Roast Pork Loin

Today is Superbowl Sunday and I just could not make myself care about it at all.  Not even a tiny bit.  I think it at least partly had to do with working all day Saturday, but I decided to spend today being a hermit and make something tasty for dinner.  This is a recipe I got out of the giant cookbook How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (I also got the recipe for the pork chops and apples from one of his books).  You'll need a 2-3 lb boneless pork loin roast (or a 3-4 lb one with the bone in it); 1 tsp dried rosemary (or 2 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary); 1 Tbsp sugar; 1 tsp minced garlic; salt and pepper; 1 1/2 C chicken stock (or dry white wine); and 1 Tbsp butter.

All this stuff

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Mix together your rosemary, sugar, garlic, salt, and pepper.  Rub it all over the pork and stick in a roasting pan.  The cookbook says to use a rack in the pan if you're using a boneless roast, but I don't have one and it came out just fine anyway.

All ready for roasting!

Put it in the oven for 15 minutes.  When the time is up, add to your pan 1/2 C of the stock or wine and turn the oven down to 325 degrees.  Every 15 minutes add another 1/4 C stock or wine and baste the roast with the juices that collect in the bottom of the pan.  Your total cooking time will probably be between 1 hour and 15 minutes and 1 1/2 hours; just use a meat thermometer to make sure the pork is cooked all the way through.

And that's really it for the pork!  You've still got all those nice juices in the pan, though, so go ahead and put your roaster on the stove and turn the heat on to medium-high.  The cookbook says to cook this until it reduces to about 3/4 C and the add the butter, but I also added in a bit of flour mixed with water to thicken it up a bit for a nice gravy.  I also boiled a potato and sauteed some mushrooms and onion to go on it and roasted a bit of asparagus (for really good roasted asparagus, just coat your asparagus spears in olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes).

Dinner!

And I have to tell you, this was really really good.  Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't toot my own horn, but I was actually impressed with how well it turned out.  That Bittman fellow really seems to know what he's talking about!  This'll be something I make for my folks the next time they come visit/I go visit them.