Pork Roast and Homemade Applesauce

November 25, 2012

• Savory Sage Pork Roast with Apple Pork Gravy
• Boiled Red Potatoes
• Green Beans
• Applesauce
• Chocolate Chubbies with Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Ice Cream

This was our second Sunday dinner while in Central New York as we visited family for Thanksgiving. Once again I enjoyed the opportunity to cook for more than two people as we were joined again by my middle sister (we were staying in her house. after all), brother, and my dad. Also joining us this week was my brother's wife, herself a middle sister, so we again had a full table with six diners. (Alas, Diane is not a middle sister but she has one.)

The menu fell into my lap, not requiring much planning on my part. In my post for the previous week's dinner I had asked what I should make this week. My sister commented on the post (I wish more people would leave comments on my blog posts) that she had a pork roast in the freezer and some homemade applesauce. Nothing goes better with pork than homemade applesauce. Our oldest sister sent e-mail with the recipe. Thus all that remained was picking the side dishes and preparing the meal.

The recipe was from McCormick's and, not surprisingly, called for many McCormick products. I followed it pretty closely. We didn't have all of the ingredients for the dry rub but we had most of them. I used: 2½ teaspoons ground sage, 1 teaspoon garlic salt, ½ teaspoon parsley flakes, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon black pepper.  The pork was a three pound "center loin roast" but, bone-in. The recipe was for a boneless roast. I contemplated removing the bones but not being certain of the anatomy and how much hacking I'd need to do, I left them in place. I used a 13x9 inch cake pan, lined with heavy duty non-stick aluminum foil (my sister has an incredible amount of this, but that's her story to tell) to cook the roast and this worked fine. A probe thermometer was inserted into the meat and the alarm was set for 150°. The recommended temperature for cooking pork is now 145° but my sister was uncomfortable with the idea of eating pink pork so I increased it by 5°. The result was good, the center was still a little pink but the edges were not, so everyone was able to select a piece of pork that matched their preferences. I was disappointed in the amount of flavor provided by the dry rub, this may have been due in part to the bones which covered one side of the roast. Also, the rub wasn't on the meat very long before the meat went into the oven. The gravy, made from a mix and apple sauce, was a nice, sweet addition to the meat and potatoes.

The applesauce that my sister made was very good. She used some local Central New York apples and added just a little cinnamon and sugar. Dessert was simple and very good, Chocolate Chubbies is my recipe find of the year and I've made them several times already.

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Recipes
Savory Sage Pork Roast with Apple Pork Gravy from McCormick
Chocolate Chubbies from serious eats