Day 6: Simon and Garfunkel Assist with Dinner

It has been quite a while since I have written--I spent the last two weeks with my family, and with Eeva out of commission, I had no laptop on which to convey my many adventures (including Moroccan spiced beef, Spanish rice, and roasted squash and zucchini--yum!!). But I will write of those, as well as my many literary adventures, when I find myself with more time.

This entry is about dinner last night, my first night home.

I had mostly been assistant to my mom's cooking, at the mercy of the man voted Most Pickiest Eater Alive for the last 5 years running (my father), so I was looking forward to dictating exactly when, what, how, why, and where we ate.

Though my last entry was about pork loin, this one is as well--I saw them in the freezer and thought it sounded tasty, even though only Michael out of the four of was were really hungry. They were really thick cuts of meat--each piece about the length of my hand, but....I don't have a body part that accurately translates to pork width, but you get the idea.

The problem arose, however, that I needed to make this quickly, because we needed to eat and put the babies to sleep and get to bed ourselves, and I hadn't the foggiest idea of what to do with it. My first thought was to rub olive oil on it, sprinkle it with some as of yet undetermined spices, and bake it. But upon investigation, my husband had used ALL of my expensive extra-virgin olive oil to fry chicken.

Righty-oh, then.

I paw through my spice cabinet, my hand alighting on the Thyme. I had a vague memory of using thyme with pork before, so I choose it. But somehow, I don't figure that it is enough...

Thyme...thyme...what goes with thyme?

As some of you are now guessing, my mind wanders to "parsley, sage, and rosemary, of course!".

I don't like rosemary, and I have no parsley, so I put sage and thyme, as well as some salt and pepper on them. First, I broil them for a few minutes on each side, but the middle of each piece had been frozen, so we're now just warm and pink. I don't eat pink pork.

In the end, I cut all the pieces in half so they are thinner, and finish broiling them. The frozen aspect actually aided dinner, because normally broiling them that long would have left them dried out, but they were just moist enough.

Mike asked for cheesy mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese. =sigh= In the spirit of compromise, I steam broccoli/cauliflower mix and put melted Velveeta on just his. The mashed potatoes I sprinkle with crumbled bacon and shredded cojack cheese (also just his). We try asparagus again, this time just cooked with butter, salt, and pepper, though I give the kids green beans instead.

In the end--the pork was a little over-seasoned. Not horribly, and with the mild flavor of the mashed potatoes, I think it worked well. The asparagus was delicious, though Mike insists I feed it to him just to punish him. Everyone seemed satisfied =)