ta-da there it is when 5:00 rolls around and everyone's starving and the kids are beginning to scour the cupboards (and/or floor) for junky foods because they are huuun-gry. Also, I think that crock pot and old school methods would yield a roast comparable (with this particular roast anyway) in taste and awesome-ly moist-ness.

And this was awesome-ly moist. Kip said so a couple of times and he is a not a super huge fan of pork roasts (though he won't turn one down). He also asked a couple of times what those weird seed things were on the outside. Fennel. They are fennel seeds. And while I like fennel and I really like the way fennel smells while things are cooking, I think you could skip the fennel seeds if you don't have them or don't like them.

You can serve this with gravy or with this really tasty mustard sauce.

Fennel and Garlic Pork Roast
adapted from Everyday Food
Serves 6-8
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours
Rest time: 15 minutes
For crock pot, cook time: 6-8 hours
Cost: $9-10
Roast: 9.00, seasonings: .10

1 boneless pork shoulder, 3-4 lb (ours had the bone, which did make cutting it tricky, but also left me with a bone for soup later)
2 Tbsp olive oil
8 garlic cloves, peeled
3 Tbsp fresh rosemary leaves (or half that dry)
2 Tbsp fennel seed (you can skip if you'd like)
salt and pepper

For gravy:
drippings
1 Tbsp flour
1-2 C chicken stock

Preheat oven to 450. Lightly oil a heavy-bottomed roasting pan (I used a Dutch oven).

Combine olive oil fennel, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper. The original recipe said to put it in a food processor, but it's so very little that I couldn't get this to work.

I had mine in a small blender and the blades would just pass right over everything. So, instead I took out my most fearsome chopping knife (and I do have some fearsome knives), and chopped it into a fairly pulpy little pile of seasonings.

Score the pork with 1/2 inch cuts and then rub your pulpy seasonings all over that baby.

Put it in the pan and put the pan in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes at 450.

Then, without opening the oven, reduce heat to 300 and roast until it reaches about 170 degrees in the deepest point. (We got ours near 180 and it was still super moist.) This will take 2-2 1/2 hours.

Transfer to a plate, cover it with foil, and let it rest for 15 minutes.

To make gravy, drain off some of the fat (usually I don't insist on this, but our roast left a LOT of fat). Add the flour to your drippings and mix until pasty-ish. Then add 1 C of the chicken stock and whisk. Allow to thicken. Use more chicken stock to thin the gravy if it's not thin enough for your tastes.

Or make this mustard sauce. Yum. We did both (gravy the first night and mustard sauce for leftovers). Both were very very good.

Crock Pot Instructions: Follow seasoning directions above. Instead of the oven, put roast in crock pot on high. Cook for 6-8 hours or until internal temp is 170 degrees.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Leftover Tuesday: Taco Pie

This one wasn't quite a beauty queen. Kip confessed while dishing up his second large helping that he had not been, shall we say, very excited about eating it. But eat it he did. And eat more he did. And Kip is not one to eat 2 large helpings unless he darn well wants to eat 2 large helpings. 

I confess that even I had my doubts about it. But first let's meet the players. 

We had 1 1/2 normal tortilla shells, 1 spinach tortilla shell, 1/4 avocado that was looking a little sketchy, some homemade refried beans, about 4 small sweet peppers, and 8 oz or so of sour cream that I'd frozen. When I took the sour cream out of the freezer and dethawed it, it separated (thin skim-milk looking stuff vs chunky ricotta looking stuff) and was just a little, um, odd. These were our leftovers.

We also had some taco seasoning and cheese on hand. I could have stopped there and made a perfectly decent taco pie. But I knew I was up against a tough crowd and we also had a roll of refrigerated crescent roll dough (yeah, not a whole food, but a little weakness I sometimes indulge in), some canned olives and some canned chicken. 

This is what I did:

1. Spread the crescent rolls out on the bottom of a pie pan. Just squeeze and press till they stick together and look crust-ish. I could have used the burrito shells as the crust of my pie and I almost did, but I knew Kip would like the crescent rolls better and I had an experiment in mind for the shells that I wanted to try out. 

2. Combine 2-3 Tbsp taco seasoning with enough beans to spread generously on the crust (I'm guessing 1-1/2 C, but I forgot to measure). Spread this generously on the crust. 

3. Top with meat if you've got any. Again with Kip in mind, I used some canned chicken--only about 1/2 can of it, so it was just a little something there for texture and a bit more flavor. 

4. Put sour cream on top of this. As I said above, my sour cream was wonky from being frozen, but it tasted normal and I figured cooking would help it be normal. It did, though it was still runnier than usual. And I learned that you can freeze sour cream if you plan to cook with it or something like that, but not if you wish to use it to spread or dip things in. 

5. Top with olives or vegetables if you've got them. If they're a firm vegetable like peppers, you may want to saute them in a bit of butter or oil first to soften them.

6. Top with a generous layer of cheese. I used cheddar. 

7. At this point, I could have put my pie in the oven and all would have been well, but I wanted to fry up those tortilla shells in order to make a sort of "homemade" nacho. I'd never actually done this before, though I'd seen it done. Oh my. I'm so glad I tried because those little boogers were super tasty. It took a little willpower to preserve a few for the top of my taco pie. To do it, add a thin layer of oil (like canola) to a pan (like cast iron), but up the tortillas into the size you want and let them cook in the oil until golden on each side. Then let them sit on a paper-towel lined plate. 

8. Throw this in the oven and bake at 350 or 375 for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is starting to brown and things are starting to bubble.

9. Ideally after you take it out of the oven, you should let it sit for 15 minutes or so to set. But we were starving. We cut right into it and it came out of the pan not like pie, but rather like glop. Big brown spoonfulls of it. I can assure that my kids were absolutely cheering with joy at the prospect of eating such a culinary delight. And at this point, I confess that even I was having some doubts. But then I diced some avocado on top of it and I ate it. And my doubts fled. It was really good. Kip and I ate a bunch and then we ate leftovers the next day. They were really good too. If there's one thing I love, it's getting leftovers from my leftovers. Oh yeah. 

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

Last month when I was perusing a blog called Savour the Senses I came across these baked sweet potato chips. They weren't tossed in oil or fried or anything. They were thinly sliced, seasoned, and baked on parchment paper or Silpat. I thought, "That sounds too good to be true." And then it worked. Which is always nice. 

I should tell you, however, that my first few experiments with it were extremely over-seasoned. When I'm oven baking with oil, I always salt generously, but the oil must "wash" a fair amount of that salt away because without it, those seasonings just stuck to those chips and sometimes it was a little much. So use a gentle hand. 

I should tell you also that these are the type of chip that--if thinly sliced as mine were--can burn if they go a minute too long. You want them crispy, but not burned. And that can be--I must confess--a wee bit tricky. So you have to be careful in that regard. 

I should also tell you that even a couple of sweet potatoes yield several batches of these, so while cooking time isn't very long, you'll have to triple or quadruple it if you're doing more than just one sweet potato.

And finally I should tell you that a food processor or mandolin will make your cutting way easier. However, since mine is a cheap lame one that is getting a wee bit dull (in addition to being cheap and lame), my pieces were often way different sizes, which was annoying. I've been wanting to try these with still-thin-but-not-quite-as-thin hand sliced potatoes (for those who have no food processor or mandolin), but I haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe today for an after school snack I will and then I can check that off and update this post. 

Okay, and there's one more thing I have to tell you. Which is that the second time I made these I brushed on a bit of oil with a pastry brush. I wanted to see if oil would fix the problem of these overcooking if they went a minute too long. It did. And it made for a really crispy and still fairly virtuous sweet potato chip. You don't have to do this, but it does give you a little more room for error or distraction. That's something that comes in handy in my life. Also, I think this might be a perfect method for baked regular potato chips. I'll let you know when I get to that project. 

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

adapted from Savour the Senses

Prep time: 5 minutes (with a food processor for slicing)

Cook time: 10-15 minutes per batch

Cost: $.25

Note: I seasoned these in several different ways. I used the original from Savour the Senses. It was good, but a little too garlicky for me. I tried salt and pepper (my favorite) and I tried sugar and sugar/cinnamon (my kids' favorite). They were all good and I really think you could just go nuts with different seasonings. Just be aware that the seasoning will stick, so go light at first. 

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

salt and pepper or other seasonings

oil (optional)

Cut your potatoes. Try to get them to be as even and uniform as possible. I didn't do so well there, and they were still good, but cooking times will be easier to master if your pieces are about the same size and thickness. 

Place them on parchment paper or Silpat. Sprinkle seasonings on. Be gentle. 

(These were some that were a little over-seasoned, so don't go that crazy, okay)

Bake at 350 (be sure to preheat) for 10-15 minutes if thin and longer if a little thicker. They should be just barely crispy without being brown (although if lightly brown, I found that they still tasted great). Know, too, that they'll crisp up a bit as they cool. If you take them out and then find they're not quite crisp enough for you, you can throw them back in, so don't despair. 

Optional ending for the distracted or low of character among us:

Skip the parchment paper and brush baking sheet with neutral oil (I used canola). Lay chips on the oil and, using a pastry brush, brush each chip with a bit of oil. Season as desired. Bake as directed above. 

Note: After posting these, I realized that a few more tips were in order. You'll find them here. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE