Rosemary and Garlic Pork Loin

Another one of Nicks recipes.  Absolutely delicious (and I don't even like rosemary usually!).

Ingredients:
4 Large garlic cloves, chopped into tiny pieces
4 tsps chopped fresh rosemary or 2 tsps dried rosemary (we used fresh)
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Pork loin (2 1/2 pounds), boneless
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
*Trim most of the fat off of your pork loin.

*Line a 13x9 glass baking dish with tin foil, then spray it down with baking spray.

*Pre-heat oven to 400*F

*In a small bowl, mix the chopped garlic, chopped rosemary, salt and pepper.  Mix well.

*Put fat side down in the baking dish (if you still have some fatty portion).

*Rub the pork loin down with oil, the rub the spice mixture over it.

*Bake for 30 minutes.

*After 30 minutes, flip the roast over so the part that was on the bottom is now on the top.

*Bake an additional 25-30 minutes  (until inside temperature is 155*F).

*Remove from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

White Trash Dip

This...Stuff...Is...Awesome!!!  It is so incredibly easy to make too!!!

Ingredients:
1 lb hot/spicy ground Italian sausage
1 Can rotel in juice (do not drain the juices)
1 Pkg cream cheese

Directions:
*In a pan on the stove, cook the sausage until cooked.  Drain fat/liquid.

*Empty the rotel and juice and the cream cheese into the meat.  Mix well.

*Heat the mixture through.  Serve with chips.  SO EASY!!!

(NOTE: We put ours into a small crockpot to keep it warm.  No need to cover it, and it doesn't get ridiculously hot like you would expect.  You want it served warm.)

Parmesan Pork Chops

I bought some pork chops a few weeks ago and put them in the deep freeze because I didn't really know what to do with them.  I didn't want to simply put them in a baking dish, pour a soup over them, and bake them (its good that way...but I wanted something more creative).  While browsing the web today for recipes I stumbled across this one by Giada de Laurentis on the foodnetwork.com website.  It was So Good!  Definitely a recipe I wanted to post for you guys!

Ingredients:
4 Pork chops, boneless, fat removed/cut off
3/4 Cup Parmesan cheese (grated if you have it)
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup bread crumbs
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
salt
pepper

Directions:
*Put your vegetable oil into a large skillet and turn it on to medium-low.

*Salt and pepper both sides of each pork chop.

*Put the 2 eggs onto a plate and mix them up.  On a second plate, put your Parmesan cheese.  On a third plate put your breadcrumbs.

*Take your first pork chop and dip both sides and edges into the Parmesan cheese.  Pat the cheese onto the meat to secure it on.

*Now put the cheesed up pork chop into the egg, flipping to coat both sides.   Now put it into the breadcrumbs.  I picked some breadcrumbs up and pressed it onto both sides to make sure they were fully coated.

*Put this coated pork chop onto a plate.

*Do the dipping steps with the other 3 pork chops, putting them all onto the plate once you have finished each one.

*Take a pair of tongs and be SUPER careful for flying oil (it hurts).  Put all the pork chops into the skillet.  Leave them cook about 6-8 minutes.  They will get dark, if not black, and that's okay.  Mine were and they tasted fine (not burned), and Giada's on the website were too!

*Once they have cooked on the first side the 6-8 minutes, flip them over and cook the other side for the same amount of time.  You can peek to make sure they aren't overly black, but they will be dark!  You want them that way!

*You want the inside temperature to be 160*.  Mine were getting a little too dark so I pulled them out and put them back onto a plate and cooked them for 1 minute in the microwave.  They were still super crispy and finally were cooked through.  A  tiny bit of pink is now okay on pork (just finished reading a thing from FDA haha).

*So easy, and they were really good!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

 

Ingredients:

3-4 pound pork shoulder or butt

1 20 oz can of root beer

4 Cups barbecue sauce

Rolls or buns for the sandwiches

Directions:

*Spray a crock pot with cooking spray.

*Put your root beer and barbecue sauce into the crock pot and mix well.  Add pork

*Cook on low for 8 hours, or high for 4-5.

*Pull pork out of crock pot and place onto a plate.  Take two forks and shred up the meat.

*Pour some of the sauce that is in the crock pot over the shredded/pulled pork.

*Put pulled pork onto sandwich buns.  Nick says to add coleslaw (this is how we eat it here in Texas...Yup, we put our coleslaw onto our sandwiches.  Delicious!  See coleslaw recipe for instructions...)