Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Down home cookin

Since Jerad was so sick, I decided to make some real "down home" food last night. A pork roast with roasted carrots, potatoes, and onions, whole wheat-whole grain garlic bread, and a white wine mustard gravy.

I had never made a roast before ( I hate meat!) but it came out really good! It was super tender and tasted waaaaay better than it looks in this pic. It wasn't greasy at all, that's just the gravy:

















Here's what I did (assuming you care)

Ingredients:

(all amounts are totally approximate and this made about 6 servings)

Roast:

1 1/2 lb Organic Pork Roast
6ish Organic Carrots
3 Organic Potatoes
1/2 Organic Yellow Onion
1 bulb Organic Garlic
1 Tbsp. Organic Dill
3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
Course Ground Pepper to taste
Sea Salt to Taste

Gravy:

3/4 Cup White Wine
3 Tbsp. Organic Mustard/Dijon Mustard
1 Tbsp. Organic Mustard Powder
1/2 Tbsp. Rosemary
2 Tsp. Organic Dill
2 Cloves Organic Garlic
2 Tbsp Unbleached Flour
1 c. Water
Course Ground Pepper and Sea Salt to taste

I wanted dinner to be a no brainer, so I ran home on my 30 minute lunch break and peeled all of the veggies. I cut the carrots lengthwise, sliced the potatoes and onions, and mixed them all together in a baking dish with about 2 tbs olive oil, 1/2 a bulb of pressed garlic (we really like garlic), the dill, and salt and pepper. I put foil over the top and put it in the fridge.

I started the meat in the crock pot on my lunch break also so we would be able to have dinner shortly after I got home instead of waiting over an hour for it to cook. I made a salt/pepper/garlic rub (probably about 1/4 of the bulb of garlic), stuck the meat in the crock, and set it on low. You could skip this step altogether, but I think it makes it turn out more tender and the cooking is waaay faster.

When I got home I preheated the oven to about 425, added a few table spoons of water to the veggie mixture, and threw them in(with the foil on top) for about 15 minutes. About 10 minutes into the veggies cooking, I heated 1 Tbsp. olive oil, in a skillet, and threw in some garlic and pepper. After the garlic began to brown, I added the meat and browned each side, then stirred the vegetables, and moved them to the sides of the dish adding the pork to the middle (reserve a few tablespoons of the fat for the gravy).

After that cooked about 10 minutes, I added the garlic to the reserved pork fat (appetizing huh?) and cooked over medium heat until the garlic browned. Then I added the wine, mustard and rosemary and whisked for a minute or two before adding the flour and whisking for an additional minute until smooth. Add the water, dill, salt and pepper to taste and wait until the gravy has the consistency you want, and voila!

Anyways, this is obviously super easy and really customizable. This is just what I did. We were sick (and love garlic) so I used a lot of garlic. You can also put in whatever veggies you want. Something I normally do before cooking any potatoes is boil them first so that they come out tender. If you don't like dill, leave it out or use a diferent spice. You could also use a plain gravy but this one had a really really good flavor:)

1 comment:

Big M said...

ooh, that sounds super good Steph! You should invite me over for dinner more often