Bridal Shower Aftermath

Yesterday, three other women and I held a bridal shower in my back yard, being that it is a lovely place to be. I have hydrangeas in bloom, my African daisy from the dead plant rack is in bloom, strawberries abound and my raspberry bushes give the whole yard a lush feel.

I did make a giant quantity of food, but most of it got eaten, and the sad thing is: I didn't take any pictures. Leah and I worked for hours on these great fruit arrangements, we cut fruit into flower shapes and then put them on sticks and in a vase with some rocks, it looked so fantastic! I was a bit in doubt, but I think the fruit choice had a lot to do with it. I chose strawberries, pineapple, honeydew and blueberries.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of how to make your own fruit arrangement, but just remember that it looks good and I'm sure you can cut fruit if you try.

Here's the great thing I will tell you about, what to do with all that fruit! I have a ton of left over fruit, I don't have any melon, no melon left over. Today I'm going to take all that fruit, throw it through the food processor and then turn it into jam. Luau jam here we come. I don't know what this will look like, but I think it'll be orange.

I do have one little recipe for you, because you probably think that it's out of reach to make Chinese BBQ Pork. You know what, it's not. I made the best pork from a GIANT PORK LOIN.

When you read that think of a deep and booming voice with echo effects. I'm going to tell you how I made eight pounds of pork loin, cuz really it's the same price to buy one loin and get a ton of meat, or you can buy two tiny tenderloins for the same price. What I think you should do is put the loins in to marinade, then when they're done freeze them so you can throw them on the grill whenever you want. Or you could cook them first but I don't think that would work as well.

I did look a few recipes, and none of them knew what they were doing. I also have some thoughts in my head that would make this special and I'll add those so you know that they are optional. Really that always irritates me when I read a recipe. Of course it's optional, who's standing over my shoulder making me follow that recipe to a T? No one, that's who. I do what I want. Well I'll just mark those things so you know that I didn't do them and you can if you want, or not, it's your kitchen. I didn't do them one: because the mother of the bride is allergic to pineapple, two: it was raining.

Chinese BBQ Pork

Ingredients:

8 Lbs. pork loin
2 C. soy sauce
1/2 C. brown rice vinegar
4 C. chicken stock
(2 C. pineapple juice)
3 Tbs. minced garlic
2 Tbs. minced ginger
1 bunch chopped green onion
1/2 C. honey
3 Tbs. molasses
1/3 C. sugar
red food coloring

Method:

First you need to cut up the loin. Trim the fat off. Slice it into six inch chunks and then cut those chunks into fourths, and those fourths into eighths. Think one or two bite sized when sliced.
When your pork is sliced put it all into bags, mix all the other things together and divide the marinade between your bags. I would think you could use a dish to marinade this in but wouldn't unless it was glass, as it will stain your dish.
Put this into the fridge overnight. Not a few hours, overnight. If you don't want to cook all this at once, now is a good time to remove from marinade, individually wrap (I prefer my food saver) and freeze for all those BBQ's you have.

Fire up the grill! I didn't do this, as it was raining, but clearly this is the way to go. Or you can fire up the oven (lame) to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place your pork on a rack of cooking and cook it for 11 minutes, turn and cook 11 minutes. Check it now to see if it's done. I think 150 should be sufficient, but that's not recommended by the USDA or anything, so use your best judgment. Of course you're welcome to use my normal method of checking meat, poking! Poke it, does it feel done? It probably is. Let the meat rest when it's done for a minimum of 15 minutes. You can also cool it and serve it cold, and this is the most common way to serve it. It is good warm though, so slice and serve with ketchup, spicy mustard and sesame seeds.