Recipe: "Winter Is Coming" Pear Smoothie

Winter Is Coming...

Literally. It's almost December. How does time pass so quickly?

Time however, did not pass quickly this morning, and so I found myself wandering about after a light workout wondering what I could pass off as a healthy interlude between breakfast and lunch. I didn't have milk or soy milk for a smoothie, and water with those sounds pretty gross. However, I did have coconut milk in the pantry and then had a genius idea to use up some of the fruit I had left from last weekend's market run.

Turns out, it was a shame to waste one of the most delicious pears I've ever had in a smoothie, but it was still delightful in this creamy and spicy snack. 

Pear Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 ripe pear, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 1 ripe banana, chunked
• 5-6 tbsp coconut milk (or however much to make it your preferred consistency)
• small dash of nutmeg and cloves
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• handful of ice cubes

Instructions

No more simple than this: put it all into a blender, pour into a glass, top with another little dash of nutmeg and cloves, and drink up! A perfect sweet and spicy blend to welcome in the winter! 

Recipe: Roasted Pork Loin with Wild Mushroom Sauce

Hello, friends!  

Hello...?

While I'm not sure there's anyone actually reading this blog, I have fallen woefully behind on Paleo, and also on documenting my recent recipes, so I thought I'd start up again. The inspiration? A flipping FANTASTIC dinner last night amidst the throes of much life stress. A running theme? Yep.

First, let me catch you up on what's happened since April. I moved to the middle of nowhere, where there are only rednecks and chain restaurants. Somehow I have survived. The new job has been fantastic, but has taken a lot of adjusting. I tried CrossFit - and liked it - but somehow haven't maintained the willpower to keep doing it (also..holy moly it's expensive). My car has had to have repairs, my student loans are going back into repayment, and Halloween just killed my paleo efforts. So...there's that.

Thankfully, boyfriend still appreciates my cooking, and so that's where I go to escape from all of the above. 

That brings me to my post topic: 

Roasted Pork Loin with Wild Mushroom Sauce

(adapted from Avec Eric)

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb pork loin, tied
• 4 tbsp butter (I use grass-fed from Kerrygold)
• 1 head of garlic, split into cloves and peeled; 1 clove finely chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 sage leaves, torn into small pieces
• splash-ish of dry white wine
• 3/4 cup of organic chicken stock, 1/4 cup heated separately
• 1 packet of dried Porcini Mushrooms
• 2 large heads (?) of fresh Oyster Mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 2 sprigs thyme

 Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 350F. While pre-heating, melt half your butter in a large pan on medium-high heat (I couldn't live without my Le Creuset), salt and pepper the pork loin, and sear it on all sides. Toss all the peeled garlic cloves (except the chopped one) into the pan, and put it in the oven. If you don't have a pan that can go into the oven, keep it on the stove-top, lower the heat, and cover it. Cook this for ~30/35 minutes or so or until the internal temperature reaches 150. 
2. In the meantime, heat up 1/4 cup of chicken stock, and soak your dried mushrooms for 20 minutes or so. Then melt the other half of your butter in a separate pan, toss in your onion, chopped garlic and thyme for a few minutes. Drain your mushrooms (reserve the liquid!) and chop them roughly. Add these to your pan, along with the sliced fresh mushrooms, and cook down for ~5 minutes. Set aside. 
3. Remove the pork loin from the pan in the oven, set it on a cutting board and cover. It'll continue to cook. Deglaze the pan with the liquid reserved from your mushrooms (just don't dump in any sediment) and a splash of white wine (I just dumped some out of the glass I was drinking from...). Add your bay leaves and sage. Cook this down, and keep adding more chicken stock as necessary to create enough liquid, for ~10 minutes or so. Turn off the heat, and add the mushrooms. 
4. Cut your pork in thin rounds, arrange on your plate, and then spoon the mushroom sauce over the top. Et voila!

Note: I made this a full meal with baked smashed potatoes (put into the oven just before the pork loin came out. I turned the heat up the last few minutes the pork was in there to about 415F) and cooked asparagus (cooked in the second pan as soon as I dumped the mushrooms into the sauce). Will link to those recipes when they're up!

Happy Cooking!

CJ