Pork

Gosh I love pork.

I got a beautiful new cookbook for Christmas – it’s called Bread and Beauty by Claudia Kousoulas and Ellen Letourneau. It’s all about a year in the life of Montgomery County, Maryland’s Agricultural Reserve. The photography is amazing and the recipes are interesting.

I was cooking dinner for my friend and had a pork shoulder, so I looked up pork and there was this interesting recipe with celery and wine, but I kinda was missing a bunch of ingredients, so I substituted most everything.

I marinated the roast in some lime infused olive oil and black cherry balsamic (from Lebherz in Frederick) tossed it into a dutch oven with a little oil in the bottom and browned it, then sliced up a bunch of sweet potatoes and yukon gold potatoes (actually my friend sliced those up) and threw them in the pan. I had some cherry stout, so I added that. Then I added some berbere kraut from Sweet Farm and threw in some dried tart cherries for good measure. Now that was yummy! Next time I will take a picture.

Recipe:

2-3 lb pork roast
1/4 c Whole Fruit Persian Lime Olive oil (plus a tablespoon or so for browning the pork)
1-2 TBS Black Cherry Balsamic
4 medium sized Sweet Potatoes
4 medium sized Yukon Gold Potatoes
1 Bottle of Bells Cherry Stout
1/2 jar of Sweet Farm Berbere kraut
1/4 c tart dried cherries (cranberries would work too)

Preheat oven to 350.
Make Olive oil/Balsamic marinade and coat pork
Warm up Dutch oven on stovetop – medium & add about 1TBS olive oil – when olive oil shimmers, add pork and brown each side for about 3-5 min.
Add potatoes, stout, kraut and cherries. Add any remaining marinade.
Put in oven and cook until done – about 30 min/lb of pork or until 135 degrees on a meat thermometer.

If the roast is smaller than 2 lbs, toss the potatoes in olive oil and balsamic and roast them separately. They need at least an hour in the oven.

Serve with a tossed salad or warm greens with some crusty bread for sopping up the juice. Luscious!