Eat, Drink, and Go!

Gearing up for the Summer Fancy Food Show this weekend, I wanted to make one last home cooked meal. And I turned to a good spice blend, a tasty fruit jam, and some good olive oil to make that happen!

I plucked a great savory spice blend from my pantry made by the Spice Cave, one of my favorites from the first year I attended the Fancy Food Show. The theme of the blends is to make them easy by calling them by what type of protein they’d pair best with. “Wind” goes best with things that fly, “land” with things that walk, “sea” things that swim. You get it. But I found that you don’t really have to follow it, they’re just nice good blends. I doused some sliced up zucchini in the spice blend in a baggie to make zucchini fries

I spread them out on a baking sheet lined with non-stick foil (best thing ever for oven cooking) and drizzled with some EVOO.

Pop em in the oven on 400 for a while as you get everything else going. I got a side of corn and red bell peppers together. I cut the corn off the cob and sliced and diced the peppers.

I added them to a sauté pan with some smoked EVOO. This is some good stuff!!

After it was sautéing for a bit, I added in the sweetness. You can use any good fruity jam, I picked the apricot ginger jam by Stonewall Kitchen. I adore their products. Their maple bacon onion jam was life changing when I tried it a few years ago.

It’s sweet and a little tart and has that soft hint of spice that ginger brings to a flavor profile. I added a couple plops to the sauté.

Mixed it up and added a dash or two of pepper.

For the pork, I decided to bake them. I coated them in the smoked EVOO.

Then I used the same spice blend – yes it’s the “wind” blend, but hey, there have been plenty of times when we’ve said “that’ll happen when pigs fly,” right?? Hehe. Seriously, these blends can work with anything and really bring out the savory.

I covered the dish with foil and popped it in the oven with the zuke fries for about 15 minutes. The house smelled awesome from this!!

I plated up with the corn and zucchini fries (they didn’t get as crispy as I’d have liked, but I didn’t feel like breading them) and then placed the chop on top. I added a dollop of the jam onto the pork for the perfect sweet and savory juxtaposition.

This was so great thanks to the jam, spice blend, and smoked EVOO!! It was a hit with the hubs and oh so easy.