Glazed Pork Shoulder Roast

Pork shoulder roast is a family favourite. I like using some type of sauce usually tomato based or semi-sweet glaze. Quite often the semi-sweet glaze has a home canned jam, jelly or chutney as an ingredient for my glazes. Last night I decided on a semi-sweet glaze for the pork roast and as normal used the clay baker. A clay baker needs to be soaked in water before using for best results but it does cook a pork roast beautifully!

Glazed Pork Shoulder Roast
The glaze for this roast is very easy to make and can be use in one of two ways. Depending on the desired thickness of the glaze, pour over roast while raw (thicker) or about 15 minutes before the roast is cooked (thinner). For a variation, substitute the French dressing with Catalina or Russian dressing.

This pork roast was glazed while raw, then then basted a few times while cooking allowing the flavours of the glaze to penetrate the meat. I used low fat French dressing since there was a nice layer of fat on the pork roast. The apple jelly was homemade using the recipe in an earlier entry. The roast was served with basmati rice and home canned Kentucky Wonder green beans.

Glaze
1 c French dressing (low fat)
1/2 c apple jelly
1 tsp honey
3/4 tsp dijon mustard

Wisk together and pour over roast.

A Couple of Blogging Foodie Friends

Sunset
March 26, 2007

As this blog approaches it's 1 year birthday, I'd like to take a moment to thank each and everyone of your for reading my cooking blog. I appreciate all the emails and comments. Thanks to my many friends on my Yahoo groups who check in to see what I'm cooking. I'd like to say a special thanks to those who link to my blog.

Jodi who has a link on her blog, This Handmade Life. Jodi lives in Central Maine with her husband Halis, son Isaac (an adorable 2 year old) and friend Meaghan who stays with Jodi's family quite often. Meaghan is like a big sister to Isaac. She is a wonderful person with a great blog so please stop by and say hello to her! I met Jodi on a Yahoo group dedicated to frugal living in all aspects but especially with respect to frugal cooking.

JeanC's Cat House & Shooting Society links to my blog and she was kind enough to mention it on The Good Eat's Fan Club so thank-you very much Jean! Jean lives in the wilds of North Idaho with her husband and three spoiled cats. She loves cooking and is an ex-army brat. Trust me, Jean is a real sweetheart and her cats are pretty cute too! She's going through health problems right now so hugs and good wishes are always welcomed. Please stop by and say hi to her.

The Little Red Hens is a delightful blog by Jessica, Julie, Ruth and Bonny who are dedicated to the fine art of homemaking. This is a family run blog from what I gather. Their recipes and food ideas are great, well worth the stop over to say hi.

To each and everyone of you who have made this blog a success, thank-you so very much!

Potato and Leek Soup

I spent another enjoyable 80 minutes in the dentist's chair yesterday then made a stop at the grocery store in the same mall. I've been doing this as a way of treating myself. This time I picked up some nice leeks. Potato and leek soup came to mind as a comforting meal.

Potato and Leek Soup

Once home, I checked Jean Paré's Leek and Potato Soup in Company's Coming, Soups & Sandwiches, Pp. 23. Her recipe called for chicken stock and I knew I was out of that but had home canned turkey stock. Her recipe also called for light cream but I thought 1/2 and 1/2 would work fine. Chives or parsley were used as a garnish in her recipe so I changed that. Finally her soup was smooth and no bacon which I though would add nice flavour. I started by using her recipe as a guide but that quickly fell by the wayside as my creativity took over. Each step of the way, I jotted what I did in my cooking journal so I can repeat the recipe again.

I used Eco-Spuds™ Adora potatoes. These are quickly becoming my favourite potato to use because of their texture and flavour. They are grown much the same way I grow my own produce without the use of non-organic fertilizers or pesticides. The soup was nice and creamy accented with potato pieces and bacon. My husband declared the soup delicious!

Potato and Leek Soup
recipe by: Garden Gnome

2 qt homemade turkey stock
1 leek, chopped, white and light green portion only
1 medium onion
6 medium Adora potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 bay leaf
white pepper to taste
sea salt to taste

4 small potatoes, peeled, diced and steamed
1/4 - 1/2 lb bacon, cut to form small pieces, fried and drained
2 tbsp chives, chopped
1 c 1/2 & 1/2 cream

This is a two part recipe. Prepare the small potatoes then steam. At the same time prepare the bacon by cutting across the strips to form small pieces. Use one full pound of bacon the remaining can be froze or refrigerated for bacon bits on salad. Set these ingredients aside to be used later.

Prepare the medium size potatoes, leek and onion then put into a large saucepan. Add the turkey stock, salt and pepper to the vegetables. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer until the potatoes are cooked. Remove from heat. Using a stick blender, blend these ingredients until creamy smooth. Return to heat on low setting. Add the prepared potato pieces, bacon and chives. Slowly pour in the cream while stirring. Continue heating until soup is desired serving temperature, stirring to prevent the soup from burning.

Faux Lasagne

Anyone following my blogs will know I've been undergoing a lot of dental work at the moment. I'm dealing with a major and irrational phobia of dentists and we have no dental coverage. So that means we're paying for this torture out of our pockets and heaven helps us when my husband goes! After spending so many hours in the dentist's chair last week, I really only wanted soft foods. Honestly, when the freezing wore off the dental work itself didn't hurt just my jaw from keeping my mouth open so long and the multiple injection sites! Saturday, I was tired, irritable and still in discomfort that wasn't being helped by knowing I had another appointment on Monday so I decided to do a fly by meal.

Faux Lasagne

This dish started out as a faux lasagne or quick lasagne whatever you want to call it. I simply stood in front of my canning shelf to see what looked good. The roasted tomato sauce (method in archives) kind of popped out as did the mini lasagne noodles. The noodles are from Italy, made from durum wheat semolina and are about the size of broad egg noodles except with ruffled edges. Sorry, I don't read Italian but I find I like the Italian pastas better for texture. With two ingredients in hand I looked in the larger deep freezer and found a package of pre-cooked ground beef with mushrooms. One look into the refrigerator gave me my final ingredients, four kinds of cheese which meant I had a chance to play with the food shredder attachment for the KitcheAid® and have a bit of fun just creating. I didn't measure for the cheese but rather grated until it looked like enough. The cheeses were: colby, extra aged sharp cheddar, cheddar and fresh mozzarella.

Method: I cooked 1/2 package of the noodles while the meat was defrosting in the microwave and I grated the cheeses. Once the noodles were cooked, I drained those and poured into a large mixing bowl, poured on the sauce and cheese then stirred well. The mixture was poured into a large baking dish and baked at 350ºF until the cheese was well melted and bubbly.

Wensleydale Cheese with Cranberries

Around Christmas, I saw cheese with cranberries or blueberries on a flyer. Since we are playing with cheeses, I really wanted to try this cheese. Well, with our new grand baby two days before Christmas and not being home much, the idea of cheese went on the back burner. However, one of my purchases after my last dental appointment was Wensleydale Cheese with Cranberries. This is an English semi-hard cheese studded with cranberries and coated with a deep burgundy wax.

This is a wonderful snacking cheese! The flavour of the cranberries meld nicely with the slight tang of the cheese. I think this would be a nice appetizer cheese served by itself or perhaps a very light tasting cracker. At any rate, this is a definite cheese to try.