Finger Food

Sometimes you just don't feel like a sit-meal, right?

Sometimes you want to just have the 'food-to-mouth' ordeal to be as painless and simple as possible.

No?  
You don't?
Oh.

Well, sometimes I like to make finger food meals.

Meals wherein as little effort as possible is expended in eating, but also wherein every mouthful can be a little different, if you choose.

So, to succeed at this sort of thing, you need variety.  You can't just put down three things and as long as they're 'bite-sized', be OK.  

I mean, you can keep it simple, and revolve around a 'theme', like I like to do...

In fact, tonight's finger-food meal was basically just 'things-to-put-on-bread'.

On the line-up, we had...

Roasted Tomatoes:

Roasted Red Pepper:

Roasted Garlic:

Fresh Burrata-Like Cheese (I actually FORGET what this was... it wasn't Burrata... but it was LIKE Burrata... Sorry...)  I CAN tell you that it was delicious, though... :

Red-Wine Pecorino:

And a high-quality, SHARP Cheddar:

I also threw out a plate of nice EVOO & Balsamic... although the wife doesn't like Balsamics... (sigh).

Oh!  And the star of the evening, the BREAD!

Yummy, delicious, freshly home-made, classic french white:

Mmmmmmmmmmmm...  I love fresh bread sooooo much.  That could very well be the reason for this whole meal... as it all complements, and showcases, the bread.

Thanksgiving... Pork Roast?

Yup.

Sometimes we just like to break with convention.  Throw accepted norms out in the compost bin and just cook whatever we feel like.

Well, this October, we gave thanks over a lovely, tiny little pork tenderloin.

I had some fresh thyme, which I shoved in all the places where the sun didn't shine... as well as a few more...

Some smoked sea salt and some fresh green peppercorn as a rub... but the magic really happened with the bacon.

Yah.  Pork on Pork action.

We went all out.  It was Thanksgiving after all.

What I wanted to do was sear the roast real quick, to get that lovely browned exterior and yummy crispy flavour, so I actually did this BEFORE adding the bacon.

And here is why:  if I put the bacon on before roasting, it would just result in crispy bacon wrapped around a moist pork roast.  Which would be fine, I guess... but it wasn't what I wanted.

So after the roast got a nice searing, that's when I wrapped a few pieces of bacon overtop.

Sprinkle some freshly ground peppercorns on there, and it's good for the 'long haul'. Of course, by this I mean the long, slow roast at low temp.

The result was the best of both worlds, a nice seared roast with a lot of moisture inside.

But the best part, perhaps, is the gravy.  Bacon-infused gravy.  Yum!

I roasted some carrots in the pot, and they got nice and moist and sweet, with just the right amount of thyme-infused bacon-y flavour.

But other than that we just had mashed potatoes.  Can't have gravy without mashed potatoes.  That's something I got from the wife.

All-in-all, it was a VERY simple Thanksgiving for two.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

So good.

We don't do meat all that often, but when we do, I like that it is like THIS:

:)