Tonight’s dinner again came from The Silver Spoon. I made “Roasted Pork with Orange,” “Carrots with Rosemary,” and “Penne with Lettuce.” I either got my timing right tonight or chose dishes that were less time consuming than last time without noticing. I think its that I got my timing right today.

[A nice, attractive plate. (I actually only ate one slice of the pork. I started with my veggies, and by the time I was done with them I didn’t have much room left for the meat!)]

The pork was roasted in 1 1/2 cups of orange juice for an hour and a half, with frequent basting. The juice came halfway up the meat at the start, and I honestly found it a bit odd. I had never roasted meat with that much liquid before. Usually if there is that much liquid going in, I’m making soup, not a roast. It really worked on this dish though, and it made the meat turn out incredibly tender. I was afraid that it might get too sweet because of the orange juice, but it added a great flavor and aroma without making the dish very sweet at all.

[Isn’t it pretty?]

The carrots were a new cooking experience for me as well, as I had never tried a carrot dish quite like this one before. The carrots were “cut into thin sticks,” then simmered in a covered pan with vegetable stock for a quarter of an hour. Toward the end of the cooking, the pan is uncovered, the liquid reduced, and olive oil and chopped fresh rosemary added. The cutting was interesting since I tried out mandolin slicer and found that it is particularly bad at cutting long sticks of carrot. One of my worst cuts in the kitchen was on a mandolin slicer, so I am leery of them anyway. But another of my really bad cuts was cutting carrots and the carrot rolled, sending my very sharp knife into one of my fingers. So either way, this was a nervous dish to prep for me. After the mandolin got frustrating (it only took two carrots) I gave up and reverted to my knife skills and just sliced the rest of the carrots by hand. And all my fingers survived! Not even a close call this time (phew!).

Raven says this dish would be better with less rosemary than I used, since he found it overpowering. I used more than the recipe calls for though, so he’s probably right. I’d cut what I thought was what I needed from one of our rosemary plants, but it turned out to be more than I was expecting. I didn’t want to waste what I’d cut though, so I just put it all in. I still found the carrots to be tasty, although there may have been a bit more Christmas Tree flavor to the dish than the smell of the tree in our living room could be blamed for.

[While this may resemble glazed or candied carrots, it is a savory dish (as much as the natural carrot sweetness will allow)]

The last side dish was “Penne with Lettuce,” and this was the strangest dish to me that I have done yet from this book. Its a bed of cooked penne pasta, then a head of Romaine, then Swiss cheese. Top it all off with a little butter, salt, and pepper.

[Before baking. It was a bit of a feat getting it all to heap into the casserole dish without threatening to go over the sides when it melted.]

Bake the whole thing, and when it comes out, the cheese is melted, the lettuce softened but not entirely wilted, and the pasta, well, is still just pasta. It was good, but the pasta and the lettuce didn’t really mesh. Maybe if the pasta and the lettuce were tossed together before it baked, some of the cheese was put between the lettuce and the pasta, or if the pasta was in some sort of cheese sauce to bring its flavors in line with the rest it might help the two parts come together.

[After baking. It all settled nicely, and was really not much higher than the sides of the casserole dish when it came out.]

Raven is not a fan of Swiss cheese, so he thought it would be better with a different melty cheese on top. This is a recipe worth playing with, but it does seem to need played with, being a bit disjointed as it is now (at least when I made it).

All in all though, this was another successful (and yummy!) dinner.