Sunday, November 13, 2011

Another Weekend has Come and Gone...

Howdy:

Well this blog was supposed to be written Sunday night and all I accomplished was the title. Sadly Gavin became sick again so I quickly became distracted and abandoned my blogging efforts. I wish I had come back to the blog as I had all kinds of cool things floating in my head and most of them have escaped now.

Jon and I used the crockpot this weekend so our lunch would be ready for us after church. We made a cranberry pork loin and it was fabulous. I was slightly nervous about making it as Jon does not like sweet meat dishes. Thanks to some of the ingredients it toned down the sweetness and the tartness of the cranberries helped as well. Here is the approximate recipe we used of you are a considering an easy crockpot day:

Cranberry Pork Loin

One medium sized pork loin (it shrinks down considerably)
One can of jellied or whole cranberry sauce
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 tsp of ground cloves (used a little more than that)
1 tsp of ground mustard
1/4 cup of cranberry juice (used a little more)

You need to combine all of the wet and dry ingredients and pour it over the pork loin. Be sure to keep the layer of fat on the pork loin since it enhances the flavor. It's important to put the fat side up in the crock pot. The liquid doesn't cover the loin completely. It is supposed to cook for 6-8 hours on low. Our's cooked a lot longer but didn't dry out since we had plenty of liquid for it to sit in.

The original author for the recipe recommends taking out 2 cups of the leftover liquid and adding cornstarch and water to the concoction. It makes a gravy to use on potatoes. Cranberry gravy doesn't seem to appealing to me since the left over liquid is sweet in nature.

I was very pleased with my cleaning efforts on Saturday morning. Gavin and I took a lot of items to Good Will. I also took my first load of items to Jon's for a garage sale next year. I'm thankful he doesn't mind me stacking it up in his basement. It was a relief to get that much cleaning done but also frustrating because my room is still nowhere near as neat as it should be. I have a ton of work to do on my closet still. I'm looking foward to working on it Friday night and Saturday morning again. It's bizarre that I want to clean on my days off but so be it.

I've made good headway with Christmas shopping. I'm severely reducing the amount I spend on gifts this year thanks to finances. I still have a few things to buy for family members and I still need to buy stamps/cards but that will be quite feasible come December. I wonder if Santa is opposed to giving me $20 bills for the holiday season.

Well since my other topics aren't coming to mind...I'm going to end this entry prematurely so I don't ramble too much. Adios!

2 comments:

LeAnn said...

I was wondering when the blog was going to appear. Sure, blame Gavin. Your recipe sounds good. The joys of a crockpot. There's nothing wrong with cleaning. If anything, it's healthy. We don't need you becoming a hoarder like Dad. Scaling back or downsizing with Christmas gifts isn't a bad idea. A) Most people don't need or want a whole lot. B) There's no need to spend so much. I'm getting slightly worried as I haven't done well getting Christmas gifts for people. I'm short on ideas too. We shall see.

Short blog = short comment. :-)

Healthy Lady in Progress said...

Poor Gavin...I think this is going to be a bad cold and flu season. I like cleaning too. I did a lot last weekend and it felt really good. I'm downsizing this year for Christmas as well. I just don't have the finances to go all out. I did, however already purchase my Christmas cards. I like the buy them right after Christmas when they're marked down 50-75%. That pork loin recipe sounds great. I might make it for Thanksgiving dinner!