I Should Bottle This Shit And Sell It!

So yeah, here we are again, it's been how long since my last post? Quite a while me thinks, so this is seriously overdue. Thanks Miguel for the reminder, team Grizzlecorn works in magical ways....

Oh summer, beautiful warm hot sunny summer. I love it, it makes me feel strong and whole, being outside in the nature, sitting in clean, crisp creeks surrounded by happy children, great friends and ice cold beer. It really doesn't get much better - Life.Is.Good. Our provincial motto is "The Most Beautiful Place on Earth", totally corny but absolutely true. We are so blessed to live here, I really do thank my Dad every day for driving me so crazy as a teenager that I needed to leave Saskatchewan and get as far away from him as humanly possible....Love you Daddy! Full of teenage angst, anger, and bitchiness, I packed up my belongings and with all the drama of a 15 year old, stormed off in a huff to have a"better" life. HA! Was I in for a surprise!! I have done a lot of struggling to survive over the last 20 years, but have learned so many mountainously ( real word?) powerful lessons about strength, character, friendship, family and love that it has all been worth it, and I truly do thank you Dad for letting me go, as hard as I know it was, to make my own way. And to my Mom for all the lessons she has given me about the strength of one's soul and determination, and for letting me make my own choices and decisions and supporting the outcome of the more unfortunate ones. And now, as I sit here writing this as the mother of an almost 15 year old extremely dramatic teenage girl full of angst and defiance, I see that it is mixed with strength and confidence. I realize that if it hadn't been for the long tough journey I've been on, she would not be the amazingly powerful young person she is today and will continue to grow into. I am so excited for her future I could almost puke. Really, it give me butterflies and stuff. Now to work on the Izbot....sigh...oh my dear sweet unicorn child :)
I suppose you're thinking, given the title, what, does she think she can bottle this happiness shit for a rainy day? Nope, not that cliche...it is actually an indirect quote from my daughter, yes the 15 year old Minellynator, who COMPLIMENTED me on how good the last batch of BBQ sauce turned out. I guess we really do love each other and shit. I originally started to blog about the best barbeque sauce on the planet -mine, and got to thinking...there is a disclaimer on the top of the page, not my fault if you failed to read the part about rambling.
So now dear blog readers, I am going to give this gift to you, and since I only know of about 10 people (half of them family of some sort) who bother to read this thing, I assume the recipe is fairly safe and in good hands. Enjoy with your burger, chicken, ribs, any kind of dead creature will do...rabbit...porcupine...squirrel...hey I'm from Mission, this place is riddled with dirty hippy rednecks.

So you will need, in approximate measures....
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 small onion, about 2-3 tbs minced
***you can skip the fresh and use 1 tbs garlic powder and 1 tbs onion powder, it actually keeps better. But use fresh if you're making a small batch
- 2 cups Ketchup
- 1/2 cup cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 - 1/2 cups water
- 2 tbsp cumin
- 1 tbsp coriander
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 2 tbsp chili power
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp dried mustard
- fresh ground pepper
- about 3- 4 shakes liquid smoke
- about 5-6 Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp tamarind or soy sauce
- 2 tbsp honey or maple syrup
- 2 bay leaves

1. Saute the onion and garlic in a tbsp of oil till soft, just a minute or two.
2. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and stir it all up...duh, what else would you do?
3. Add to pot and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or so, adding water if it's too thick. Remove the bay leaves before you use it or you could choke to death on them....if you were to drink it. Anyways you can add delete whatever you like to this recipe, I'm sure I've forgotten something. Basically I just grab my spice basket and start dumping shit in and it turns out awesome...cuz I'm cool like that....and I've been doing this cooking thing for a ling time. I will re-post if I've forgotten something important.

Pork, wrapped in pork, stuffed with pork.

My Dad's nickname is Pork. I'm not shitting you, it really is, and this did not occur to me as odd until quite recently.

A couple of months ago I was out at a My New Enemy show and was being introduced to some guy and he said to me, "Oh yeah, you're the bacon girl!" Yeah, that's me all right big boy....I thought about this later on with a little laugh and a smirk, how funny to be called the bacon girl, maybe I should change my NAME to...HOLD ON A SECOND, MY DAD'S NAME IS PORK! The clouds opened up, the planets aligned and everything suddenly became clear to me - I was destined to become a bacon worshipper with parentage such as this. As strange as it sounds though, having a dad named Pork is not one of those things I ever really questioned. It just seemed like a perfectly normal thing to call someone. Like Uncle Jack, his real name was John; Uncle Bob, more common, was christened Robert; cousin Tinker, well of course his name is actually Donald. So then it just makes sense that Ronald would become Pork...hhhmmm, maybe you have to be from Saskatchewan to understand. Since my Dad is a fan of bacon, and meat in general, I'd like to dedicate this recipe to him, the one and only (as far as I know) man named Pork.

Prosciutto Wrapped Roast Pork Tenderloin with Apple, Sausage & Herb stuffing

1 pork tenderloin
4-5 slices prosciutto

Stuffing

1 Italian pork sausage - you could use ground pork, in fact I have, but then use your judgement on the herbs and salt, you may need to add a bit more
2 tbsp finely chopped onion
1 small clove garlic minced
1 apple peeled, cored and chopped - you could use any kind, I just happen to buy gala
1 slice of bread broken into chunks
1/4 cup chicken broth
Fresh Herbs, sage, thyme, rosemary, and flat leaf parsley, about 1 tsp of each when chopped fine,
S&P

Pre-heat oven to 350.

In an oven proof frying pan...

1. If using sausage remove from casing. Over medium heat, cook your pork meat with the onion and garlic, breaking it up into small chunks as you go along. You don't want to brown it. If there is a lot of grease, drain that off.

2. Add the apple and bread, stir together. Cook only for a minute or two so apples soften slightly.

3. Add enough chicken broth to moisten bread but not too much so it turns out all soggy and glue-ey.

4. Add the herbs. Season lightly with S&P. Cook on medium for a minute until all the liquid is absorbed. Set this aside and clean out your open proof pan.

5. Remove silver skin from the tenderloin. With a sharp knife, make a slit down the length of the meat, about 1 inch from the ends and "back". Season the whole tenderloin with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Stuff with prepared stuffing mix. Now this is likely going to be very messy, since a tenderloin is quite narrow. Press all together firmly till the overflowing stuffing keeps its shape and is mostly inside the meat. This is why I chose to use prosciutto instead of bacon. The wide slices are easier to handle and hold the stuffing in better.

6. Lay the slices of prosciutto on your work space, overlapping slightly till they are about the length of your now stuffed roast. Tenderloins always have that skinny narrow end, fold that under so the roast is of an even thickness. Lay the stuffed roast along the edge and roll that baby up nice and tight folding in the edges to keep all the stuffing inside. Lightly season with S&P.

7. In your oven proof pan, heat about 1 tbsp of oil on high ( 7 ) until very hot. Place wrapped roast in hot oil SEAM SIDE DOWN. This will seal the prosciutto and keep everything inside...hopefully. Sear on all sides until nice and brown then pop into the oven.

This should take only 15-20 mins to cook through, depending on how long you seared it for....use that meat thermometre I told you to buy so you know when it's done. Remove from oven and let rest.

I want to mention that I am usually cooking for two. If the recipes seem a bit small, they are. Just go ahead and alter the portions to feed your brood. I used to cook meals like I was feeding an army and realized so much was going to waste that I very purposely have cut back on the grocery shops.

So that's the porky goodness for the day, post your attempts and let me know how they turn out!!