AfricanKelli

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Come to find out, my little garden bounty of squash looked much prettier than they taste.

In other news, I’m pretty sure I tried to serve roasted, decorative gourds for dinner last night. And it wasn’t even a Amy Sedaris recipe.

~K

Last week I mentioned I’d be preparing a fancy new recipe with my new 2 week food planning guide. (By the way, that guide is changing my life. I no longer do a dozen market runs for odd ingredients, or worry if I’m going to have the right items on hand for a meal. The mystery is gone, and I love it. It’s planned, working and yummy. Booyah.)

That fancy new recipe was this month’s cover for Bon Appetit: prosciutto-wrapped stuffed pork loin, over apples.

Pros:

Beautiful presentation

Kale. Any time I can use kale, for humor’s sake, I do. Adam hates kale and thinks I’m insane for regularly finding ways to include it in my diet. And so, as our friendship goes, I find ways to add kale to breakfast. And cocktails.

I learned a new cooking technique: butterflying a loin. Who knew it was so easy? (And here I thought butterflying a loin was pulling a muscle in the 200 meter.)

I got to use a meat thermometer I didn’t even know I owned. Score one for the gadget gods!

Did I already mention beautiful presentation, with cooking twine and all? Such fun to put together. 

The baked apples. Propping up the loins to cook over halved apples is genius. And the result is savory, sweet deliciousness. The meat with the cooked, tart, green apples is nothing short of delightful.

Cons:

A dozen expensive ingredients, including $10 worth of mushrooms that ended up being indistinguishable

Not a recipe for a single cook. If Alma hadn’t been visiting, there was no way I could have tied the pork together alone. It was not a hard job, but one that certainly required 4 hands.

DRY. The cook time is totally off. Comments on the recipe show that I’m not the only one to be disappointed with how dry the meat came out of the oven. Come to find out 100 minutes at 400 degrees is a MOTHER LOAD OF HEAT for one little 2.5 pound loin. Some 45 minutes would suffice. (Use yer trusty thermometer to judge.)

And perhaps most “con:” gross leftovers. I tried having this for lunch today and it just wasn’t good. Chances are I will not make this recipe again. The meal cost more than $50 to cook for the 3 of us, with ample leftovers. Sadly, I was counting on those for lunch and dinner today.

~K

The net sum of all I’ve knit this year — one item.

And only 9 months late — a Christmas gift for Meg.

~K

A former coworker turned 40 last week; the celebration gave me a much needed nudge to try Amy Butler’s charm clutch pattern.

I anticipate making many, many more of these with what I learned after the first go-round — including one for me, with vintage trim I tucked away for the perfect project.

~K

I’m not sure where I originally heard the theory of gardening in thirds, but I’d guess it was from my Grandma Maxine. She grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression and was forever transformed. She is exceptionally thrifty, I’d guess in part because she was no stranger to hunger as one of five kids. She is also exceptionally generous. She has led a life of giving. Thrift and gift are forever entwined in her view; the more clever you are with money and supplies, the more you can help — and in this case feed — others.

Gardening in thirds goes a bit like this: when planning your garden boxes, you plant three times as much as you anticipate needing. One third comes home to your kitchen. The next third is sacrificial — you anticipate losing this to the critters in the yard. This is, after all, organic gardening. And the final third is to be giving to others. Could be your neighbors, or in this case — the local food bank.

Metro CareRing is a unique food bank to Denver for several reasons. The director, Lynne, noted her favorite room at their small facility is the produce space. In this area, clients can select the fruits and vegetables they want to take home. This reduces waste and provides a bit of humanity to those in need. They have a choice; they are not simply given a box and expected to make the best of it for the next month.

And so, when the radishes were begging to be picked, their purple bodies bulging from the earth, to the food bank they went.

Thank you, Grandma Max. You’ve taught me more than I can say.

~K