GCC: Fruit Stuffed Pork Loin

This past weekend I had every intention of doing this dish, except that I spend it running around doing errands and Saturday dinner turned into pizza.

Instead I decided, I would do it for Sunday’s dinner.

Sunday came and went and back in the refrigerator everything went. But, I made a mental vow that I was going to do this for our Monday night dinner no matter what.

I had doubts that this was going to work out for a quick meal, but once more, I realized that there is always a way.  And in less than 1 hour, I had it on the table for us to dig in.

I took a lot of liberty with the original recipe, mainly because there were a couple of ingredients that I did not like, I’m looking at you prune, and while (as some of you know) I’m not a fan of cooked fruit in desserts, I’m more open to them when they are used in savory dishes.  I scratched those prunes for apples and added leeks and green onions to the stuffing. 

I also replaced the molasses for brown sugar and upon closer inspection of my well stocked liquor cabinet realized that I did not have Madeira wine.  So, I used Calvados, which is an apple brandy and figure it would work.  When I tasted the glazed, I realized it was a bit sweet and needed a bit of acidity kick, and after looking at my marinates, I added sour orange juice.

All in all the whole fly-by-the-seat of your pants worked.  The other big change up was with the pork.  The pork loin was super pricey, and I opted in getting individual pork loin chops, the thick cut, so I could still roll them up around the stuffing.  It totally worked.

FRUIT STUFFED PORK LOIN
Inspired by “The Silver Palate Cookbook” by Sheila Lukins and Julie Rosso
Makes 4 portions

Ingredients 

• 4 boneless pork loin chops – think cut, so you can butterfly
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2-3 tablespoon of butter
• 1 cup of chopped leek
• ¼ cup of chopped green onion
• 1 apple, cored and cut in small pieces
•  5-6 dried apricots, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 1 cup Calvados Apple brandy
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of sour orange sauce 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Butterfly the pork loin chops, and then flatten them by using a kitchen mallet to get them even thickness, season them with salt and pepper and put aside while you make the stuffing.

In a saucepan, on medium high heat, warm the olive oil and butter together, add the leek, green onion (season with a bit of salt), then when they are translucent, add the apple and apricots and cook and toss around until al dente, about 2-3 minutes of cooking (make sure the apple is not super soft and they still have a bit of a bite to them).  Add some of the fresh thyme, season with salt and pepper, toss around a bit and remove from the heat and let it cool for a bit.

Spread the stuffing in a thin, even layer over the seasoned side of each of the pork chops and roll up tightly. Bind crosswise at 1-inch intervals with butcher’s twine. Season the surface with salt and pepper.  Tip! I had about ¼ cup of leftover stuffing that I use to cover the bottom of the baking dish.

Stir the calvados brandy, brown sugar and sour orange together in a small bowl and set aside.

Using the same saucepan that you cooked the stuffing with, you are now going to sear the stuffed chops.  Again melt some butter and olive oil and then when it’s hot, place the chops and let it sear all around.  Make sure each has nice color all around.

Set the seared chops in a shallow baking pan.  Sprinkle with the thyme, and pour the calvados/sugar/orange glaze. Set the pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake basting frequently, it should take about 15 minutes of cooking.

When the pork loins are is done, remove them from the oven and let it stand, loosely covered with foil for 5 minutes.  Cut into thin slices, arrange slices on a serving platter and spoon pan juices over them.

I served mine with some parmessan mashed potatoes and we ended up feeling all fancy for our Monday night dinner.

The flavors were spot on, the sweetness of the apples and the sour orange gave it the right balance.  The only downfall was that I overcooked my chops a bit too much, so I made a note to adjust the cooking time to about 15 minutes in order to make sure they did not dry out.

This was part of our June Gutsy Cook Club weekly recipe line up, compliments of Raymond from Your Just Desserts. You can check out the other creations in our Pinterest board.

GCC: Cream Asparagus Tarragon Soup and Poach Egg

This week is the first week of another Gutsy Cook line up.  The month of June belongs to Raymond from Your Just Desserts and boy did he bring it with his choices this month – I cannot wait to cook it up in the next 4 weeks.

I love, love asparagus, its actually one of my favorite vegetables and my preferred way to eat them is cooked until crisp-tender then tossed in olive oil, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and topped with a poach egg.

If that is not comfort food at its best, I don’t know what is.

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Extraordinary Cakes: Lemon Praline Torte

While I love cooking savory food, my passion really is baking.  Through the years, without even striving for it, I have become the “baker” of the family.  We need a birthday cake? Call Monica.  A fancy dessert needed? Call Monica.

Yes, sweet nothings are my thing. (Psst.. check the blog tittle)

But, even thought I felt comfortable baking, I knew I was not a GREAT baker.  There were tons of things out there in the baking worlds that were so unknown to me – pies, anything with yeast, techniques, certain flavor combinations – I was never gutsy enough to try them. I had gotten comfortable in my regular dessert repertoire.

Until I started this blog and saw what was out there – possibilities.  And the baking guru inside of me woke up and tapped me in the shoulder and told me “Dude, you need to feed me more baking challenges”.

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Gutsy Cook May Recipe Line Up is posted

May’s Gutsy Cook Recipe Line-up is is posted and ready to be cooked.

This month feature Gutsy Cook is Raymond from Your Just Desserts and he is really giving us some amazing options.

I think he went a bit retro on us with his cookbooks choices and I’m pretty exited to get my kitchen ready for them.  We got a souffle in there and I’m scare of those things, so it will be interesting to see what how that turns out. 

Yogurt and Blueberries Paletas - Guest Post!

You are probably wondering how the picture above of Yogurt and Blueberries Paletas (Ice Pops) have anything to do with this.

Patience my readers…

You know what the best thing about food blogging is? Joining a community that will accept you with open arms. I have meet so many awesome bloggers in the 3 years that I started Sweetbites, and their continue support and inspiration is what keeps me putting time in the small kitchen of mine.  And you, my readers are the gas that keeps me going by posting all of those tasty treats that come out of that kitchen.  Win-win guys!

Wait.. I’m getting side track.. back to the ice pops.

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GCC: Greek Yogurt Cake

They say that the simple things in life are the most extraordinary.  Its true, we take it for granted.  Humans are the ones that complicated things.

In this case, this recipe cannot be overthought, or over complicated.  It is what it is.

A fast batter to put together with simple ingredients that I bet, are sitting in your pantry/refrigerator right now. And the end results is a great snacking cake.

And I’m not taking about twinkies here.

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GCC: Steak Pizzaiola

This weeks Gutsy Cook choice used chuck steak as the star of this dish, and then braise it under this rich spicy tomato sauce.  The results were simply magical in our house.  At the end of a 2-hour oven stay, the meat was pull apart tender, infused with this rich taste of tomatoes with a kick of spice.  What could be better than that for a lazy weekend meal? Nothing, it hit the right spot with our taste buds.

We love the idea of making a big bowl of rigatoni to go along with this; instead we opted to make some mashed potatoes to soak up that sauce after we found out our pantry was low on pasta and no rigatoni option to be found.

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Mandocas - Sweet Corn Fritters

When I was 8 years old my mother sent my sister and I to live with our paternal grandparents.  She was coming to the states to prepare our arrival and she decided that our grandparents should spend some time with us before we moved to the United States.

My grandparents lived in the state of Zulia, which is located in the northwest of Venezuela, around the Marcaibo Lake.  This lake is the largest water body of its kind in Latin America and its basin covers one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

Maracaibo is the state capital and it has the second (Caracas being the first) largest population among Venezuela states.  Like any country, each state is known for their own individual personality. Maracuchos (the population of Maracaibo) as they are referred, are loud, talk fast and everyone cuss like sailors – and I mean everyone, toddlers to gradmas.

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Wedding Food

Can you believe that that is the only photo that I have of the food that was served at our wedding? Yep, I was too busy smiling, laughing, dancing, oh yeah, keeping an eye on my new husband that was busting it on the floor with the little man (not so little anymore) and through all that totally forgot to tell my photographers to take some shot of the food.

So you guys will have to imagine the Tomato Shooters with Bianco Panini - crispy focaccia grilled panini filled wtih mozzarella, sweet onion, fresh tomatoes, arugula, Gorgonzola and served on top of a tomato-bail soup shooter.  I think I had like 5 of those.  The other hit was the Baby Artichoke hearts topped wtih goat cheese, olive tapenade, and sun-dried tomatoes (I totally going to re-created these in the future).  For Tom we had the Mini-Pulled Pork Slider with cilantro lime mayo, monterey jack and sliced avocado on a roll, served wtih crispy sweet potato fries.  For me we went the Maryland Crab Cake tower seared and served wtih a cajun remoulade, the traditional deviled eggs and the southwestern shrimp with tangy lime and avocado dip.

So yes, apologies, you will need to close your eyes and imagine all of it.

You are wondering about the wedding cake?  Don’t need to imagine that one.. because there is a picture of that one… over at Sweetlife (bonus, more pictures of the whole affair too!)

I could tell you that it was a yum! cake - one layer was a rum soaked pound cake with vanilla pastry cream and fresh strawberries the other was boston cream pie - vanilla custard with chocolate and oh yeah, more of that rum soaked pound cake.

Those shot glassed on top - were the Key Lime Luxury with crushed graham crackers, red velvet and cream cheese icing.  By the time we got to them they were gone!

I do have to thank my awesome catering company Puff n’ Stuff.  They along with the other vendors rocked it.

Now I have to just remember those Baby Artichoke in order to duplicate them.

GCC: Baked Chicken with Honey-Whole Grain Mustard Glaze

I’m so happy that we started up the Gutsy Cook Club – actually if I’m honest Tom is more excited than anyone, since he now gets to eat “real” food.  I have to say for the last couple of months we have eaten crap.  Ok, maybe that is a bit extreme, we eat food, but nothing new, mostly dishes that were fast and have been posted on the blog before and frankly Tom got use to having something new every weekend when I would put my Gutsy Cook hat on, when I told him we were back and and that this weekend we were having a new recipe, he shouted “YES!, glad you are back!”.

If that is not a hint, I don’t know what is.

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