One of the things I’ve tried to keep up on, at least a little bit, during all this Ava madness is my cooking. I have a freezer in the basement (thanks, Harvey and GG!) that’s packed full of tasty organic pork and Greazel beef.
So yesterday I defrosted a pork shoulder and tried to come up with a recipe. I was looking for something simple and garlic-free, and the New Joy of Cooking had just what I needed: Lemon-glazed pork shoulder. One cup fresh lemon juice, one cup sugar. Melt the sugar into the juice, score the roast, and then cook the roast at 325 for about 4.5 hours, basting every 15-20 minutes with the lemon.
I was really pleased with the way it turned out. As you can see, it looked gorgeous. And the meat was nice and juicy, too, unlike my last poak roast (to be fair, this is a fatty cut and had a bone in it).
As good as the roast was, however, it was upstaged by the fruit salad my mother brought along when she joined us. The salad itself didn’t contain any really fancy fruit, but the cheese cutouts she used to adorn the top of the salad were hilarious. She picked up a couple small cookie cutters last time she was in Amana for breakfast, and she’s quickly working up dozens of interesting ways to use them for anything and everything but cutting cookies.
In the picture you can make a couple different shapes. There’s a cow, in honor of Grandma Mary; a moose, in honor of Grandma Georgie; a pig, in memory of the pig that gave its life for our wonderful roast; and some hearts to symbolize our love for little Ava.
Grandma Mary also trucked in some steamed red chard and spicy sweet potato wedges. It was a great meal!