Garlic-and-Soy-Marinated Pork Roast with Shitake Mushroom Gravy (Page 471)

RECIPE #996

• Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 -- 8pm
• Location: Bloomington, IN
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: A
  

This recipe came off the list generated by the random number generator. I started by marinating a pork loin roast for 8 hours in a mixture of soy sauce, sherry, brown sugar, garlic, and pepper. Then I set the pork on top of some chopped onions in a roasting pan. I put a little water over the onions and then put the roast in the oven. I roasted until the meat was 145 degrees, then I let the pork stand for 25 minutes before carving. While it was standing I cooked thinly sliced shitake mushroom caps in olive oil with salt and pepper. Then I deglazed the pan the pork had cooked in with white wine, then reduced the wine. I added chicken stock then strained the sauce. I slowly added a beurre manie (READ: flour and butter smushed together), then the mushrooms, and simmered briefly. I seasoned the sauce and served it over the pork. How was it? Well my special gentleman ate in silence for a few minutes and then said, "I think this is the best pork loin I have ever had." It was good. Quite good. The meat came out flavorful, and very juicy. It was perfectly cooked. It was the sauce that made the dish stand out though. Although the sauce was quick and simple to make, it had great depth of flavor and was extremely delicious on the pork. The flavors in the sauce complemented wonderfully the flavors in the meat from the marinade. This sauce would have been very nice on chicken too, or just sopped up with a good piece of bread. It was a delicious pork dish. My only regret is that I didn't make it on a day when we had people over for dinner to share it with!

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Between me and my special gentleman at least one of us has moved during the summer every year for the past 12 years. In other words, we have both done a lot of moving. And now we are moving again... My lease on my current apartment ends in August, and since I am staying in Bloomington next year, I had planned to stay in my apartment. But last October (yes, ten months before my lease ends) the leasing company demanded to know if I was going to renew. I told them almost certainly I was. The only ambiguity was that I was considering applying for a job in Michigan (which I did). I figured even if I managed to get the job they would probably let me defer to finish my postdoc (which they did), but you never know for sure. So I didn't want to sign a lease until the winter, when I would know more. Note: even if I couldn't have made a decision until, say, February, that still would have been six months before my lease ended! But, no, the leasing company couldn't wait, so they leased my apartment out from underneath me. And, as I expected, I was able to defer my new job and I am staying in Bloomington next year. But now I have to move. Grrrr.... I love the apartment I live in now, so it's extra infuriating. I like my new place too, and it's very close (only a block or two away), but it's frustrating having to pack up everything and move!

My special gentleman is moving to Michigan in the fall and we have an offer out on a house, so I thought when I moved apartments we could move most of our stuff to the house in Michigan and I could just take a few things with me. But we are still waiting to see if we will get the house, which means that now everything needs to go to my new apartment. But the new apartment is much smaller (since I thought we would also have a house and hence most of the furniture would go there...). So I don't know where all of our stuff is going to go! We are currently renting two storage units -- one in Bloomington and one in East Lansing -- but thy are both full! The move isn't happening until the middle of July, but I am about to leave town for 2 weeks, so that means the time to pack is now. I was standing in the shower yesterday, dreading the moving, and I had the thought that someday soon my special gentleman and I will live together, in a house. We won't be renting any apartments or any storage units. And we won't have to move for years and years. That will be so amazing! That thought gave me some peace. The end of the moving is near!