Tonight’s Menu – Pork & Stuffed Mushrooms

What’s on the Hectic Kitchen table tonight?

Pork Loin has been on sale lately, and when I went to the freezer to select a meal for last night, I realized that I’ve been responsible for the demise of a lot of pigs! With the entire top shelf full of loins, it was time to thaw one out and make some. The question was, what should I make? I searched through my recipes and discovered one from Pineapple Mango Pork that I’d saved a long time ago. Unfortunately, a “mango chutney” on anything in my house is usually considered a failure. My wife characterizes cooked fruit as “abused fruit” and hesitates to eat any meat with a fruit glaze. Actually visible fruit was going to be a fore-ordained disaster. So I decided to use what I had and see if I could create a Pineapple and Apricot glaze that would sneak under her radar.

She’s also been asking for some stuffed mushrooms, so I brushed off the recipe that my oldest daughter discovered years ago and went to work. I didn’t realize that the paper copy of the recipe had been resized for the number of mushrooms that she had on hand, so the measurements were all wonky (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of grated Parmesan Cheese…like I’m going to do that kind of measuring). So I rounded everything up and started to work. I also can’t contain myself to the spices called for in the recipe in pretty much any case, so this one got the little bit of this and some of that treatment.

Good thing I made the mushrooms. That’s all my wife ate. She was gracious not to point out that the abused fruit kept her from eating the pork. She still hasn’t admitted it, but I’m pretty sure what happened. She did eat her fair share of mushrooms. When our youngest asked her why she didn’t have any pork she said “the mushrooms are like meat, and I ate plenty of them”. I’m not being fooled, but I’m letting on that I know.

Just for good measure, we finished off the Basic Poultry Stuffing that was left-over from Thanksgiving. I’d already frozen it, so I was testing whether that would work. Nobody said a word, and 90% of the stuffing was gone. I thought it tasted great, although it took about 40 minutes to reheat completely. Not really a problem, since the pork had to go longer than that, but it took me longer to get it fully reheated than I expected.

So, these three recipes were the basis of our meal last night. We capped the meal with some brownies that my younger son made. They were a boxed mix, but I’ve included a recipe for Homemade Brownies. Honestly, we hardly ever make them, opting to save time by waiting for coupons and sales to bring boxes mixes into our price range. Then I stock up. Honestly, I like the from-scratch ones more, but I didn’t have the time. This is Hectic Kitchen, so that should count for something, right?

Overall, it was a pretty good meal. We’ve still got quite a bit of the pork left, so I’m going to be working on some different sides. Not much else I can do with the pork with abused fruit on top other than heat it back up. I liked it, and the kids ate it pretty well. I’ll just have to come up with a backup in case my wife wants to eat an alternative again.