The Prep: Day after Pick-up is Sponsored by Purple Porch

In our house Thursdays are Purple Porch Days. What's the use of getting a bunch of fresh stuff if you don't eat it the next day? (said the grasshopper to the ant) So, for breakfast we ate the Russian Krendl bread we bought from Fair Bakery. I'm very fat and happy to report: it was delicious. I could have done a better job serving it (it was not warm for everyone that partook, but we eat breakfast over a 2 hour period depending on who gets on what bus when) but the bread itself was scrumptious. Pretty enough to take to a Christmas Party.

For lunch, besides other things, the kids took there normal Thursday fair of J2K's pizza bread. I'm telling you, if you order some of their foccacia, you'll be hooked too. It's good enough that I've contemplated ordering 2 of them so the kids can take one in their lunches and I could eat the other all by myself. But that would be gluttony. Heavenly, delicious gluttony. And for dinner:

Pork Roast

Ingredients:

3lb. pork shoulder roast (Family Farms Cooperative 4 cloves garlic (FFC)

9 small to medium potatoes (FFC) sprig of Rosemary

6 (oh heck just peel the rest of the bag) carrots (FFC) 1/2 c. Perry Pear Cider

2 medium to large onions (Rise Up Farm) Pepper to taste 2tsp. coconut oil

Set crock pot on High (unless you have 6 to 8 hours before dinner then Low)

Heat coconut oil over high heat in a skillet.

Put roast in skillet. Turn the roast using tongs to sear every side of the roast. (This is suppose to help keep the juices in the meat and make it moister, and more delicious, I really only do it to be pretentious and because I like the taste of the browned edges. Oh did I mention while searing you should cook each edge until brown?)

Put roast fat side up in the crock pot (that you washed from cooking the Root Soup in on Tuesday)

Peel and quarter the potatoes (I like everything in a soup to be able to rest easily on a spoon and anyone eating the soup to do so without stretching their mouth open wide, cutting ingredients or picking out bones. I especially HATE picking out bones of something served to me in a bowl 'ready to eat'. But this is a roast so the taters will be taken out of the pot and diners will be expected to use a knife and fork, thus the larger pieces)

Peel and cut the carrots into finger size spears. (or whatever you call it when something is long and narrow. I know pickles and asparagus comes in spears but I'm not sure about carrots but you get the picture)

Put the potatoes and carrots in the pot surrounding the roast.

Ask your wonderful wife to interrupt her work that she gets payed for to go outside into the herb garden that you planted for her for Mother's Day (what a shameless self-promoter I am) and use her eyes that are better than yours (note this may not be the case in your household) and rustle through the leaves that have fallen and find some Rosemary.

Strip the Rosemary leaves off the stem so you don't hear anyone complaining about twigs in their food.

Put rosemary on the roast. (rosemary and pork go together like, like. Mork & Mindy? I don't know what they go together like except they are good together.)

Chop the onions really small so that when the roast is done those little buggers are obliterated and can only be ascertained in the taste of all the great food you're going to serve.

Give the garlic the same treatment.

Put onions and garlic on top of the roast.

Pour Pear Cider (that comes from Lehman's but isn't available for sale at PPC)

Pepper the whole kit-n-kaboodle.

Walk away and write your blog. Or, better yet tend to your children or something.

Optional Dill sauce I'm making to go on potatioes. (caution: not for people afraid of real fat)

Ingredients for sauce:

2 Tbs. of butter

2Tbs. of flour (we'll use non-wheat of course but all purpose will do)

some dill I don't know maybe a 1/4 c. when chopped

1 c. milk, buttermilk, or cream

Melt butter in the skillet you used earlier. Whisking continually with a rue whisk.

Add flour. Keep whisking for goodness sake or you'll burn it!

When the flour is browned empty the liquid ingredients from the crock that you cooked the roast in into the skillet and KEEP whisking!

Throw in the dill.

Keep whisking.

After the mixture reduces, throw in the cup of dairy. This is going to be incredibly rich so use sparingly. You've been warned.

I'm not putting this over my pork roast but on the potatoes. You do what you want with it. And most of all...Enjoy!

Prep time: 45 minutes to an hour. Especially if you make the sauce at the end.

Feeds: 6 for dinner plus hopefully some left-overs for lunch.

Dishes Dirtied: Crock pot, frying pan, tongs, knife, cutting board, chopper, liquid measuring

cup, large bowl, small bowl, rue whisk, carving knife, carving fork, platter, gravy boat.