Two yummy recipes--a pork loin roast and sweet potato soup!

There are two recipes in this post, the first uses Lipton Onion Soup Mix (the dry package). I have always used it to season a beef roast, but this time it is for a pork loin roast. It is also a crock pot recipe, so it is very easy.

First I remove the netting that they put around the pork loin roast. I don't know what part of it they think will escape, but it works fine to remove it.

Season the roast with salt and pepper. I sliced 3 cloves of garlic very thin and inserted them into slits in the pork roast all around.
Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a hot cast iron skillet.
Sear the roast all around.
Once each side has been browned, remove the roast. Turn down the heat to medium.
Add the following and cook until the vegetables begin to get a little bit brown:

• one large carrot chopped
• one onion chopped
• two stalks of celery chopped

Season the vegetables while cooking in the skillet with salt and pepper.

When the vegetables have a little bit of color, add 1/2 cup of white wine to deglaze the pan. The wine will bubble up and you can scrape up all of the tasty bits on the bottom of the skillet. Use chicken stock if you don't want to use wine. Let the wine or stock reduce by half.

Place the pork loin roast into the crock pot.

Sprinkle the contents of the Lipton Onion Soup packet on top of the roast (only need one packet, there are two in the box).

Pour the vegetable mixture on top of the roast and add 2 cups of chicken stock.

Cover and cook on high until the meat is tender, about 4-5 hours.

Once the roast is tender, remove it to a plate and cover with foil.

Strain the liquid in the crock pot and discard the vegetables which have cooked and flavored the liquid.

Put 2 Tablespoons of butter into a clean skillet and when melted, add 2 Tablespoons of flour to make a roux. Cook the flour for 3 to 4 minutes to remove the flour taste.

Add the strained liquid from the crock pot and whisk to form gravy.

Serve the gravy with the roast-----yummy!

OK, second recipe, Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Soup!

On the way home from the mountains this weekend, we stopped at a restaurant and I wanted to try the sweet potato soup that they had on the menu. Apparently everyone else did too, because they were out of it. When I got home I searched for a sweet potato soup recipe and found lots, this one is "roasted" sweet potato soup, and it is really good. I made a few changes, listed below.

Roasted Garlic and Sweet Potato Soup

I put the sweet potatoes on a large sheet pan so that they are in one layer and seasoned them with salt and pepper and drizzled a little olive oil and maple syrup over the cubes of potatoes. Mix with clean hands before putting this into the preheated oven. I also roasted the head of garlic as mentioned in the recipe above.

Instead of roasting the onions, I cut them into a large dice, seasoned them with salt and pepper, 1 teaspoon of dry thyme, a pinch of red pepper flakes and sauteed them in 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.

After the sweet potatoes and garlic roasted I added them and the onion mixture to a large dutch oven with the chicken stock. I let all of that simmer on top of the stove covered for 1 hour. Then I processed the soup in the food processor until smooth. Add chicken stock if the soup is too thick. 

The soup has a savory flavor due to the thyme, onions and garlic even though it is made with sweet potatoes. 

Sorry, no pictures this time, I'll do better!