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Roasted Pork Loin with Mango Chutney

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Roasted Pork Loin with Mango Chutney
Our convent menus usually include pork once a week in some form or other. Some of us would happily settle for homemade applesauce along with our crusty golden roasted pork and potatoes….but one of our younger, more innovative cooks came up with something that others found more appealing--and you may too: golden roasted pork with a luscious mango chutney she felt the Holy Spirit inspired her to create!
SERVINGS
7-8
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
COOK TIME
1hour
PREP TIME
30mins
READY IN

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. Coat the surface of a large oven-proof skillet or cast iron pan with olive oil. Heat on high heat. When oil begins to smoke, add pork loin to pan or skillet.
  3. Season with salt and pepper. Once the first side has a golden crust, turn pork in the pan to get a crust on the other side. This will seal the meat before roasting, ensuring a juicy serving of meat when cut
  4. Place the skillet and pork into the oven and roast, about 1 hour or until the internal temperature registers 145F on a meat thermometer.
  5. Pull out the pork and let rest, loosely covering the meat with foil.
Chutney
  1. Coat the bottom of a medium saucepan with olive oil over medium heat.
  2. Once oil is warm, sautee the red onion until it becomes translucent. Add red and green bell peppers and cook until tender.
  3. Once vegetables are cooked, add mango and duck sauce, cooking through until the chutney starts to bubble. Add salt to taste.

Once the pork has rested, slice into ½ to ¼ inch slices, top with warm chutney and serve.

Vegetarian Cauliflower Steaks

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A Recipe You’ve “Bean” Waiting For!

We want to be sure that vegetarian meals are provided for our guests or those attending events that prefer them. But often I simply enjoy just experimenting with fresh, garden ingredients. Here’s a new dish that is both vegetarian and gluten free. It also contain legumes – a wonderful and healthy source of protein. With lovely vegetables being harvested from our gardens, why not be creative? A friend in our community was my taste tester and she told me she couldn’t wait for me to post this recipe. It has all the flavors of summer with the basil, tomato and lemon. Buon appetito!

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Vegetarian Cauliflower Steaks
SERVINGS
4servings
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
servings
COOK TIME
20mins
PREP TIME
10mins
READY IN
45mins

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Cut a head of cauliflower into 1/2 inch ‘steaks’ from top to bottom
  2. Put cauliflower on a parchment lined tray and brush with olive oil and sprinkle with onion salt. Roast at 425 degrees F for 35 min or until golden brown and tender.
  3. Meanwhile, add 2 Tbsp of olive oil to a sauté pan and heat. Add diced red onion and sauté over medium low heat until soft. Add the garlic, parsley, basil and tomato and cook for another minute. Add the white wine and juice of one lemon and simmer until liquid is reduced. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. Add the legumes and lemon zest - taste and adjust seasonings.
  5. When ready to eat, spoon the bean mixture over your roasted cauliflower steaks and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley. Serve warm with a drizzle of balsamic glaze and garnish with a sprig of fresh basil. Enjoy!

Mid-Summer Israeli Couscous Salad

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If you were a Moroccan housewife planning a family meal, in all likelihood it would include couscous. This inexpensive yet highly nutritious food, often thought to be a grain, is actually made from wheat. Rich with religious and symbolic meanings, the making of it traditionally is a female activity during which prayers are said invoking blessings and prosperity.
It is a very time consuming, labor-intensive task involving much hand labor: sifting, rolling, and re-rolling again and again until granules of similar sizes appear. Then it is sun dried and stored until its time of cooking. Fortunately most of us can simply purchase it at any grocery store in its ready-to-cook form at any time and its popularity rapidly continues to increase in the food world.
As in many other countries it is served differently from one area  to another. My favorite way is simply hot with a little oil or butter and onion salt. However guests who had it at last weekend’s dinner theatre with many added seasonings and various vegetables and herbs as we are showing it today said it was the best ever!
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Mid-Summer Israeli Couscous Salad
SERVINGS
6servings
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
servings
COOK TIME
30-40mins
PREP TIME
15mins
READY IN
45-55mins

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Prepare the dressing by whisking 2 tablespoons oil, lemon juice, 1 garlic clove, and lemon peel in small bowl and put aside.
  2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add couscous, sprinkle with salt, and sauté until most of couscous is godlen brown, about 5 minutes. Add broth, incease heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover the pot, and simmer until liquid is absorbed and couscous is tender (about 10 minutes). If couscous is not fully cooked and seems dry, add more broth by tablespoonfuls until couscous has cooked all the way through.
  3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a nonstick skillet over high heat. Add remaining garlic, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini and sauté until tender (about 3 minutes).
  4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Transfer vegetables to large bowl and add chopped mango.
  5. Add couscous to bowl with vegetables and mango. Drizzle with dressing and toss with chives and cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Watermelon Gazpacho

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One of the most popular events offered to the public here at the Community of Jesus at this time of the year is our summer dinner theatre.

Interest in this continues to increase every season, which is not surprising. Eating a splendid, perfectly prepared meal out on the patio overlooking the harbor, just in itself, provides a most enjoyable and memorable evening, but having that as well as a spectacular dramatic performance in Paraclete House following  it is an exceptional experience in every way.

Today one of the cooking sisters has been perfecting a recipe for the appetizer course of this week’s dinner menu. I came upon her in the kitchen as she was carving up a magnificent watermelon to go into this zesty chilled gazpacho, a refreshing flavorful creation. You yourself may want to consider serving for some meal in the near future!

This delicious meal will accompany Elements Theatre Company’s performance of Sylvia by A.R. Gurney. Follow this link to learn more about the show, and reserve your tickets! https://elementstheatre.org/sylvia/

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Watermelon Gazpacho
SERVINGS
4servings
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
servings
COOK TIME
PREP TIME
15-20mins
READY IN
15-20mins

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Coarsely chop cucumbers, yellow pepper, red onion, basil and parsley. Combine with cubed watermelon and cherry tomatoes.
  2. Working in batches, put a few cups of ingredients in the blender or food processor to combine. An immersion blender works for this process as well!
  3. Blend ingredients until just before gazpacho is completely smooth—there should be small pieces of pepper, tomato and herbs visible in the gazpacho.
  4. Chill overnight or in the freezer for an hour, stirring occasionally. This can be served with a garnish of diced yellow peppers on top. Serve chilled and enjoy a refreshing twist on a summer classic! We recommend pouring the gazpacho into bowls and chilling the bowls in the refrigerator prior to serving.

Blackberry Balsamic Salad with Crispy Fried Goat Cheese​ and Grilled Chicken​

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We continue to enjoy the harvest from our gardens over these summer months. This week we had an abundance of beautiful lettuce, so we expanded our repertoire and tried out some new combinations for our guests at Bethany. The crisp, salty, creaminess of the fried goat cheese paired with the sweet and pungent combination of the blackberry balsamic vinaigrette is the key here. Summer is a wonderful time to experiment with all sorts of combinations in a salad. “The colors of a fresh garden salad are so extraordinary, no painter’s pallet can duplicate nature’s artistry.” Have fun creating, eating, sharing, and enjoying nature’s storehouse!

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Blackberry Balsamic Salad with Crispy Fried Goat Cheese​ and Grilled Chicken​
SERVINGS
4servings
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
servings
COOK TIME
10mins
PREP TIME
10 mins(30 mins marinate)
READY IN
30 mins

Ingredients

Instructions

Blackberry Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
  1. Mix everything well​ in the blender until smooth. Adjust seasonings to taste.​
Fried Goat Cheese
  1. ​Dredge the goat cheese slices/balls in the flour
  2. Dip in the beaten egg
  3. Dip in panko
  4. Fry in oil over medium heat until lightly golden brown before setting aside on paper towels to drain.
Salad
  1. Marinate the chicken in half of the vinaigrette for 30 minutes to over night before grilling over medium-high heat until​ golden and cooked through, about 2-5 minutes per side​. Set aside to cool and slice.
  2. Assemble the salad and enjoy!

Note: Best enjoyed while the fried goat cheese is still warm from frying!

Blueberry, Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad

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“​​When one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the Angels eat.” —Mark Twain

​Have you ever wondered how to pick that perfect watermelon? Well, I have! Faced with a bin of green striped beauties, I never quite​ know​ where to start. ​L​et me share some tips with you that I recently discovered​, and then​ go and​make this delicious ​and refreshing ​Watermelon, ​Mint, ​Blueberry and Feta Salad​ — a great side dish for a hot summer day.

1. When viewing watermelons, the first thing that sticks out are those weird white spots. However, these spots​,​ called field spots​, are quite natural. The field spot is the area where the watermelon rested on the ground. While every watermelon has a field spot, the best watermelons have creamy-yellow or even orange-yellow spots. Go for the gold.

2. The webbing of a watermelon indicates the amount of times that bees touched the flower. The more pollination, the sweeter the watermelon is.

3. Watermelons have genders. The “girl” watermelons are more round and stout​ — these​are the sweeter ones. The male are oblong and tend to be more watery.

4. The ​best watermelons are average-sized. Don’t go for too small or too big, but just right.

5. The tail of a watermelon indicates its ripeness. Go for the watermelons that have dried tails for the best taste.​

​6. ​Tap the underbelly of the watermelon. A ripe one will have a deep hollow sound. Under-ripe or over-ripe melons will sound dull.​

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Blueberry, Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad
SERVINGS
8servings
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
servings
COOK TIME
PREP TIME
20mins
READY IN
20mins

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and diced red onion.
  2. Add the diced watermelon, blueberries, mint and feta cheese to bowl. Gently toss to coat.​ Serve immediately.