Saturday, Pacific Rim, Busy Week.

This time our Saturday dinner with our friends came to fruition. The food was delicious with the main course featured a fruit stuffed pork loin which was delicious. As usual our talk ranged over quite a few subjects not least of which was our various aches and pains or illnesses. How the mighty have fallen when one of the main topics of conversation is one’s health. I recommended the Actipatch to them which I am still very pleased with. I have ordered two more and Matt has promised to try one when it arrives.

I read that yet another volcanic eruption has happened, this time in Chile on Saturday luckily no injuries http://tinyurl.com/3u3xjym it seems to me that the earth is really in turmoil at the moment, especially around the Pacific Rim of Fire. Practically every time one checks on the news there are reports of quakes or eruptions. We are also getting news of tornados of course just to make sure the people who aren’t in the volcanic area don’t feel left out. Meteorologists are predicting a very active hurricane season this year too, hopefully not ones which hit land.

We have a very busy week ahead not least of which is my pre-op on Thursday for my angioplasty the following week. Then we are going down to Niagara-on-the-Lake on Friday to meet up with a couple of friends plus the cyber friends we have never met who are over here from South Africa. I am really looking forward to that.

This is not the recipe we were served on Saturday, but it sounds like a pretty good one.

Fruit Stuffed Pork Loin Roast

Loin of pork, butterflied.

1/4 Cup dried cranberries

1/4 Cup prunes

1/4 Cup dried apricots

1/4 Cup Sultana raisins

2 Peaches peeled, pitted and diced up(or use canned slices diced up)

2 Granny Smith or other firm apples, peeled, cored and diced up

2 Shallots finely minced

1/4 Cup ground walnuts

2 or 3 Cloves roasted garlic

3 Cups (Approximately) homemade croutons

2 Cups unsweetened apple juice

fresh Italian parsley chopped up

sage

thyme

salt

pepper

Peach Brandy & Apple Schnapps

DIRECTIONS

-Night before you will be making roast, take all the dried fruit and chop up to the size of raisins.

Put the dried fruit and the diced peaches into a glass bowl and cover generously with the brandy and schnapps so the fruit can re-constitute. Cover bowl with plastic and place in refrigerator overnight.

- Prior to stuffing roast, remove fruit from fridge and drain off the liquid, reserving it for use later.

- In a large bowl add; shallots, apple and roasted garlic.

Give it all a good mix to mush up the garlic...you can add a little of the liquid to help it along.

- Add the ground walnuts to the mix and stir it all together.

It should resemble a liquid like paste...once again add a little of the reserved liquid if necessary to get the consistency.

- Add the sage, thyme and chopped parsley to your liking.

Fresh sage and thyme are best but dried work as well. Give everything a mix again.

- Add the croutons and mix to incorporate everything.

- Add in the re-constituted fruit to the mix and once again give it a good mixing.

You can save some of the fruit to add to the reduction used to de-glaze the pan or to nibble on while roast is in oven.

- The stuffing mix should look and feel moist but not wet.

Adjust the moisture by adding more of the reserved liquid if necessary.

- Take the "butterflied" roast and spread out on work surface.

- Take the stuffing mix and place onto the roast.

You can either spread the mixture evenly over roast to give you a "pinwheel" effect when sliced or make a loaf in centre of roast that will be completely surrounded by meat when sliced.

- Take the roast and roll it up. Use butcher's twine to tie up the roast at 2" intervals.

- In a large frying pan or dutch oven, sear the roast on all sides in hot oil.

Remove and place in a roasting pan once seared.

- Add 2 cups of unsweetened apple juice to pan and cover with foil wrap.

Place roast in preheated oven to roast at 350 degrees.

Remove the foil about 45 minutes into the roasting.

Baste with the juices as needed.

- The roast is done when internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.

Remove roast to platter and tent with foil.

- De-glaze the pan with some of the reserved liquid and transfer this to a saucepan with the remaining unused liquid (and fruit if any was reserved).

Cook down the mixture to your desired thickness. You can add brown sugar to sweeten it up more if you wish.

Pour a little of the reduction over each slice when serving.

Have a great day

Back Pain, Asparagus, Banned Movie.

I forgot to update my report on ActiPatch yesterday. I spent a lot of time – or a lot more time – standing cooking on Saturday and found it helped me a great deal. I am very impressed with its performance. However, one problem I encountered, when I went bowling yesterday it had a tendency to ride up. As bowling is the only sports I do, I don’t know how it would be for anyone else in other sports, but I guess if you had too much pain you wouldn’t be playing those sports anyway, right?

A report out this morning about a movie which is NOT being shown in Britain but will be part of the Cannes Film Festival. It is about Princess Diana and shows pictures of her lying at death’s door at the end of her life. The movie is backed by Dodi al Fayed’s father who continues to believe that the Royal Family engineered her death. For God’s sake, why can’t they leave it alone. The investigation at the time showed that the driver of their car was drunk. Finish,  kaput, end it. Meanwhile Prince William and his bride have left on honeymoon, something nice for them to take with them!

After all that moaning and groaning, I won’t be getting asparagus at Barrie’s Farm, as soon as I wanted to, people have already been there and I couldn’t make it until this morning. However, better late than never, can’t wait. The first thing I want to do is stock up on homemade soup, we ate every bit of the batch I made last year. Plus I want to try out some of the recipes we enjoyed last year, asparagus wrapped in phyllo pastry was one of my favourites, can’t remember the name of the recipe right now, but I will be hunting for it very soon. As you can see, I found the recipe.

Asparagus Phyllo Bundles

Source: Paula Deen

For one roll:
Phyllo - 1/2 sheet for 2 asparagus
2 stalks asparagus
Parmesan, grated

1. Brush phyllo with butter, sprinkle with Parmesan, place 2 asparagus in middle and roll. Place in baking dish, sprinkle more Parmesan and put in oven 375 F for 15 mins.

Yield: one roll:

Have a great day

Pain, PC, Recipes

I have been trying a product called ActiPatch for my back pain – guess what, it seems to work. I have worn it for approximately 8 hours a day for the last three days and whilst wearing it don’t have any pain although it does come back a little after several hours of not wearing it. It is supposed to last 720 hours. You apparently cannot replace the battery so have to buy another one. For me the link is www.ActiPatch.ca but no doubt in the States it would be www.Actipatch.com I wonder if I can get a commission from them for recommending it. The price shown in the picture is Canadian dollars. After a full 3 days of use I am very pleased with it although tomorrow I will be doing a fair bit of cooking and therefore standing so will see how it copes with my back pain then.

I have lost my desktop PC for a couple of days (I hope). I picked up some Malware plus a couple of things aren’t working the way they should. Trouble is I am not very experienced typing on my laptop and the cursor tends to jump to a different point all the time. So please forgive me if I type some very odd things today. It was interesting that the young man who repairs my computers,, Konstantin, asked if I had cooked all the recipes I published, I told him no, but that I had certainly cooked a large proportion of them. Sometimes after I have published them here. Usually the recipes I choose for here are ones I think we would enjoy so if I haven’t already done so, either Matt or I prepare them. Actually we had a Weight Watcher’s recipe last night which we have prepared before and enjoy and maybe when I have my PC back I will share it with you.

I like the look of some of the recipes I have been getting from WebMD, but they do contain a lot of unusual ingredients and I am not sure if they are readily available. I will have to make some enquiries. I sure don’t keep sorghum flour or xanthum gum in my pantry which seems to be what some of these recipes call for. However, I came across a more usual recipe from South Beach Diet which I thought I would publish.

Mini Cocoa Swirl Cheesecake

Serves: 6

Details:

Ricotta cheese mixed with reduced-fat cream cheese and cocoa makes a rich and creamy chocolaty dessert. Muffin tins produce individual servings, perfect for family or a party. Prep and bake times are quick, but you'll want to prepare this dessert in advance, so you can allow it to chill in the refrigerator before serving. (Phase 3)

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
• 2 tablespoons granular sugar substitute
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

Nutritional Information:

130 calories
8 g fat (4.5 g sat)
7 g carbohydrate
7 g protein
0 g dietary fiber
125 mg sodium

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350° F. Line 6 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.
2. Blend cream cheese and ricotta in a food processor until creamy
3. Add sugar substitute, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; process until smooth
4. Divide 1 cup of the batter among the muffin cups. Add cocoa powder to the remaining batter and combine. Drop a heaping tablespoon of the cocoa batter into each muffin cup and gently fold to form a swirl.
5. Place the muffin tin in a large roasting pan and fill the pan with hot water to reach halfway up the tin. Bake until the cakes are puffed and set, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from the water and cool at room temperature. Refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours.

Have a great day