We had some good friends over last night for dinner. We've been talking about it for a few months and I finally found the time to have them over. They brought their adorable kids along. The oldest who is 15 months, knew my name by the end of the night and kept saying "Seth!" It was way cool.

my menu last night was a 1/3 of a 15 lb pork loin that I roasted in garlic, olive oil and rosemary. Hannaford had a special on these huge loins of pork and I brought it home, divided into thirds and froze each section. Its great for easy parties of four or six. The best tip I've learned in making the perfect pork loin is to cook it until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees and then remove it from the oven, cover in tin foil and then let it rest while you get the remainder of the dinner finished. I was able to roast asparagus in the oven for 15 minutes while the pork finished cooking itself. 20 minutes later, I sliced into the pork and found it perfectly cooked and still juicy.

I also roasted purple and white potatoes together in the same roasting pan as the pork, so they got the advantage of roasting in fresh rosemary and a couple of cloves of garlic. The combination of purple and white potatoes gives the best look on a plate. With a side of roasted asparagus with crumbled feta and a spinach salad, the meal was complete. Much to my chagrin, I forgot to serve the salad AND othe feta on top of the asparagus.

Needless to say, Greg and I had the spinach salad with goat cheese and toy tomatos for lunch today.

I was also in the mood for a crusty boule yesterday and ended up not making that, but instead, making a multi-grain loaf of wheat with rolled oats and pumpernickel meal with yogurt. I sprinkled the top with black sea salt for that, you know, exotic look. I need to work on my bread skills...a bread making class is something that I would LOVE to take.

I made pear pie for dessert. It was a recipe I found in the 2005 Best of Gourmet (found at Ocean State Job Lots in Belfast for $5.00) The recipe was for a lattice work pie, but I had too many pears alread cut up, so I made two and put an oatmeal brown sugar crumble top on that was a bit dry. Luckily I made a cinnamon and apple cider infused whipped cream to go along with it to hide the dry top. Otherwise it was good (Greg ate most of the leftovers for breakfast). The pie is really easy. a bunch of pears peeled and cored, tossed with fresh ginger, nutmeg, 3 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar (I used brown sugar) a pinch of salt and then arranged in a deep dish crust (bought) lattice over the top brushed with milk or a crumb topping. They smelled delicious.