Stuffed Pork Loin and Homemade Falafel...

Megan!!! This first one's for you. My dear friend Megan gave me this fantastic self compiled cookbook whilst I was in Denver in April. It has some of her favorite tasty recipes. I was happy to try the Falafel as I have never made it from scratch before.

This is the book! Awesome!

We don't have all the ingredients, like shallots for example, but I substituted red onion and it worked just fine.

Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl. Mashed chick peas, egg, spices, bread crumbs, whatever freshies are on hand...

Form into little cakes. You can make these as big as you want. You need the proper mix of bread crumbs and egg so it can all bind together...



When they are seared, put them in the oven and bake till hot.

I garnished this one with a lime tomato salsa with cilantro and fresh Tzatziki, a yogurt cucumber dish with garlic, lemon juice and dill.

Even Clair likes it. She'll eat anything!!! SeeFood!

Next is apricot stuffed pork loin. Kind of an involved process. Let's begin...

Take your loins of pork...

...cut it as much in half as you can but not all the way. You don't want to cut through it...

...and pound it gently with a meat tenderizer. You want to pound the inside in order to keep the skin intact so your finished product will look good. Be gentle because tenderloins of any kind are just that. Tender. Too thin and you lose the integrity of the meat.

Finished tenderizing.

These are the ingredients I stuffed the loin with. Fresh red peppers, julianne yellow onion, dried apricots and slivers of garlic.

Saute it all together adding whatever spices you see fit.

When it has cooled, place some filling into each of the open tenderloins...

...then carefully begin to roll it back up.

Tie a knot with butcher's twine at the top of the loin...

...wrap the other end around the pork and pull the tied end through. It's very difficult to explain in type.

You continue this down the entire loin tying it off at the bottom. This obviously keeps all the filling in.

When you are ready to cook it, lightly dredge it in flour mixed with sea or kosher salt and black pepper. Always good to season the flour...

...sear on all four sides so the whole thing is toasty brown, then bake till its cooked!

Then you have a wonderful Stuffed Pork Tenderloin. (The green one in the picture is fresh spinach and bleu cheese. Also fantastic.

Stay tuned! Next week is Mid Winter Dinner. Awesome celebrations all over the continent. We'll have a great dinner here. Dave is working on designing the menu. I'll post that to. Very exciting...