Pork and Couscous
Pork and Couscous
I don’t know where everyone that reads this blog lives. What I do know is that it is HOT here in the southern United States! When it gets this hot I know that the last thing I am thinking of is roasting something in the oven for dinner, I am thinking more of how nice it would be to be able to just go sit in a refreshing swimming pool. I could cook out on the grill but sometimes I don’t want to have to even go out and babysit the grill in this heat. Thank heavens for my old (around 15 years now) Kenmore combination microwave convection oven, it does a wonderful job and doesn’t heat up the whole kitchen. An hour on the convection mode and we had a nice small pork roast and gravy for dinner, along with some fresh carrots and some couscous it was a nice meal.
This is the couscous I use……….
Couscous
I take a small onion and dice it fine, put 2 tablespoons of butter in a 3 quart saucepan over a medium-low flame and melt the butter, then I add one tablespoon of olive oil, then the diced onions. Saute the onion until it is translucent, add a few grinds of pepper and then the couscous, stir to coat the couscous with the butter and then add 2 cups of home made unsalted chicken stock, let simmer for 10 minutes over a low flame and then chec for doneness, most of the liquid should be absorbed by this time and the couscous tender. Serve with gravy or chill and make a nice side salad out of it. I like it chilled and then mixed with some diced tomato, cucumber, celery, shredded carrots and poached chicken and a bit of dressing, makes a nice light lunch or dinner when it is too hot to cook.
The pork roast tonight was rubbed with some salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and thyme. It was then cooked for an hour in my little convection oven. This was a small roast (1 1/2 pound) and it would have been done sooner than one hour but when I started it it was actually still frozen in the center. Starting it from a semi frozen state seems to help keep moisture in the interior of my roasts, I noticed that too when I pressure cook some others from a frozen state too. All in all it was a nice meal and I didn’t break a sweat doing it.
Pork, Couscous, Fresh Carrots