Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Roast Pork in a Banana Leaf and a little vent

I have said this a few times about work...  I am forced to go to a place that I don't want to go, to spend all day with people that I don't like, doing a bunch of stuff that I don't want to do.  For the past couple of weeks or so I have really been experiencing that.  I am not going to go into a lot of details because I like to keep things positive in my little corner of the web.  Last Friday I was off work I took on the project of painting Miss Lu's room again, it was actually a day I had taken off to paint the master bedroom. 

Other projects had to be set aside due to the fact that Miss Lu's bedroom became an emergency because well,  you know, she is nine and the old color just wasn't going to work now because she is growing up and any moron can tell you that pink is a baby color, purple however just screams maturity.  So on my Friday off I spent most of the day painting her room, I finished the first coat and promised Miss Lu and Mr Man that they could help with the second coat the next morning.

The next morning started early, I was still on cup of coffee number one.  "Daddy, can we start painting now?"  So we gather all of our supplies together, drop cloth, paint, brushes, roller, roller tray and start to paint.  Now the three of us NEED four paintbrushes and a roller and 3 vessels to hold paint.  Of course that isn't enough, Mr. man starts to complain that Miss Lu has a bigger brush, then Miss Lu counters that he is painting using horizontal strokes when vertical is obviously superior.  Painting lasts about half an hour, while I am cleaning three of the four brushes they both decide that they have to use the computer (our laptop crashed so this poses a problem).  I set the half clean brushes in the sink and to distract one while figuring out the password for the other.  I just got back to cleaning brushes when they both go outside, great I get to finish.  Well almost, a few minutes into it I get the helpful hints from them both,  "daddy is that drip supposed to be there?  why are you watching the SyFy Chanel on my T.V.?  that show is gross!  be careful not to drip on my bed."  Well you know how it goes, sometimes it is frustrating but in the end I love it!

What I am doing is taking a long long way around  to tell you that, I understand when a five and nine year old want 4 or 5 things at a time from me then act like children when I have to take things in a logical order and get frustrated when everything isn't always available at the same time.

Switch that to a forty five year old or someone in their mid fifties and some of the charm is lost.   So over the weekend we had the fun because the children are still charming when they act like children... grown up people not so much I was avoiding them as much as I could.

"How does this LONG bit of prose make the leap to a recipe?"  you ask, well it doesn't I just wanted to vent for a minute then go back to having fun.

So the recipe is Roast Pork, I picked up some Banana leaves from the store a few days ago, Do you want to know how much Banana leaf you get for $1.29 This is Miss Lu holding up half.

I hesitate to call this a recipe but here it goes
4 pound pork butt or some other inexpensive cut of pork (rolled and tied)
3 cloves of minced garlic
3 cloves of garlic peeled
salt and pepper
2 TBS orange marmalade
18 inches of banana leaf
2 cups of chicken broth

Take your pork rub the surface with the minced garlic, salt and pepper.  Put the other 3 cloves of garlic inside your meat and set on the banana leaf, smear the orange marmalade on top then wrap with the banana leaf.  Put in all in a roasting pan and pour in the chicken broth cover and cook in an oven preheated to 275 for about 3 hours.

The broth from this is wicked good, I used that as the cooking liquid for my rice which almost became the star of the plate.  We only ate about a third of it for dinner I pulled the rest apart and cooked it in the same broth for about and hour to make pulled pork sandwiches.  No picture of that though I ate it before I realized how good it was.

5 comments:

  1. Are you telling me you walked into your local Jewel (or close) and walked out with banana leaves? Wow! The recipe sounds and looks delicious. If I can't find banana leaves, will aluminum foil do? We painted, sans young children, over the weekend. Stay tuned!

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  2. Yep, you have had a shitty few weeks, I can tell! I hear painting releases the stress....any thoughts on that?

    Pork and banana leaves sound made for each other, I'll have to pinch some from the neighbours yard while he's not looking.

    Good to see you back and the room finished, maybe the master will be done next year? lol

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  3. Miss Lu is such a little minx, and she's got her daddy wrapped around her finger. Purple walls are definitely mature.

    ((hugs about the yucky weeks))

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  4. Hey Mr. Pork man I need tips on making awesome crackling for an up and coming function...help please!!!

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  5. Banana leaves! Now that sounds like fun. I've always wanted to try cooking pork in a banana leaf but haven't been able to find them around here. Hope that this week is going better for you!

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