Spicy Orange Honey Glazed Pork Loin (No Salt Added)

We are more and more excited about our loso adventure with every meal. We have two tasty loso recipes under our belt, and are feeling like this won't be too hard (or tedious) after all! 

We had bought a large pork loin from Costco (great place for nothing-added meats). I couldn't do our normal plum sauce - I wasn't ready to tackle that loso battle, plus we had no plums - so I looked for a recipe I had made years ago while we were staying with my in-laws. 

I don't remember it being anything too exotic or special - just some pork chops cooked in orange juice and brown sugar - but it was tasty and low sodium. I found two similar ones - one with a tasty looking rub and the other with an exciting glaze. Cam looked them over and enthusiastically said, "Let's do a combination of both!"

Apparently we are feeling a bit more adventurous.

I frankensteined the recipes into a sweet/spicy/tangy and tender pork loin roast and Cam tried his hand at no-salt-added mashed potatoes. Both were a smashing success. Adults and kids all ate (and liked!) both. 

Here is the recipe for your cooking pleasure (and so I can remember it!)

Spicy Orange Honey Glazed Pork Loin

Ingredients

• 1 boneless pork loin roast (~4lbs)

Rub:

• 1t Mrs.Dash
• 1t powdered garlic
• 1/2t black pepper
• 1/4t white pepper
• 1/4t ground ginger

Glaze:

• 1 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2t molasses
• 1T ground cumin
• 1T chili powder
• 1T ground coriander
• 1 1/2t ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup cold water
• 1T cornstarch

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a rack on a shallow roasting pan lined with foil.


2. Trim excess fat off roast. Combined rub ingredients and rub all over pork. Set roast, fat side up, on rack and roast in preheated oven for 60 minutes.


3. While the roast cooks, whisk together first nine glaze ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes. In a small bowl or cup, mix cold water and cornstarch until smooth. Whisk into glaze mixture and bring glaze back to boil. Cook glaze, whisking, until desired thickness. Remove from heat and set aside.


4. Brush roast with glaze, and bake fifteen minutes longer. Brush with glaze again, and bake for fifteen minutes or until a thermometer reads 145 degrees.


5. Remove roast from oven and let rest ten minutes before slicing. Serve with glaze if desired.

Adapted from Taste of Home Orange-Glazed Pork Loin and Honey-Orange Glazed Pork Loin.

Breakfast Cake Success

My dad always made a breakfast cake twice a year for breakfast before General Conference.
General Conference is a special deal in my parent's home while I was growing up; and to have something extra special to look forward to, Saturday morning we would awaken to the aroma of sweet cinnamon and know the moist cake with crumbly cinnamon topping was awaiting to be devoured downstairs.

After it properly cooled of course.

My dad always made us wait at least a half hour after he pulled it from the oven because, he insisted, cutting into it while still too hot, would spell disaster.
With enough begging we might convince him to make if over long weekends or for another speical occasion; but, generally breakfast cake was a bi-annual treat.

So, of course, when we started moving out we all insisted it be added to a family recipe book we could take with us.

I remember my first General Conference away from home and the anticipation of having an entire breakfast cake just for my sister and me as I prepared the treat. I remember the nostalgic aroma as it baked. I remember the slight let down as I pulled a cake, with no crumbly topping to speak of, out of the oven.

The super fluffy, crumbly-topped cake was instead a slightly dense, brown sugar and cinnamon marbled cake.

I couldn't figure out what went wrong. Did I prepare the topping wrong? (How do you get softened butter to turn into a crumbly topping anyway; even if mixed in a food processor... which I didn't have.) Was it the pan? (Our family had a beaten aluminum-type pan that we kept solely for its breakfast cake making abilities.) Was it the climate or altitude? (I had moved from soggy, sea-level Seattle to arid Rocky Mountain Utah.)Was it comeuppance for never (that I recall) offering to help prepare the treat while my father slaved over the KitchenAid mixer? (We have been reading a lot of The Little Red Hen around here, it is Zoe's confidence.)

During subsequent tries, I fixed what factors I could but it was always a slightly heavy, dense, marbled-more-than-topped breakfast cake. That didn't stop me. I resigned myself to its new identity and continued the General Conference weekend tradition within my own growing family.

Until this month when we moved to Missouri.

Yesterday, for General Conference, I again made the breakfast cake. Out of the oven came what I remembered from my childhood all those years ago: a light and fluffy cake topped with a sweet cinnamon crumbly topping. I probably ate half the pan myself.

Cameron commented that he likes the way it turns out in Utah better.

Homeschool vs School

I am not going to homeschool Dallas. I had been contemplating it but Cam and I both feel he needs the social - both interactions with other kids and with other adults - for a season. We may re-visit this decision later. The deciding factor (for me) was Dallas saying he wants to do school in a school, not at home with me.

Oh well, that doesn't stop me from homeschooling him all I can now.

Dallas and Chey are working on Handwritting Without Tears preschool curriculum. So far they are not doing any handwritting but they are getting use to coloring/drawing a lot more than they use to; gotta build up that finger dexterity and strength. We are liking it so far (they really love the wood pieces).

We also frequent the library where I get random science-y kids books that catch me eye. Sometimes I let Dallas choose from a few topics. I really should try getting a "unit" going because right now the subjects are super sporadic: volcanoes (complete with discussion of plate movement, the concept of pressure along with a baking soda and vinegar experiment, and that rock melts into lava), germs (how you get them and what your body does to fight them), how your body heals, skeletal system, animal/vegetable/mineral classification, mutually beneficial animal relationships, and tornadoes... Yes, I see a few "units" I could have made out of some of those. A little fore-sight could do wonders. I don't know how much information on any one topic Dallas could discuss now, but he is enjoying learning. Chelane picks up a topic or two once in a while.

We are also doing alphabet crafts. I found a book at the library that gave me the idea, I tweaked it a bit, and now the kiddles often ask to do the ABC's when I talk about doing "writing or crafts" (that is what we call school work around these parts).

Add in all the ideas I get from the free get-ready-for-kindergarten stuff I have gotten at registration and boy-oh-boy Dallas has some fun!

Chey feeding Zoe

Chey and Dallas were both in less-than-favorable-graces of Mom and Dad tonight (care of not listening at the park coupled with blatant disobedience) but it is still shower night and boy did those kids need to be washed. Chey had been reduced to sitting in her little chair right next to me (otherwise her personal choices left much to be desired) while I finished feeding Zoe. Cam was down the hall getting Dallas going on his shower.

After Zoe shoved a fist in her mouth, I decided she must not want to finish her jar after all and left to use the bathroom telling Chey she "needed to be in that chair when I got back or she would be in trouble." When finished, I walked back out to the kitchen just in time to see this:

Sometimes kids make up for hours of horrible behavior with only minutes to spare...

Early Riser

We are still struggling to set a schedule for Zoe. Honestly, I am not trying very hard at all. My other two children seemed to set their own schedule and it worked well for all of us. They slept through the night and got up when I did. I am sure these memories are EXACTLY how Dallas and Chelane behaved as babies and is in no way affected by the time that has elapsed.

Zoe is a bit more sporadic. Her time of falling asleep is a bit more variable and she sometimes wakes up in the night. She almost always wakes up between five and seven in the morning, sometimes she falls back to sleep.

This Friday was one of those times she didn't.

She was getting so squirrely in the bed with me that I, not being ready to greet the day just yet, put her on the floor by the bed and rolled over to go back to sleep. Zoe entertained herself by exploring the two-by-three square of carpet by the bed, and bit of carpet under the bed.

Taken 6:53 AM Friday, March 23, 2012