Last Nights Pork Roast Dinner

     Last night I made a home run of a dinner (if I do say so myself). It was a total hit in this house and as the hubby put it was "Amazing." and "SOoooo tender".
So, I thought it worthy enough to make the blog. I, of course, took some pics while making it just in case it turned out to be worthy. So here, my fellow readers is what I made:

I shall call this Yumm-a-licious

     So, as you can see (or maybe you can't I couldn't find our camera so had to use my horrible cell phone to take the pics, sowwy!)  I made a pork roast with rice and gravy, homemade biscuits, fresh corn off the cob and fresh tomato lightly salt n peppered.
      I have made similar versions of this in the past and this time it came out the best. I normally make my roasts in the oven but tonight the oven was taken up by my first attempt at homemade biscuits so I busted out my trusty dutch oven. Now, I don't normally like to use my dutch oven that often actually because for some reason everything I usually make in there sticks horribly and then pees me off so I hide it wayyy back in the cabinet until I HAVE to use it. BUT to my utter amazement nothing stuck... too bad...this time. So, yay! These are the steps:

     I took my roast which was really small actually since it is just hubby and I and rinsed it off in the sink to get all that gooey nasty fluid that they package 'em in. Then, patted it dry and rubbed some kosher salt, black pepper and dried (or fresh) thyme all over the outside. Lightly on the salt so you wont have an overly salty gravy at the end (learned from experience). Then, get your dutch oven on the stove to about medium heat and make sure it is nice and hot. Put about a tablespoon of oil in the bottom of the pan and gently place the roast in the pan. DON'T TOUCH IT! I know, I know, you will want to make sure it's not burning, or sticking, or going to magically dissolve or whatever we think might happen. Let it sear for about 3 minutes on this one side. Then, turn it over on the other side to sear. (Be VERY careful the oil will be very hot and may want to spit at you.) Should look something like this:

Crappy pic, I know but I assure you it is golden brown

 Let sear again for about 3 minutes on this side, then take it out and let it rest on a plate while you assemble the veg. I used one stalk of celery (cut in large chunks), one large carrot (peeled and cut in large chunks) and two cloves of garlic (smashed). Drain the remaining oil from the pan and add your veggies like so:

Mmmm

     Now, just stir them around a bit to get coated in whatever oil is left to saute a bit until you can smell the veggies. Now, I took about 1/2 cup of pinot grigio or any other dry white wine you have and put it in the pot and scrapped all the bits off the bottom of the pan (be extremely careful if you have a gas stove, I recommend doing this with the flame off or move the dutch oven off the stove) Add 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, 2 bay leafs and then place the pork in the pan. Normally, I would add onion to this as well in large chunks but I didn't have any so boo hoo. I stuck my trusty thermometer in that bad boy and let the liquid in the pan come up to a light boil. When it reached boil I put the lid on and reduced the heat to medium low, set my timer 170 degrees and then finished the rest of my fixins'. If you would like to know how I made either the rice or fresh corn off the cob leave it in the comments below please and thank you. It looked like this before I put the lid on:

This type of thermometer is a life-saver, no need to keep peeking every 10 min or so!

     When my timer went off I took the meat out and set it aside. I strained out all the veggies cause I don't really like to actually eat those i think it tastes icky ( if you DO like that kinda thing I suggest cutting the veggies a little smaller and they will be nice and tender by this point). Then, I tasted the broth, I thought it was amaze balls. No need to add extra salt but I did put a few extra cracks of fresh black pepper in it. If it was bland I would first let the broth reduce some by simmering it with the lid off for a few minutes then checking again. But, it was already tasty so I made a cornstarch slurry to thicken the broth to a nice gravy and let it simmer away while I sliced the meat like so:

     Then, I just platted it up and once again our end product:

     So, like I said if you would like to know how I made the corn or rice please leave it in the comments and I will make an additional post. I hope some of you found this to look pretty darn tasty and want to try it yourself, if you do please let me know how it went! Thanks for reading!

--Dana