Coffee Crusted Pork Roast

Saturday was a pretty lousy day.  I was up all night Friday with a bad belly.  Saturday I not only felt lousy but was exhausted.  All I could get down for dinner was a fried egg sandwich.  Thanks to Connie who was chef for the night.  He toasted the bread just enough to take the smoosh off but not so much as to make it crunch.  The egg yolk was still a little runny.  And, he grated a bit of swiss cheese onto it.  It was pretty darned perfect.  And, as soon as I ate I got to curl back up on the couch and go back to sleep.  That's how to recuperate!
 
Needless to say, my week's menus did not get made on Saturday.  Sunday we went to the office for the morning and got home just in time for the Colt's game.  YAY - we beat Tennessee!  Andrew Luck rocks!!!  So, at 5:00 Sunday I still had no clue what I was going to fix for dinner.  My options from the freezer were not promising.  Fine.  I picked up the cookbook on top of the stack of cookbooks to mark for recipes to make.  Commander's Wild Side.  Another find from the bargain bin at the grocery store.  I want to make everything from the chapter titled, "Showstopping Dishes to Impress Your Friends."  Let's see, there's Truffled Scallps and Crabmeat wtih Caviar Vinaigrette, Creole Lobster Bisque, Crab and Brie Stuffed Flounder, Speckled Trout Napoleons with Morel Cream, Crab and Oyster Mushroom Risotto and Pepper-Crusted Beef Sirloiin with Crispy Oysters and Horseradish Cream.  Is your mouth watering like mine is? 
 
I knew Sunday was not the evening for a show-stopping (read long and complicated) recipe, however.  You see, Peyton's playing Drew Brees.  That we need to see.  So, I opened the cookbook to the chapter titled, "Not-So-Wild Game."  The first recipe was Coffee-Crusted Pork Loin with Fig-Bourbon Syrup.  Not only did it sound fantastic, it also sounded pretty darned quick.  Connie said there was a tub of spinach to be used up.  I found a recipe from Southern Living called Mango-Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette.  Sounded perfect together.  And, I had a sweet potato I could mash to go along.  I was off to the grocery. 
 
What did we think?  This was super easy to put together.  The flavors were amazing.  The crust on the pork was very thin but so packed with flavor.  The fig-bourbon syrup was perfect with it.  As were the bourbon mashed potatoes.  Those were just a large sweet potato mashed with about a teaspoon of bourbon, a quick grate of nutmeg, a couple of tablespoons of butter and a couple of tablespoons of half and half.  The salad was a great alternative to your traditional spinach salad.  All in all, we gave the whole meal a score of five on a scale of one to five.  Connie liked the pork best, while I preferred the salad.  But, there were no losers here!
 
Coffee-Crusted Pork Loin with Fig-Bourbon Syrup
serves 4
 
Ingredients:
 
1 cup fig preserves
1/2 c bourbon
1/4 c finely ground chicory or regular coffee
1 T plus 2 t dark brown sugar
1 T Creole seasoning (we use Emeril's)
1 t smoked paprika
2 lb trimmed boneless pork roast, preferably loin
 
Directions:
 
Mix the preserves and bourbon in a small saucepan.  Let it simmer while you prepare the pork.  I needed an immersion blender since there were some pretty big chunks of fig in the preserves.

Make the rub next.  In a spice grinder combine the coffee, brown sugar, Creole seasoning and smoked paprika.  Process it until it's very finely ground.

The original recipe called for rubbing the pork with vegetable oil prior to rolling it in the rub.  I didn't do that and it worked perfectly.  Roll the pork in the rub, coating every surface.  Allow it to rest at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Heat your grill.  Grill the pork for about 20 minutes or until it reaches an internal temperature of 130F.  Make sure to turn the pork so all sides get a nice crust.  Remove the pork from the heat and allow it to rest for 10 minutes before carving it. 

Serve the pork drizzled with the fig-bourbon sauce.

adapted from Commander's Wild Side


Mango-Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette
serves 2

Ingredients:

4 thick slices bacon, diced and browned
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1 T lime juice
1 T honey
2 large handfuls fresh spinach
1 mango, peeled and diced
2 T crumbled queso fresco or mild feta

Directions:

Brown the bacon and drain all but a tablespoon of the fat.  Saute the onion until it's very soft.  When the onion is done, pour in the red wine vinegar, lime juice and honey.  Stir well and keep warm until you're ready to assemble the salads.

To assemble the salads, put a handful of spinach on each plate.  Top with half of the mango, then the bacon, dressing and finally the cheese. 

adapted from Southern Living

Salad with Figs and Prosciutto

Saturdays are normally spent in the office. Not this one. This time, we drove to South Bend, IN. A place I've never been. My friend, Anne, had arranged to have me as a speaker at a conference - in South Bend. We had two choices. One, drive up and back the same day - a total of six hours of driving. Or, two, drive up and spend the night. Now, there were plenty of things to do in South Bend. But, there were also plenty of things to do in Indy. Mostly involving taking care of clients. And, my clients come first. So, we drove up and back. It's a miserable drive. You get stopped at EVERY light in Kokomo. My friend Jeb is the economic development director up there and he drives down here to Indy all the time. He's obviously a LOT more patient than I am because I'd lose my mind if I had to make that drive very often.


Now, the good news is that I had a blast up in South Bend. We had 52 women registered for the Social Security seminar. I've never had so much fun teaching this. Talk about laughing. And great questions. These ladies took the cake. Then, it was time to head south. But, on the way we needed to see two things. One was the Notre Dame campus and the other was the world's largest egg. Notre Dame was gorgeous. We saw the gold dome

and Touchdown Jesus

and lots of other stuff. Then we were off to Mentone and the egg. I called Mom on the way to make sure she'd made it through the church rummage sale ok. Told her where we were headed. You're right. She thought we were nuts. Ok, fine. We are. But we have fun being nuts. She said she'd not walk around the corner to see the egg. We drove about 20 miles out of our way. And, laughed the whole way. See, just talking about the world's largest egg is funny. That's what I love about Connie - he's curious.

Needless to say, we didn't get home quite in time for Annie to get her dinner on time. Nor did she get her lamb snack on time. We were a few minutes ahead of the 8:30 scooby snack. Whew! On the way home we debated. Stop for dinner? Nope, takes too long since Annie's got to go out. Get carryout? Nothing sounded good. We were both focused on a recipe I'd read in Cooks Illustrated. A salad recipe. There was leftover chicken stirfry on brown rice if we wanted it. But, we both wanted this salad. Figs, prosciutto, parmesan. On bitter greens. And, have we ever got the bitter greens in our garden. Fine then. It was decided. Home to fix THAT salad.


What did we think? I could make this once a week and we'd not get tired of it. The flavors played together perfectly. It took just two strips of parmesan to pull it all together. We had some leftover blackberries so I added them. They fit in just fine.  One other change was to toss the minced shallot into the skillet with the prosciutto instead of adding it raw.  The whole premise of the article was that by incorporating the right types of ingredients into a salad with bitter greens, you can neutralize the bitterness.  I'm here to tell you it works!  There were two more salad recipes with the article and we'll undoubtedly try both since this one was such a homerun. 

Bitter Greens Salad with Figs and Prosciutto

Ingredients:

4 T extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into 1/2" wide ribbons
1 T raspberry jam (I used black raspberry
3 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 c dried figs, stems removed
1 small shalot, finely minced
8 c arugula or other bitter greens (5 oz) (I used sorrel and red giant mustard greens)
1/2 c walnuts, toasted and chopped
shaved Parmesan

Directions:

Chop the prosciutto and mince the shallot.  Saute both in a small amount of olive oil.  You want the prosciutto to be a smidgen crispy but not totally. 

Toast the walnuts. 

Whisk together the blackberry jam and the balsamic vinegar.  Add the figs, cover the bowl with plastic wrap (cut a couple of holes to vent)  and microwave them for 30 seconds to one minute until they plump.

Remove the figs from the vinegar, cool them and chop them into 1/4" pieces.

Whisk the other three tablespoons of olive oil into the vinegar/jam mixture.

Now, it's time to put the salad together.  I decided to use a smaller amount of greens that the 8 cups called for in the recipe primarily because it's still pretty early in the growing season and our greens aren't super huge yet. 

Here's what the goodies look like close up:

Last, but not least, shave a couple of ribbons of parmesan over the top.

adapted from Cooks Illustrated