Sweet and Savory (Roast pork, pears, and root vegetables)

When my sister sent me half a dozen perfectly ripened pears and my sister-in-law gifted me with a jar of her fresh and local Lucky Bee Farm honey, I knew I had to make something special. I started out wanting to make a honey-sweetened pear upside-down cake, but Aaron invoked our agreement from a few months ago-"honey, stop baking"-and requested something savory, instead. Sweet and savory can be an excellent combination: there's honey in my beef teriyaki and in the barbecue sauce we slather on chicken, but the ultimate sweet meat is always, in my opinion, pork. Something about the pig's omnivorous diet and the practice of finishing meats with specific feeds to affect their flavor gives pork an inherent, unmistakable sweetness. Given a spicy rub of chili, garlic, and fennel, rounded out with some extra-hearty heft from a side of root vegetables, and topped off with a drizzle of honey Dijon gravy, this is a quick weeknight supper dressed to impress.

Impressive?

Salad Days (Fennel, Fig, and Orange Salad)

Today took another turn for the unseasonably warm and as I spent the late morning cooking up something for a later post, it felt as though the kitchen was a sauna. I'm neither the appropriate age nor do I have the appropriate equipment to be expecting hot flashes, so I was taken unawares. Luckily, I already had some ingredients on hand to help cool things down.

Good to go

Turkey Lurkey No More (Turkey Soup with Spinach, Fennel, and Bacon)

The time has come for clearing out Turkey Lurkey. No, not the character from Henny Penny, though he did always give me an unsavory vibe. I mean the Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past possibly now dwelling in the back of your refrigerator. Sarah and Dar stopped by on Sunday with the boys for some post-Thanksgiving family time and we all had big turkey sandwiches, but it wasn't really making a dent in the reserve. Sarah suggested I post about ways to repurpose lurking turkey, and my first entry, though on the nose, is turkey soup.

Covered in bacon!

Sunday Supper (Roasted Pork Loin with Fennel, Apples, and Onions)

Growing up my family was fairly lax and permissive. My sisters and I understood that to incur our parents disappointment was a very bad thing, and we typically knew it was best to toe the line. So, to say that family dinners were a strict tradition would be to overdo it, but until soccer practices, drama rehearsals, choir recitals, et all dominated the evening, we almost always had dinner together at home.

Tradition