So, What goes well with pork loin...that I actually have?

Apples!

Let me start off by apologizing for the lame title for this post. I was so proud of the meal I cooked Saturday, that I knew I wanted to blog about it. Unfortunately, in the ensuing days, I was not able to come up with a title for this blogpost that I really fancied. So! Since you got this far, you obviously got past the title. Thanks for not holding it against me, and refusing to read my ramblings.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I got up Saturday morning. (I know. that in itself is pretty amazing.) I was facing another four hour shift of grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and smoked sausages for the Boy Scouts. (I think I now qualify as an expert on those items.) I also knew that there was only a minutely slim possibility that someone else in my family was going to start supper that evening. Therefore, I had to do one of those scary things, and plan ahead. I looked in the freezer, to see what could be put in the slow cooker. Behold! I still had a 2.5lb pork loin just waiting to be cooked. I nuked it in the microwave (on defrost). After all, any good chef would take all possible opportunities to add gamma rays, nuclear radiation, and all that other stuff to their food. That's what gives our dishes that special "glow". Remember that smoked salt I wrote about in another blog. Well, I sprinkled that and some black pepper on the loin and seared it in a skillet until all sides were nicely crisped.

Woohoo! Now I had a partially cooked lump of meat. That's really going to bowl the family over. What to do? What to do? Then my little eye spied a bag with some apples in it. It just so happened that this bag had one of those proverbial rotten apples getting ready to spoil the whole bushel (well...the other five). I took out Mr. Rotten and gave him the heave ho. Then I used the apple corer/slicer on the others. I did not peel the apple. People in my family quickly learn to enjoy fruit and vegetable skins. I hate peeling, unless the skin is just inedible. I then found some baby carrots, and craisins. Craisins are the neatest things. They're just like raisins, but made out of cranberries. The neat thing is they don't go bad...ever....never! That's right, folks, we actually have a food product that could potentially outlast the cockroach population of the world...without the use of preservatives. I mixed all that together with some granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a little ground sage. I then put all that stuff on top of the pork loin. Heck! Even raw, this dish was starting to look good.

Fast forward about eight hours. Now we have a slow cooker full of pure heaven.

Oooo, Doggie! supper was gonna be good tonight. There was a problem though. With all that sugar, I still didn't have enough starch! (Calm down! I'm just kidding!) I had some potatoes that were starting to sprout some little vinelets (baby vines, for those of you who don't like me making words up). I decided we needed to have some Potatoes Anna to go with our pork roast.

Potatoes Anna is a fancy sounding name for a classic French peasant dish. It is quite literally just sliced potatoes, salt, pepper, and butter. Don't let that whole peasant dish thing disappoint you. That just means it is the food of the people. Go back to the Middle Ages and you basically had only two classes, aristocracy and peasants. Trust me, you and I would have been in the peasant class, and quite proud of it. They had better food. The peasants were the workers, and those cooking, knew they had to make the food hearty and tasty to provide the nutrition to keep the workers healthy. The other good thing about peasant food was that it was much less likely to contain hemlock or arsenic. Those aristocrats had a nasty habit of trying to kill each other off.

Anyway, Potatoes Anna is just good plain peasant food...and one of the tastiest ways to cook potatoes. It really is quite simple to fix. You basically slice six to eight potatoes as thinly as you can. Once again, they are supposed to be peeled. Once again, I didn't peel them. I find the best cooking dish for these is a good cast iron skillet. Melt a stick of butter. Brush the inside of the skillet with some of the butter, then cover the bottom with a layer of potato slices. Brush that layer with butter, then sprinkle with salt (Use kosher, if you have it. It provides little bursts of flavor you can't get with table salt.) and pepper. Lay down another layer of potatoes and repeat with the butter, salt and pepper. Continue to do this with the rest of the potatoes. If you have any butter left over, drizzle it over the top of everything. You will end up with something like the dish pictured below.

Place some foil over the pan, and put it on a med/hi burner. Cook until you hear sizzling. Continue cooking for about five minutes. You will then transfer the dish to a 425 degree oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Pull the foil off and press the potatoes down with a spatula. Bake uncovered for an additional 25 minutes. You should end up with something like this.

Crispy on the outside. Soft and buttery on the inside. You are supposed to then place a plate over the top and flip, so you can see the nice golden brown bottom. I had just spent four hours flipping burgers, and another two hours cooking supper. (I know! So much for saving time by planning ahead. I also baked a loaf of bread) I was not about to expend my last bit of energy, trying to flip a frickin' twelve inch cast iron skillet. The family would just have to imagine how golden brown it was on the bottom.

Needless to say. We ate very well that night. There wasn't a shred of pork left, and every belly was full. It was worth the effort, but the next day, I let the funny lady at China Royal cook for me.

That's Christina. I am NOT wearing a frilly pink sweater!