Apple Pomegranate Pork Loin

Damon's parents are here for the weekend. His dad is allergic to soy, so whenever they come I look for new soy-free recipes. It's challenging but fun. You wouldn't believe how many foods have soy. For example, the other night I did Jackie's crock pot chicken taco meat - one brand of taco seasoning had soy, another didn't. Soft taco shells had soy, hard didn't. Weird.

Anyway, I googled "soy-free recipes" and found this pork loin that turned out super yummy! It was really juicy and tender. Tweaked it a little - I guess pomegranates are not in season, but Kroger had 100% pomegranate juice in their little all-natural beverage section near the produce, so I substituted 1/2 a cup of that for the fresh juice and seeds. Also, as I've said before, Damon is a much better cook than I am, and he added some stuff to the sauce, like ground mustard and pepper. I'm sure it would taste good the way it's given here too.


Apple Pomegranate Pork Loin

1 qt. plus 1/2 c. apple cider
1/4 c. kosher salt or 1/8 c. table salt
3 bay leaves
2- to 2.5-lb. boneless pork loin
freshly ground pepper
juice and seeds from 1 large pomegranate
1 T. corn starch
sugar (if necessary)

In a deep bowl, stir together 1 quart apple cider, salt and bay leaves to make a brine. Immerse pork loin in brine and store in refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight (If using an "enhanced" pork loin, brine for only 2-3 hours because it already has added salt).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove pork from brine (dispose of brine mixture). Pat pork dry with paper towels, season all over with pepper and place on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast pork until meat thermometer inserted in thickest part reaches 160 degrees, approx. 1 hr 30 minutes (I found out after I bought my pork loin that it was already cut into two separate pieces length-wise, so it only took about an hour to cook). Remove roast from oven and place on a serving platter, covered lightly with foil.

In a small bowl, stir together 1/2 cup apple cider and 1 tablespoon corn starch.

In a saucepan, bring the cider-starch mixture and the pomegranate seeds and juice to a boil over medium-high heat. Immediately lower heat to medium-low and cook gently until sauce is clear and very thick, about 8-10 minutes. Taste and add a little sugar, if necessary.

To serve, drizzle enough apple-pomegranate sauce on the pork loin to cover the roast. Pass the rest of the sauce behind the roast at table as a dipping sauce. Serve immediately.

Taffy Apple Salad

I made this delicious salad for a cook-out tomorrow with fellow tenants in our apartment complex. If you're looking for a side/dessert salad that's a little different (and yummier) than the usual fruit salad, please make this! It really tastes like taffied apples and makes me look forward to fall, my favorite season. I got the recipe from my mom, who got it from a former coworker. Make it the night before you need it to let it set/blend flavors.

Taffy Apple Salad

large can crushed pineapple in juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg, beaten
8 oz. Cool Whip, thawed
4 cups diced apples
3 cups mini marshmallows
1 1/2 cups Spanish peanuts

Drain the juice from the pineapple into a saucepan. Add sugar, vinegar, flour and egg. Cook until mixture thickens and let cool a bit. Then stir in Cool Whip, apples, the pineapple, marshmallows and peanuts (I had to transfer it to a bigger bowl to add everything; my saucepan wasn't very big). Let set in refrigerator overnight.

Worthwhile Education

I meant to do this after I graduated from Cedarville three months ago, but, you know, time gets away from you (holy cow, is it August already?). I slowly chipped away at my English degree for eleven years and finally finished this year. During those years, I got married and established in my job as Coordinator in the Physical Plant at the university, and have been blessed with two children (one currently incubating). I mostly kept taking classes because I could get them for free as a staff member, and I wanted to finish what I started. I don't currently have plans to use my degree in a career, as I'm enjoying being home with the aforementioned kids. If I ever do get a job in my "field" (I'd like to write and/or edit nonfiction - journalistic type stuff), great, but if not, I consider myself blessed simply for the experience of learning to think and write well while reading great literature. I am also thankful for the intelligent, abundantly passionate professors from whom I have learned. If all I get out of this degree is the ability to think critically and to share that skill, as well as a passion for literature, with my children, it was worth it.

Here are just a few of the works I have studied in my time at Cedarville (yes, all of the books in the above photo are from my classes - and I'm sure some of what I've read is not included). Keep in mind that this list contains mostly novels and plays, not the many (MANY) wonderful short stories, nonfiction essays and poems I have read as part of anthologies of American and British literature, both old and recent (oh yeah, and FILMS I have watched - I loved the Christian Motifs in Film class and would be interested in sitting through it again just to hear the discussions). If anyone would like to borrow any of these from me, I'd be glad to share!

Early British Literature:
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Paradise Lost - John Milton
Samson Agonistes - John Milton
Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
The Jew of Malta - Christopher Marlowe
The Tragedy of Mariam - Elizabeth Cary
SHAKESPEARE - duh, more than I can count :)

Contemporary British Literature:
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
W;t - Margaret Edson
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

European Novel:
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy

Mythology:
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Recent American Literature:
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerny
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
White Noise - Don DeLillo
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

21st Century Literature:
March - Geraldine Brooks
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

Plays:
Medea - Euripides
Everyman - anonymous
The Misanthrope - Moliere
The Cherry Orchard - Anton Chekhov
Hedda Gabler - Henrik Ibsen
Riders to the Sea - John Millington Synge
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
The Piano Lesson - August Wilson

Looking back, I really can't believe how many wonderful works of literature I have read. And this may sound odd, but I also really enjoyed reading The History of the English Language for the class on the same subject (go, Dr. Calhoun!). One of the things I enjoyed about my literature classes is that I was forced to read great stuff; otherwise, I probably wouldn't have made time for it. I would love to go back through these and read them all again; I hope to do so. I am blessed.

Diced Chicken & Almonds

I had the ingredients to make this for our anniversary (June 28), but I ended up having a cold and didn't feel up to it, so Damon made it instead. Definitely a good thing, because he's a much better cook than I am (from his 5 years of experience in the cafeteria at Cedarville while he was finishing his degree - I worked there too, but only for a year and pretty much all I made was pizza).

The recipe is from a cookbook I got from June Campbell, the owner of a bed & breakfast on Kelleys Island in Lake Erie. We took a long weekend up there in October of 2007. June's breakfasts were amazing so I bought her book. Damon tweaked this recipe by adding salt and pepper and cooking wine to the saute-ing chicken.


Diced Chicken & Almonds

3 T. vegetable oil
2 c. diced raw chicken
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 c. diced celery
1 c. boiling water
1 c. peas, fresh or frozen
1/2 can mushroom pieces, drained
1 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. cold water
1/2 c. toasted almonds

Saute chicken in oil until cooked, about 3-5 minutes. Add soy sauce, peas, celery, mushrooms and boiling water. Cover and simmer for 4 minutes. Blend cornstarch and cold water. Add to meat mixture, stirring, and cook until it boils and mixture thickens. Sprinkle with almonds. Serve with rice and soy sauce.

Yummo.

New Bathroom

Still working on that project list I started awhile ago. I have been lazier than I probably should be lately. I've gotten a few things done though - I'm almost completely done with Eva's baby book; all that's left is to get her hand print "now that you are one" (she's 17 months, woops). Then I can start a new book for baby #2.

Anyway, I am very happy about having the bathroom redecorating done. We can't paint or do anything permanent in our apartment, so really all I could change were the accessories. We'd had the previous decor since we got married almost eight years ago - I didn't HATE it, but it was starting to look old, and our taste has definitely changed. Not that I'm trying to compare myself to others (though I pridefully do that a lot), but since visiting many homes of the hip young couples at the Oaks (yes, you are - admit it ;)) and seeing what cool things can be done with home interiors, my taste in decor has become less traditional - "old lady" if you will. I mean, our old bathroom trash can and tissue cover were wicker, for cryin' out loud.

Couldn't get great pictures, mostly because it's such a tiny bathroom, but here's the before:




For the new stuff, I wanted to use similar colors (namely light blue and green), so that we could save money by keeping the same rugs and towels, which are still in good shape. But I wanted more white as opposed to beige, since I always felt like the beige made it look a little dim in there. Ta-da:




Toothbrush holder is a little more modern than what we had before, and the silver matches the fixtures:




Look ma, no wicker:




I think my favorite part, though, is the new pictures on the walls. I was finally able to use a couple of nice pics we took on vacations. First, sunrise in Ocean City, Maryland in August of 2009:




And this one is sunset on Kelleys Island in Lake Erie, October 2007:



Happy times. My project for tonight is to sew up a couple tears in the cloth cover on the elastic waist of my maternity jeans, since I will probably need them soon. I LOVE maternity jeans. Still look like jeans but they're SO comfy. I plan to relish wearing maternity clothes this time since we're planning on this being the last biological Titus baby, and my maternity clothes are so much cuter than any of my regular clothes. Totally not fair. Whatevs.

Delicious Apple Muffins

I made these muffins when Damon's parents were here last week. The original recipe is from allrecipes.com, but it called for vegetable oil - I changed that to applesauce because of my father-in-law's soy allergy. You can use either one. I actually got the recipe for the crumb topping from a comment someone left on the website. I think the topping makes these muffins about a million times better! :) This makes enough topping for probably 2-3 batches of muffins, so you can cut it down if you're not making that many.

Apple Muffins:

2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. apple juice
1/3 c. applesauce
1 egg
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 c. apples - peeled, cored and finely diced

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 12 muffin cups or line with baking cups.

In medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine apple juice, applesauce and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy). Stir in chopped apples.

Fill cups 2/3 full and top with generous amount of crumb topping. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool one minute before removing from pan.


Crumb topping:

1 c. instant oats
1 c. flour
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. melted butter

Mix together until crumbly and sprinkle it on, baby.

Project Progress

Made a little progress the last couple days on my list of projects. Damon's parents are coming to visit today through Monday, to go to my graduation (and see the granddaughter, of course :)). They decided to come in spite of Damon's grandma falling and breaking her hip last night (Damon's dad has a lot of siblings that can be there to help her out). The poor lady has a lot of health issues already - we appreciate prayers for her and the family.

Anyway, I find that having family visit is great motivation for cleaning projects (I mean, who wants the people they love to visit and discover the apartment the way it usually looks, am I right?). So I got to work last night scrubbing my kitchen sink. It started out with some hard water scuzz that had been building up for awhile and now it's shiny and pretty again. I got a little carried away and scrubbed out under the stove burners and under Eva's high chair too. I think I overdid it a little; I'm kinda wiped out today, plus I still have the all-day "morning" sickness. Of course, Eva decided to wake up way too early today too. Today of all days, when I was planning to meet the other sweet girls from my senior seminar class for breakfast. Eva was quite the cranky-pants. Oh well.

I also started the project of looking for soy free recipes since Damon's dad is soy intolerant, but I couldn't really find anything good. Most of the recipes I found that claimed to be soy free called for vegetable oil or other stuff with soy. Hello, vegetable oil is soybean oil. Nice try, recipes. So while they're visiting, I'm planning on modifying a few recipes I already had to make them soy free, like the crock pot pineapple chicken and chicken corn chowder I posted awhile ago. I'm also planning on making apple muffins and oatmeal cake without vegetable oil. Yum.

It's a start! I should probably get back to cleaning before Damon's parents get here this afternoon. The rest of the week is going to be crazy busy with family, work and graduation!