Hi!

Welcome to Zest! 

I'm usually a bit fussy about my menus, and my significant other (S.O.) gives me a hard time about always insisting on the exact ingredients to prepare a meal.  I'm constantly having to run to the grocery store to pick up something I need to make my dish just right.  This has been a very rough week: it's my last week at my current job as a clinical social worker and we had to put our beloved cat, The Nefarious P.I.G., to sleep on Monday.  :-(  


But life goes on and we all have to eat, so it might as well be something good.  Last night it was my turn to fix dinner and I decided I was just going to make do with things I already had at home.  Luckily for me, my S.O. is an incredible organic gardener, so we have fresh herbs year-round.  Fresh herbs can add a significant spark to any old dinner.  I had a pork loin I bought on sale over the weekend, some leftover grilled zucchini and yellow squash, a handful of fresh raspberries and green grapes, some gorgeous Romaine from our garden and a few other odds and ends.  Since Italian is my favorite cuisine, I put together this menu, which I thought was quite successful.  The S.O. did, too!


Grilled pork loin stuffed with garlic and organic herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme - yeah, I know, but they really complimented the pork)
Zucchini and yellow squash grilled with olive oil and fresh thyme
Salad of romaine, roasted pecans, raspberries and grapes with a dressing made of  E.V.O.O. (HA!  Rachael, I'm stealing your acronym), pear-infused white balsamic vinegar, a splash of raspberry vinegar and a couple of tablespoons of Amish blue cheese blended in with a fork.
Whole wheat orzo with browned butter and loads of fresh chopped sage
Grilled Artisan garlic bread....NO!  I'm definitely not a baker.  I bought this at our local Kroger.


I cut the pork roast in half and I'll use the other half to make "veal" saltimbocca, picatta, or marsala - come to think of it, I bought some mushrooms on sale, too, so that settles it.  Tomorrow night we'll have "Veal" Marsala.   Anyway, I browned the roast all over, then cooked it on the cool side of the grill until the internal temperature was 140, and let it rest for 15 minutes.  It was juicy and tender and full of flavor.  The salad was a lovely summer variation of a blue cheese, fruit and nut salad, which I always like with pork.  I'm mad about pasta with browned butter and sage, so I was quite pleased with my "thrown-together" Italian dinner for two, even though we burned the bread.  We drank a toast (Sauvignon Blanc) to the P.I.G. while the roast was browning.  Was it wrong to eat pork the day after we buried our "pig?" 


Let me know what you think - about this menu, about food in general - and what you'd like to hear about.  And check out http://passionfruitbutter.com/.  That's my niece's blog and she's incredible!