Apparently some people (ahem & ahem) think I’m a punk for giving up the cooking blog. But I’ve got too much going on. So that’s that. Most people don’t know this but before I got “called into ministry” (whatever that means anymore) at the ripe young age of 18, I was preparing to go to culinary school and to open my own restaurant. That was the dream at least.
Anyway . . . I’ve been throwing around some mean dishes lately. Over the weekend I made the best fish tacos I’ve ever had. And I’m a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to fish tacos. Today I made my first apple cider batch of the season from the secret recipe that my first blog friend Sharon gave to me about 5 years ago.
Here’s the recipe:
1 Gallon of Organic Apple Juice (365 from Whole Foods sells for $5.99)
1 Lemon (sliced)
2 Red Apples (sliced; in our case, local delicious apples from Rome, GA)
10 Cinnamon Sticks
Take all of the ingredients and cook them in a pot on medium for 15 minutes. Then switch it to low and let it simmer for an hour and a half. Be sure to keep it stirred every 10 minutes or so. It will make your whole house smell like an apple orchard. Pour it back into the original apple juice container. And chill in the refrigerator. When preparing your cider, take a coffee mug and melt a piece of caramel candy (or caramel syrup) in the bottom of the cup. Pour in the cider and top with crushed cinnamon. Warm in the microwave for 30 seconds. And be prepared to be blown away.
I got into a bit of a cooking mood after this mid-afternoon cooking session and decided to go all out for dinner. If you have an aversion to pork, you may want to exit stage right at this point. But I took a 1 lb. free range pork loin and marinated it in an herb & garlic marinade for 3 hours. I then gave it a butterfly cut down the middle and stuffed it with salt, pepper, rosemary, basil, thyme, and marinade. I tied it back together with cooking string. I then laid it on a piece of foil on the grill and slow-cooked it at 200 degrees for 2 and a half hours. After about 30 minutes I took 8 slices of bacon and draped it over the entire loin to help keep it moist. The whole meal with sides and everything was less than $10! And I kid you not . . . although I have a habit of exaggerating . . . it was the best thing I’ve put into my mouth in 6 months. Anna and I made the decision that we will now be eating this at least once a week for a while.
And to think I still pulled an 8 hour day of design work and wrapped a couple of projects. Multi-tasking baby. Multi-tasking.
Listening: Ingrid Michaelson
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9 Comments
next time you cook that, PLEASE invite me.
i guess that cider recipe is no longer a secret.
And you think we’re asinine.
How about some formatting on the second recipe? What’s the ingredients? What kind of herb and garlic marinade? Did you buy the marinade? If not, how many cloves of garlic and what herbs? Srsly.
Also, where’s the human element? Most cooking blog posts had pics of someone enjoying or making the food. Srsly.
You know how I am about meat…so while I bet it was awesome for meat eaters…I just threw up in my mouth a little from those pictures. Don’t feel bad, I throw up in my mouth when anthony bordain cooks meat.
I always thought syke was spelled with a ‘y’, i guess I have never really seen it on paper.
Anywho that is a lot of meat. . . maybe I’ll let you cook for me sometime.
We could boil water and heat a pool?
“We could boil water and heat a pool?”
best nite of my life. srsly.
eric. it’s a store bought marinade.
the herbs i stuffed it with were just whatever i felt like. there weren’t certain measurements. it’s the way us professional cooks do it. it’s called “to taste”.
at what point did the 3 of us devolve the comments into trying to one up each other on the asinine meter?
did someone say cloves. . . . ?
consider the cider stolen. also, this week i’m baking six to nine apple pies for friends. fall break gives me time to do that. i’ll take pictures, probably.
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