Dale's Delectables

There is nothing more satisfying than having your son, locked up in the basement, playing his rat-tat-tat game coming upstairs to say:  ”What the heck smells so good!”

Love it!  It’s the reason I make an effort to make something different pretty much every night (that I actually cook, of course! - ‘coz I am not against throwing a Ristorante pizza or two into the oven and eating 12 minutes later”!!!)

So, I had a pork sirloin roast to cook and didn’t feel like doing the same-old, same-old. Long-live Google!!!  I found a lovely herb/spice rub with paprika, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder & olive oil to mix it all together into a nice paste… let the mix rest for a good 15 minutes, rub all over the pork and bake at 350 F for an hour….

Had a bunch of root veg thinking of starting to rot in the fridge so I made a little “macédoine” with rutabaga, carrot, leek, onion, broccoli.  I added some home-made chicken stock, some dried chili flakes, S&P…. yum.

Add some leftover basmati rice so threw that on as well.

I have to say, I was quite pleased!

One spent the afternoon at a friend’s and was then invited to dinner, the other ended up at HIS friend’s and was invited there for dinner; hubby was a sweetheart taking care of my car so next thing I knew, I was sitting here alone. (OK, I admit, was not too pained to find myself in that state!)

After reading Mr. Lew’s blog, I felt like having something Chinese… just happened to have some baby bok choy on hand and I always have some dried shiitake mushrooms in the freezer.

I had a small French roast and a beautiful free-range chicken that had both NEEDED to be cooked today….so hmmm… cooking the roast at 400 - a mere 45-60 minutes; chicken… a good 2 hours minimum.  Roast it is!

I chopped some fresh rosemary, spread it on the board, salted and peppered it and then rolled the roast to coat it.  Put it in the 400 degree oven (à la française) and started preparing my veg.

While it was resting, I made my side.  This recipe is insanely easy and sooo delicious. You see, I get a daily email from various cooking magazines and whatnot and one day I received this one from Saveur.  Who would think that dried shiitakes, baby bok choy, sugar and salt could come together and make such a wonderful dish!

Poured myself a nice little micro-brewery beer and served myself a lovely little din-din!

It’s the simple things in life that are so enjoyable, dontcha think?