May 12, 2002 By Jennifer Harr 7 min read

I love to cook. You might say it’s a bit of an obsession. I comb through cook books daily, my new best friend (a.k.a. the Internet) offers me endless dining possibilities and don’t get me started singing the praises of the Food Network. But I must confess, I never really follow recipes as written. I come from a line of women who just use them for a general guide. Growing up, I nary remember a meal where my mom didn’t say, “The recipe called for (insert ingredient), but I didn’t have it so I used (insert substitution).” Or, the ever popular, “I just guessed” on how much to put in.

And my grandmother is just the same. I could ask her for a recipe, but it’s always in vague terms: e.g. “a pinch” of this, “some” of that. So nothing she made when I was little – liked creamed cabbage and lima beans – ever comes out tasting the same as it did when she made it for me.

It’s frustrating, I must admit, and yet I do the same thing.

But it doesn’t always yield desirable results. For example, this past week, when our deep freeze broke, I had to shove whatever meat wouldn’t fit into my parents’ deep freeze into my fridge. That also meant that I had to quickly use the meat or it would go bad.

I had three, one-pound packages of ground beef, five steaks and a two-pound bag of chicken thighs waiting for quick use. Did I mention my husband and I are the only adult eaters in the household?

My step-daughter is 6 and my son is 16 months, so what they eat is negligible in the scheme of a meal.

In a rush to get dinner together, I grabbed one of the bags of ground beef and decided to make a simple meatloaf. As I grabbed my meat from the fridge, I noted a few other things in the ice box that were going to go bad soon if they weren’t used … so I used them.

As it went into the oven, my meatloaf had in it fresh (or pretty close to fresh) parsley, corn straight off the cob, balsamic vinaigrette dressing and mango salsa. It tasted interesting to say the least.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, told me it was fabulous and didn’t comment once on the slightly sweet, fruity taste of the meatloaf.

Luckily, we realized that evening that the deep freeze wasn’t broken after all: the pint-size trouble maker turned it all the way down. With that realization, I am sure my husband heaved a great, albeit quiet, sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to rush around finding ways to cook all the other food without planning.

With that time on my side, I figured out a delicious weekend menu that pleased everyone: a stuffed roasted pork loin with veggie pasta on the side.

Aside from my son pulling a lamp down off an end table while I was getting the meal together, I think everything turned out well – much better than the mango meatloaf. The stuffing offers a chance to pre-prep, since it can be made a day ahead and refrigerated. I intentionally left some of the ingredients open to interpretation so that you can use ingredients that work best for your family. And, since I am my mother’s daughter, I have to issue one forewarning: all the measurements are approximate, and quite open to interpretation.

STUFFED ROASTED

PORK LOIN

1, 3-pound boneless pork loin roast

2 links of sausage, finely chopped (I used Chorizo, a spicy Spanish sausage)

2 cups seasoned bread crumbs (or season plain ones to your liking)

2/3 cup of cheese (I use a mix of mozzarella and Colby jack)

1/2 an onion, finely chopped

1/2 stick butter or margarine

1 cup chicken broth (substitute a cooking wine or any other type of broth on hand)

1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley

1 egg

Apricot or orange marmalade, optional

Over medium-high heat, cook the sausage through, using a couple tablespoons of water instead of butter or oil. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool. Cook the onion and butter until translucent. Chop up the sausage; add that, plus the chicken broth to the onion mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes. In the meantime, combine the bread crumbs, cheese and parsley in a separate bowl. Once the onion mixture has reduced from its simmering time, add it into the bread crumbs. If they seem too wet, gradually add more bread crumbs to the mix. Add in the egg and stir well. Stick the stuffing mix in the refrigerator until cool. If you’re making it ahead, be sure to cover it or the stuffing will dry out. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut a pocket into the roast, and stuff it with the cooled mixture. If you stuff too much, it will spill out of the roast, so I recommend slightly under stuffing it. If you have stuffing left, freeze it or put it in a casserole and cook it for the last 20 minutes with the roast. It can double as a side dish.

Cook the roast for about 70 minutes. If you want to brush it with marmalade, do so, and put it back in the oven for about 10 minutes. It’ll give the roast a nice fruity glaze to offset the salty sausage.

PASTA WITH VEGGIES

10 oz. package frozen spinach

1 chopped up tomato (I used about 2 handfuls of grape tomatoes.)

1 can chopped up asparagus (or fresh if you’re so inclined)

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley

Seasonings to taste (oregano, basil and pepper)

Enough pasta for you and yours.

Mix the butter, parsley and herbs in a bowl until blended and put it in the refrigerator if you’re not immediately going to use it. This can also be made ahead of time, and the butter mixture doubles as a great spread toasted bread. Cook the frozen spinach and asparagus on the stove or in the microwave. Drain well. Boil water for pasta, and cook the noodles.

Meanwhile, add the butter and onion to a skillet and saut’ the onions. Add in the spinach, asparagus and tomatoes, and cook until everything is coated and the onions are softened.

When the pasta is done, drain well, don’t rinse, and add the veggie mixture to the pot. Toss to coat the noodles, and add in the butter with herbs.

To this one, I added roasted garlic (recipe follows), but it’s not a necessary ingredient.

ROASTED GARLIC

1 bulb garlic, top cut off to expose the cloves, unpeeled

Salt and pepper

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set the cut bulb into a piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle a little oil on top, and roll the bulb around so that the white outer skin is wet with oil. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to the bulb, and wrap the foil tightly around it.

Roast it in the oven for about 45 minutes. If you intend to make this as a meal, roast the garlic with the pork to save time.

Roasted garlic, done ahead of time, can be refrigerated.

To make use of the garlic, squeeze from the bottom and the softened, roasted cloves will come out the top.

I used a couple cloves in the pasta. Any leftover can be refrigerated, or squeezed out as a spread for garlic bread.